HI FRIENDLY FRIENDS!!
This week was a little rough in terms of missionary work but it was a good one nonetheless. We said a lot of goodbyes and those were pretty tender. Sister I in particular ended up being a special experience. Throughout our time here, we've gone out to visit her at her little cafe every once in a while and it has been wonderful to see how things have grown between us. In the beginning, she would let us eat there (and usually try to stop us from paying, even though she's running a new business that needs all the help it can get) but would kind of avoid our conversations. We would call her most Sundays after church just to say that we had noticed she wasn't at church and to see if we could help at all and she would usually shut that down too. After a while, we stopped trying to push the gospel at her and started trying to have conversations with her. As we've sought to love her more as a person and share the gospel in the little things we could do--not out of obligation but out of the sincerity of our hearts--she has really opened up. She would sit and laugh with us and show us pictures and tell us stories here and there and she even told us that it's been really hard for her to see M (her daughter's son who is still having a really hard time) and A (her daughter, the RS president) suffering and to not be able to help. It's just been getting better and better and this last time was the very best. The day itself had been kind of frustrating and all of our meetings had fallen through and things just seemed to go wrong, but it all led up to us being at her cafe while she was closing up. She was the last person there and was getting ready to leave. We told her we didn't want to hold her up and that we just wanted to say goodbye because we're leaving and she got really serious and asked us to sit down. She then--in her cute little apron and bandana, sitting behind her cash register--gave us a lot of really, really good advice. She told us never to fight with our mothers and that family is the most important and just told us all the things that are in her heart as a mother and a strong member of this church. It was kind of a sacred moment. She then told us about why she doesn't come to church. She said it's hard because she works all week and is really tired by Sunday, but that even more, there's a lot weighing on her heart. She doesn't feel like she's needed or really loved there, she's afraid of offending people--because even though she does love the branch and the members, she doesn't want to be fake with people and wants to speak her mind, she's lonely because she doesn't have a husband, and right now she doesn't feel like there's anyone that she can trust with her problems or to have answers to them. She doesn't even think these answers are in the Book of Mormon right now. She then told us about Paul Pieper
and the role he played in her conversion and acknowledged how good it was and felt sad because she doesn't think moments like that can happen for her right now in the church or in our faith. We just listened with patience and love and praying to have understanding, and then after all this, Sister Waldie started testifying with all the sincerity and love in the world that even though Paul Pieper isn't here anymore, we still have access to that spirit and that individual help because that's the promise of the Restoration. God lives today! He knows us today, hears our prayers, knows our hearts and DOES give answers in the Book of Mormon. She encouraged her to live seeking those deeper waters and the spirit was so strong. And then I testified about the fact that she really is a pillar in this branch and with that Christlike love and strong faith she has, our ward needs her and what she has to offer, and that that's what Heavenly Father wants, too. I was just floored at the fact that the Spirit had helped this lonely woman open up her heart to a few teenage girls and then that He had given us what to say. I really felt that He was testifying through us and it was so special and knew that in that moment, we'd been led to her and that we really were "successful missionaries". God loves all His children and the promise in PMG is true--as we listen with love, it will be given to us by our friends and the spirit what to say.
Besides that, this week was filled with a lot of things, both good and bad on our part. I don't feel like it was my most productive week as a missionary and I don't really have any way to justify that. But this week I learned a lot of lessons about the Atonement, what it means in my life and how I can apply it better. We are ETERNAL BEINGS!! I have been reveling in that all week. I have spent so much time feeling guilty that I'm not a perfect missionary and that my mission won't be perfect and that even if I start today and hold out until the end, I probably won't be everything I want to be for the Lord in the little time I have left. But in the great, glorious plan of our merciful God, I love that that is okay. He wants us to begin today, every day, to build our foundation for the ETERNITIES He is preparing us for. Every day, through the Atonement of Jesus Christ
and the Priesthood power restored through Joseph Smith,
If you would like to know more about the Prophet Joseph Smith, please click on the
Joseph Smith link above the picture. :)
is a new beginning of all of eternity! It is so beautiful. It is so happy. And it's a good life. So last night, I spent some quiet time before bed and evaluated with myself and the Lord the things I did well this week and the things that could have been better. I then made a few specific goals about what I want to do differently. I think they can all be summed up in the scripture I chose to "ponderize" for this week (1 Samuel 15:22):
"And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than to sacrifice, and to hearken is better than the fat of rams."
I am free to choose according to my own will and every day, I can choose to repent and to be obedient and better if I simply want to. That is the promise of the Atonement and it beautiful and something I want to be a part of TODAY. So I will! And that's that. :)
Also, this week N and A both had some problems and aren't really progressing right now, aaaand A--who just recently got baptized--hasn't been to church or kept an appointment with us since she got the Holy Ghost while we were in Turkey. Which is kind of sad. But we are still hopeful!! And loving and praying for them and we're ready to work this week! Because hey, the promise about the field being white and ready to harvest doesn't have fine print saying "applies to all places excluding Kazakhstan" you feel me. No one can say it better than Elder Faust--"the harvest is the Lord. Your responsibility is to thrust in the sickle." #tru
Which brings me to an Elder Eyring quote that's been a rock this week:
"There is yet another way the Lord will magnify you in your call to His service. You will feel at some time, perhaps at many times, that you cannot do all you feel you must. The heavy weight of your responsibilities will seem too great. You will worry that you can’t spend more time with your family. You will wonder how you can find the time and the energy to meet your responsibilities beyond your family and your calling. You may feel discouragement and even guilt after you have done all you could to meet all your obligations. I have had such days and such nights. Let me tell you what I have learned.
"It is this: If I only think of my own performance, my sadness deepens. But when I remember that the Lord promised that His power would go with me, I begin to look for evidence of what He has done in the lives of the people I am to serve. I pray to see with spiritual eyes the effects of His power.
"Then, invariably, the faces of people flood back into my memory. I remember the shine in the eyes of my child whose heart was softened, the tears of happiness on the face of a girl on the back row of a Sunday School class I was teaching, or a problem that was resolved before I had time to get to it. I know then that I have done enough for the promise made by Joseph Smith to be fulfilled once again: 'Let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.'
"You can have the utmost assurance that your power will be multiplied many times by the Lord. All He asks is that you give your best effort and your whole heart. Do it cheerfully and with the prayer of faith. The Father and His Beloved Son will send the Holy Ghost as your companion to guide you. Your efforts will be magnified in the lives of the people you serve. And when you look back on what may now seem trying times of service and sacrifice, the sacrifice will have become a blessing, and you will know that you have seen the arm of God lifting those you served for Him, and lifting you." (Rise to Your Call)
Sorry the computer made this dumb but my dears, THIS IS TRUE!! As long as we do all we can with the Lord and with all our hearts, seek to do what He's asked of us, ESPECIALLY for those around us, He WILL always make up the difference. I challenge all of us, me included, to better a) recognize those evidences of His hand in the lives of those around us and b) live to make sure He can do things through us. What a glorious task, aye?
Anyways, have to go, but sure love yous with all my heart. Pray for you always. Keep working hard and being good and being happy. Only onward and upward, loves :)
LOVE,
Sister Hansen
by stevedocwra on
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