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| Note to self: Look for the beauty of the horse, ignore the chicken entrails you might be standing in. |
Week 4 with Sister S.
Dearest Family,
Another hard week is over. After a stream of soul-searching and study I have come to
the conclusion that I will “seek the good” and strive for the daily positives,
however small they may be. For example, I figured out that the reason that I was getting blisters was that by resoled shoes where heavier and fit differently on my feet than they did originally. I finally resorted to using my one new pair left in my stash and that did the trick. Blisters healed and I have not had any new problems with my feet. That is good news for me...I just need more of these shoes to make it the rest of my mission. A problem that I know my mom will solve.
Monday
This was a decent P-day, followed by a great night of
teaching. We visited A. who is a
recent convert of about 9 months.
She is only 14, but had the maturity of someone much, much older. Her mom, P. was recently diagnosed with
cancer and we’ve been visiting them on a weekly basis. A. is really special and has a unique
knack for understanding and applying scriptures. She’s almost finished the Book
of Mormon, and she’s sharing the gospel with her friends. The only hard thing is that because of
her maturity, she doesn’t “fit in” with the youth in the ward. Problems of adolescence transcend
cultures! We love her and we are
going to do some work with integration with the youth.
Sister S. had a shining moment of teaching and testifying
tonight! She is making
progress! Her personality is
sweet, cute, willing but afraid and unconfident. But, she is really starting to overcome her shyness and do
the work!
Tuesday
Our lunch appointment fell through and we stopped by M.’s
house before returning to our house to eat. She asked us if we had eaten, read our sheepish looks, and
quickly prepared a humble meal for us.
We were SO GRATEFUL for her love and sacrifice. We shared a message with her and her
daughter, B. We then went to our
zone training. (rough) Our district and zone leaders chastised us. In summary,
“If you are obedient and do ______, then you will have _______.” To fill in the first blank you can
insert random meaningless numbers that correspond to #’s of contact, new
investigators, and BOM placements.
The second blank is always baptisms. I bit my tongue and will continue to do so for now. The Lord is the only person who knows
the desires of our hearts.
Obedience to the Lord’s commands is key, and I will focus on that rather
than meaningless statistics.
We had a great lesson with G. and our ward mission
leader. I am developing a real
love for our ward mission leader and I deeply respect his desire to serve,
help, and teach. I expressed my
gratitude and love to him after the lesson and he told me that he has felt an
urgency to help the missionary efforts and me ever since I first arrived
here. He said that everyone can
see my desire to serve and work hard, and that my testimony touches the hearts
of all who hear. It was a great
tender moment that uplifted me when I needed it. It’s incredible how much more willing you are to give more
and do more when you love those whom you are working with, and when you feel as
though your efforts are doing some good.
Wednesday
Another training day…mostly unremarkable, aside from being
remarkably HOT.
Thursday
We had a great lesson with C.F. on family history work and
the importance of temples. She did
the first few pages of the new FH booklet. We then had lunch with our new
relief society president. I was
surprised by the disinterest that she showed as we excitedly talked about many
of the investigators and less-active sisters we’ve been visiting. She has no interest in visiting these
people with us. My own enthusiasm
wanes quickly when people show indifference for the work we’re doing.
Elder A. was one hour late for the baptismal interview with
our investigator E., but it wasn’t all that bad because we got to sit and visit
with E. in a casual non-lesson setting.
He is a very normal, happy, and kind 18 year old young man. The interview went smoothly and he
thanked us for our help.
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| M. , Sister S. and Sister Colvin |
We had M. help us in the evening. He is truly amazing.
With less than 5 months in the church, he is growing, searching,
preparing, and serving with incredible understanding and conviction. He teaches well and is an enormous help
to the missionaries. We always
have really good gospel discussions after the lessons, and his enthusiasm lifts
our spirits. We love him – he will
do great things and change many lives.
Friday
Crappy day…long….hot…unproductive. Though, we did have a good finish by visiting two elderly
disable ladies. They remembered us
and asked us how our work was going.
As we shared stories and scriptures with them I felt the love of Christ
and a desire to reach out and touch these women. I told them of the love that Heavenly Father has for them as
his daughters. It was beautiful moment…juxtaposed
with our district leader calling every 2-3 hours to ask about our numbers. Sister S. and I were sent into a frenzy
of data gathering in order to get him off of our backs. Not fun. Not sincere.
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| E, and his mother |
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| E. and his girlfriend and mom. |
Saturday
We talked with a member of our bishopric on crappy Friday
and he mentioned that they are struggling with keeping the chapel clean, and
that often times it is just the bishop and his wife, or the 1st counselor and
his daughter who are there to clean.
While the problem lies in the member’s sense of responsibility, I felt
this as an opportunity to show our willingness to serve and help the ward and
to build a relationship of trust with our leaders. We left our house at 9 am, worked until 10:30-45-ish (I have
been trained to speed clean), and then returned to our house to finish our
studies. It felt GREAT to render
this service, and the bishopric thanked us. It was a good use of our time! Unfortunately, our district
leader didn’t see it that way because at the end of the day he told us that we
are “slipping” and our numbers are bad.
Uggghhh!
Keep in mind that this is after we had a beautiful baptism
(E.) today which I try to focus on.
We also had a great meeting with our bishop, and a productive
coordination meeting with our ward mission leader. Still, even though I know that it is not rational, it is
hard to not feel like crap when your leader tells you that you are slipping and
you need to repent, have more faith, and work harder. It is really hard to focus on quality over quantity, and to
do actual work instead of just running in circles.
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| Sister S., Sister Colvin, ward member, new member E. |
Sunday
M. (recent convert) gave his first talk in sacrament meeting
today. It was great! E. was
confirmed and he gave me a look of gratitude and affection afterwards, which
warmed my heart. After lunch, we
finally found R. in her house, after 4 failed attempts during the week. It was a hard to focus on the spirit
with a barking dog, a very uncomfortable moaning pregnant cat, and an
overactive half dressed 6 year old. Thank heavens that Sister Sousa is starting
to teach and talk more because I was not feeling it. We also taught M and her daughter J., and had a good lesson
using the scriptures.
In summary, I’ve written about the shining 45 minutes to 1
hour of each day that is scattered through another 7-9 hours of arduous
ungratifying work. I have never
felt so weak, inadequate, guilty, and unworthy in my entire life. I am struggling to find balance between
“God loves me. I am serving him
and being obedient.” And. “I am not good enough, and I need to give more and
serve harder.” When is our “all”
ever good enough, and what is “good enough?” the answer to that is that nothing
that we can do will ever overcome our frail human nature. We will always be sinners. God know
this. He knew that in on our own,
we would always make mistakes, consciously or unconsciously distancing
ourselves spiritually from our Heavenly Father. Yet in His infinite love and patience, He sent his son,
Jesus Christ, to live and die for our weaknesses. Through this incredible sacrifice, and by doing the small
and simple things ever day, we can grow closer to our Heavenly Father. He stands with His arms open to tell us
that with the Atonement we can become better. We can become “good enough”.
“Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying
the foundation of a great work.
And out of small things proceedeth that which is great.” D&C 64:33
I love you all. I miss you and pray for you every night. Please
love and serve your missionaries.
Sister Colvin
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