Fun fact: allergy season is not a respecter of countries aka guess who's still dependent on allergy meds to live with joy. #swag buuut more importantly, it's springtime here and it is beautiful! Seriously, I feel like I have a new lease on life after this last week. It could very well be the fact that I now have KILLER eyebrows (thank you my dear companion) and it could also be the fact that the world is alive again, but I think a lot of it is living knowledge that Christ lives. How sweet that is! Always always always. He already won, and His hope and joy and refuge and enabling power is available to us every single day. Oh man. I hope someday to really understand that.
This week I learned a lot about love and a lot about faith. We have some investigators (and they're seriously bomb) but I can't be in on lessons with them until I have permission to preach. Sometimes that seems rough, because as a missionary I'm just here to baptize people am I right? WRONG. Actually, Christ asked us to feed His sheep and to love His people like He would. Nowhere in that calling does it say "baptize the nations and feed your ego". I can do His work every day, whether it be with my comp or with how I treat people I pass on the street or with the members of the ward. Especially with the members of the ward, actually. Having a Russian comp has been one of the biggest blessings (bc Russian but also because she's a miraculous human being. SO strong. So good. So hard working. Humor just like April Ludgate. #blessed) but also sometimes really hard because it's easy to be quiet and just let her talk and not be engaged. THAT'S GARBAGE. I want to actually LIVE every second and to really love and be with and serve these people myself, too. And sometimes that's really hard, because sometimes I even feel awkward trying to small talk in English, much less with strangers in Russian. But we were at this ward activity on Saturday (p.s. ALMOST. CONFERENCE. THIS WEEKEND. AHHH) and I was trying to talk to these older ladies and they were lovely but it wasn't a super smooth conversation and I just felt awkward and ehhh. I asked this one woman in the branch (she's super funny. She's in her 30s and jokes a lot and knows pretty good English and is just chill all-arounD) how to get to know people in Russian because I want to know them and SHOW them that I love them but also it's scary and she stopped laughing and said this: "every fear comes from Satan. What do you choose?" Seriously, I already knew that, but it was like she punched me in the face. I am a servant of the Lord, and more importantly, I am His child. He lives! I know this! And with faith in Him--with THAT knowledge--what on earth could possibly be scary? Nothing--unless I choose to doubt Him. *crowd oohs menacingly* but really. It's still a work in progress, but there is literally a new strength and light and desire and satisfaction that comes when we choose to live with faith. It takes effort and confirmation doesn't always come the way we think, but I have SEEN that when we look back on life it's always there. Ah man. The gospel is the coolest.
Anyway, I'm learning a lot and failing and growing and all that such errday. But I'm also so happy. So so happy. We're on a roller coaster that always goes up.
scripture of the week: 1 Nephi 3:7.
" 7 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: Iawill go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth nobcommandments unto the children of men, save he shallcprepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them."
He was the primest example of faith. The Lord asked of him and he never once questioned how or why. He simply smiled and said "alright, let's do this" and went hard doing all he could do. I want to be more like that. Forever the hero.
love you all so much. Hope you're having a good week. enjoy the weather, enjoy the days, read your scriptures and know somebody loves you (betty who voice).
ALL THE LOVE,
sister Hansen
No comments:
Post a Comment