Hello family,
This week has been a test of my faith. Sister Glancy and I
have been working really hard. I don't think I've been more exhausted my entire
mission, but I also have never had fewer people to teach. Nevertheless, the
Lord ALWAYS keeps His promises, and even when he decides that He wants to test
my patience and diligence, I always know that if I hold out until the end, He
will bless me. Sister Glancy and I have had some WONDERFUL tender mercies this
week. Here are a few of them:
Last Tuesday Sister Glancy and I focused a lot on less
active work and were blessed to teach 5 lessons to less active individuals- 2
of which were unplanned! Some of these individuals have agreed to be taught the
missionary lessons, which we are really excited about, especially since I have
seen this help a lot with reactivations in the past. A few of these individuals
even showed up at our ward Christmas party on Saturday, so that was really
exciting!
Towards the end of the week we were starting to lose steam.
We had 5 or 6 lessons with potential investigators scheduled, and all of them
had fallen through. Very few times on my mission have I had a week where we did
not find at least one new investigator when I could honestly say that we had
worked as hard as we possibly could. Saturday came around, and we were SO
grateful to hear back from a guy named Yassine that we were still good to come
over later that day! Yassine is 27 and he going to school here although he is
actually from Morocco. We found out that he is a nonpracticing Muslim, but he
stayed with a Christian host family a few years ago here, and he said that he
went to church with them a few times. He said that he would get emotional
whenever he was in church, and there was one time that he saw somebody be
baptized and he felt really warm and like he was going to cry. Ever since then
he has been experiencing a growing curiosity about Christianity. We focused our
lesson around recognizing the holy ghost and his purpose in testifying of
truth. It was touching to me to hear how Yassine has had these experiences that
have helped to prepare him to learn more about the gospel of Jesus Christ!
One thing that we are going to have to work out this next
week is that we found out that we need special permission from President Bonham
to teach a Muslim. Hopefully Yassine isn't too intimidated to allow President
Bonham to join us for our lesson on Tuesday. Not only that but if someone who
is Muslim decides that they want to be baptized, a member of the seventy has to
come to interview, and the candidate for baptism essentially has to promise
that they will never go back to the middle east again because of the potential
violence that could happen to them there. I've been going over different
scenarios in my head, and over the last few days I've asked myself a few times-
Do I have enough faith in this message that we share that I could invite
someone to be baptized, knowing full well that the implications of that may be
complete loss of family, friends, and culture? Another question I've been contemplating
that I've actually wondered a lot on my mission, is why is it that I was born
into a family that has the gospel of Jesus Christ and taught me about it from a
young age?
I had an amazing experience during my personal study one day
this week where I felt like everything that I needed to study was being given
to me. It was like the spirit was enlightening my mind; a continual flow of
thoughts and questions and scriptures and it was the coolest experience that
has happened to me a few times on my mission so far! The topic that I felt was
given to me to study this week was sacrifice. Why are we required to sacrifice,
and what examples of sacrifice have we had in the past? I don't have nearly
enough time to express everything that I learned, but here are a few quotes I
thought about during my study that I will leave for you to think about too. The
first is a quote by Elder Holland in a talk called "Missionary Work and
the Atonement"- I am convinced that missionary work is not easy because
salvation is not a cheap experience. Salvation never was easy. We are The
Church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, and He is our Great Eternal Head.
How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for
Him? It seems to me that missionaries and mission leaders have to spend at
least a few moments in Gethsemane. Missionaries and mission leaders have to
take at least a step or two toward the summit of Calvary. Now, please don’t
misunderstand. I’m not talking about anything anywhere near what Christ
experienced. That would be presumptuous and sacrilegious. But I believe that
missionaries and investigators, to come to the truth, to come to salvation, to
know something of this price that has been paid, will have to pay a token of
that same price." The other quote I loved is from an individual who was in
the Martin Handcart Company: "The price we paid to become acquainted with
God was a privilege to pay, and I am thankful that I was privileged to come in
the Martin Handcart Company."
Sister Glancy's family sent her some Christmas decorations,
so we decorated a little tree earlier this week. I'm loving opening my 12 days
of Christmas, by the way! Sister Glancy and I did find some ugly Christmas
sweater vests from the local Goodwill, in case you are wondering. And yes, we
do make ugly sweaters look good. Maybe if we proselyte in them enough we'll
find more investigators. Or perhaps we should just proselyte in Seahawks
jerseys- i don't know if anyone else is aware of how the football season is
going, but based off of hearsay at people's doors I've been predicting a
Seahawks-Broncos faceoff in the Superbowl for a few weeks now!
I love you all and can't wait to talk to you next week!
Love, Sister Slade
No comments:
Post a Comment