Sister Avery Miyahara: Pollen, Tornados, and B i g N e w s !

Everything is green. My clothes, our car, our bikes, our hair, our scriptures, MY LUNGS...are green. I was warned about the pollen allergy hole the south can be but holy crap dawg I had never imagined it to be like this! The air is this greenish yellowish haze that coats literally everything. It's insanity! I've been guzzling local honey to try and immune my poor body but fear not, I'm embracing it! Loving it really! When am I ever going to be frolicking in a pollen cloud? (I hope never, ha!) oh! and come pollen, come hornets! I'm pretty sure hornets are agents of the devil and are working with Lucifer himself to try to stop this work going forth. I can’t tell you how many doorstep lessons we were tracting and in the middle of preaching and testifying I'm making the most terrified face and dancing all around to avoid such a demonic insect!

Georgia has the most bizarre weather. It doesn’t change by the day but by the hour. It's beautiful and sunny and breezing then swoosh comes the clouds and it down pours! So we are out knocking doors and spreading the glorious good word of the Lord and then all the sudden this TERRIBLE eerie sounds is alarming. I felt like Katniss in the Hunger Games. I was freaking out, clueless to what that retched noise was, sure the clouds were thick and stormy but I had never heard of such a noise... it was a tornado warning!!!!!! I kid you not. "Y'all gotta find shelter, NOW" this man kept telling us. I was just laughing and trying to take a video! The rain came down in literal buckets, like there were no drops, you know just a sheet of water falling from the sky! Waterfalls fell from the heavens all night long. And then I woke up...and it was the most gloriously beautiful day there ever was.

And that in fact aligns perfectly with something I learned this week. The gnarliest of storms, unfortunately rage right before something spectacular is going to happen. It's the sobering truth that satan works his absolute hardest right before a miracle is going to happen. Satan doesn’t want us to attain the blessings and joys that are at our fingertips; so he is going to do everything in his power (measley to God, but powerful to us) to snatch those blessings and joy away. We must endure those storms or trials with absolute faith that there is pure goodness at our fingertips. Beautiful blessings await those who can withstand the storm and like what Helaman 5:12 is talking about! Yay for scripture mastery!

I've learned a deeper appreciation for the phrase "pick your battles." The reality is, we will lose to satan in life's battles here and there, but I can promise you that surely, God will win the war! We signed up for this fight to follow God and come to earth to receive a body. We knew this fight would have eternal significance and we signed up for it, with confidence in our God! Elder Holland says this life is "a good fight, a winning fight, but a fight nonetheless. So, we must fight. Fight for righteousness! God's army will never loose. In the hymn God Speed the Right, I loved the line (I might butcher this)..."Like the great and good in story, if we fail we fail with glory." In God's work, we will never fail. Be on the winning team. Fight through those storms with an eye single to the glory of God! All miracles are predicated on faith and obedience. Period.

So for the BIG/humbling/intimidating news: The first day I got out to the mission field I was told that out here in the Lost Mountain ward, everyone was talking about this huge incredible Relief Society conference the Atlanta area is having in May where the church's General Relief Society President is coming to speak! The topic has been hot hot hot at church and at activities and I've been praying I won’t be transferred next week at transfer so I can hear her speak.

Well, at this past weekend's stake conference, I'm humbled to share that I was asked to speak at the conference alongside Sister Burton (General RS President) and Sister Poosey (Georgia Atlanta Temple Matron). I'm shaking a little in my boots just thinking about it. I about peed myself when I was asked! Luckily the feelings came out through my eyes! haha I shed a tear of "ME?!?!?! YOU WANT ME TO SPEAK?!?! NO FREAKING WAY." I was asked to speak on the topic "Blessing the one." So if you have any inspiration, please share! So I'm crossing my fingers this means I'll be staying in Lost Mountain next transfer :)

Love y'all muy mucho!

Sis Miyahara

P.s. #thesearemyconfession I still look at the clock at 12:17pm and think "lunch time!" Super uber dooper senior :/ Long live T.H.S!!! Once a Titan, forever a Titan!!!! Ha okay I'll stop now!

P.s.s. http://www.lds.org/general-conference/sessions/2013/04?cid=HP000032&lang=eng Read all the talks from General Conference and be changed like I was in April's 2012 General Conference.