So. I mean, I guess this isn't quite the paragraph you'd expect after an introduction like that, but what can I say? So there was I, about two days into my cold when I get roped into saving the other Elders backs by going on splits when I was seated in the home of a very nice old man. This guy is the stuff of legends. Many a tale of him had reached my ears since I live with the other Elders. I was not disappointed. The dinner was the stuff of legends, complete with one of those 7-up cakes, home made, I might add. So anyways, I thought for sure that we were in the clear until the man saw me blow my nose. At that point, my fate was sealed. He gleefully ran to his room and came back with a mysterious liquid. He tells me to lay down, so I get on the ground. "This here is liquid silver. You see, when you zap silver with 30 volts of electricity, it is reduced to a silver form. I'm going to drop an entire syringe of silver down each of your nostrils." Boy, let me tell you, I was not prepared for that. But it was too late. Precious metal was already sliding straight down the hatch. I sneezed so much the rest of that day. He insisted that if he didn't do that, I would be much sicker. So... there's that.
We got to have an apostle from the 70 come to our mission! I was pretty excited since I hadn't been able to meet anyone from the church, except for Elder Cook who I briefly saw in the MTC. It was very fascinating to hear Elder Whiting speak to us with extreme power and authority. He is one of the most bold men I've ever met. We learned so much more about the prophet and mission of the church and stuff from him. He taught me some very important things that I believe I will treasure for a long time, perhaps the rest of my life.
One of them is the doctrine of forgiveness. He said that in order to learn forgiveness, you have to be seriously offended or hurt by something. This has helped me understand Jesus Christ even more. It certainly isn't an easy thing, but because of His help, I know we can forgive anyone for anything. I really appreciated him speaking of that. Most of us likely have a grudge or two, but continuing to labor in anger is like stabbing a knife into yourself and then saying "I hope this hurts you!" True forgiveness offers true healing.
Another thing that he taught me that I really liked comes in the form of a question. "If God truly loves me, why does He let me suffer?" He shared with us some amazing experiences which are too much to me to share. To give a short answer, it is to give us experiences which enable us to become more like Him. He let's us suffer because He loves us. A God who doesn't care would flip a switch which granted our every desire and then leave us. Our God loves us and is doing everything to create more of us than we could ever create of ourselves.
We received our first referral in quite a while this week. We just moseyed our way down town and knock on the door, and out comes a confused older woman, not really sure of who we were. Elder Herem had the daunting task of talking to her to get us in. It was comical to watch him stumble around left and right and watch her growing confused face. He looked at me in panic, but he is too far along in his training to be rescued! Haha. So after like two minutes of just weird dialogue and nervous laughter from Elder Herem, she says, "Alright, you can come in." We had to go grab a neighbor, but then we came in and taught her a pretty powerful lesson on the plan of salvation. She loved it so much that we were invited back later! Sweet! That is something I like about the truly prepared people. It doesn't matter what manner of things you say at their door, if God prepares them, they will receive you! Elder Herem was in awe. That man is getting so good, I love it.
We had many people promise us this week that they would come to church. We were thoroughly disappointed when not a single one of them kept their promise to us. One of the members noticed and told us that she still thought we are really good missionaries, and just because we can't see the fruit of our labors doesn't mean that we aren't doing amazing. It is a bit discouraging at times, but I really appreciated her wise words. After all. Abinidi never saw for sure if Alma was converted, and Ammon didn't even get to be there where King Lamoni's father took the missionary lessons.
This email is getting a bit long, I'll have to end it off here. That's too bad, there's even more stuff! I'll just sum it up. I got two double yolkers in a week! That's three total this transfer. I am having a really great time this winter. I actually had a little bit of fun when there was snow on the ground, and I'm finding myself still smiling all the time. Winter has been a very depressing time of year for me since like junior high. This is the first time since then that I've truly enjoyed it. Miracles are abound. Though I still sleep like garbage every night, we are surrounded in good. It's the best.
 |
| Double Yolker! |
 |
| Ready for Christmas with a fresh haircut |
 |
| Waiting ... |
No comments:
Post a Comment