This week's email is going to a tough one to write, because I am going to be up front and honest with how my week was. Last Monday i was really homesick I wanted to come home and not be a missionary. It has been a very stressful two weeks, with training a new missionary and white-washing an area. Last Monday I think I hit rock bottom with my homesickness. I was not in the mood to do any type of missionary work. I was ready to pack my bags and come home, but I promised myself at the beginning of my mission that I would serve a full 18 month mission. So I will give you a run down on my week.
Monday: it was p-day, i was being my normal idiotic self running around the apartment sliding on my fuzzy socks, when smack goes my head on the table... Yes that's right i didn't catch myself before my head hit the table. My reactions have been very very slow lately. Well that resulted in a concussion. Can anyone guess how many that is in the past 8 months? I can it comes to a whoppin total of 3.
Tuesday: When I woke up I had no voice, my throat was killing and had a crazy cough and headache. We didn't do much today with me being sick and not really knowing the area.
Wednesday: I was still sick. We had Zone Training, where all of the missionaries in the surrounding areas get together. It was a great training, well from what I got out of it. It was really hard to stay focused.
Thursday: I was still sick, but it was ridiculously warm outside, so I decided that we would go knocking. We found a new investigator. I will talk more about in a little bit.
Friday: Yes Still Sick. But good things started to happen. Sister Dearden was feeling well enough to join us in Moncton! (she was in new glasgow with pneumonia). We had a Supper Appointment and then institute.
Saturday: I bet you can guess i was still sick. Saturday morning we went out to do formers, we were knocking on a door when i looked back and saw a man standing at his door staring at us. Needless to say we left right then. We had a lesson with our new investigator.
Sunday: *cough* Church was great, i have made a little friend her name is Ruth. she is about 4 years old so just about my age :)
But the one thing well maybe two things that made this week worth being a missionary was 1st having Sister Dearden back. and 2 i had an incredible experience. So lets rewind 3 months to October, i was serving in Greenwood, Nova Scotia, a week before we move to Lower Sackville. We are on exchanges and i am in Greenwood with Sister Buchanan, it is raining and we are out knocking. We knock on a door and a lady answers her name is Donna, we give our little message and invite her to learn more, she says yes come in come in. We go in and teach her the Restoration, She is really excited to learn more we set up a time to come back to teach her more. Two days later we go and she is like sorry girls but i am supper busy i just found out we are moving to Moncton, New Brunswick in 3 days. So we are like oh well there are missionaries there would you like to meet with them? she says yes! We gave her info to the missionaries serving in Moncton at the time. Two days after she moved to Moncton we moved to Lower Sackville. Now Fast Forward to A few weeks ago. Sunday December 27th, Sister Dearden and I are laying in bed talking about how we need to get up to get ready to study and for church when the phone rings and its the Domans, Sister Doman is like ok do you want to know where you are going? She says you both are going to Moncton, New Brunswick. Over the time I was think and I remembered that Donna had moved to Moncton! So my main goal in being in Moncton was to find her because I knew that missionaries never did find her when she moved. So Thursday we were at a loss at what street to knock, neither of us knew the area. So i pulled out the handy dandy GPS and picked one. We were knocking and it was an awkward time of day where no one was home but i was like well lets knock the other side of this apartment complex. There were like no cars there and i was like well lets start at the back and work our way up, we had walked past a door and i was like wait, we are going to knock on number 12. I knocked on it and guess who answered the door?! YES DONNA!!!! it was so crazy! she was like come in come in! We set up a time to go back and see her on Saturday. We had our lesson and it was fantastic! She is so prepared to hear the Gospel, I felt inspired to ask her to be baptized and she said YES! she was like I have been thinking that my kids and i need to be baptized and find a church to go to. So she is on Date to be Baptized onFebruary 7th! As we were getting ready to leave i bore my testimony to her. I said, Donna I want you to know that this gospel is true, it can change your life if you will let it. I am thoroughly convinced that I am in Moncton right now to bring this gospel to you and your family. It is very very unusual that a missionary starts teaching someone and they both move to the same area. She agreed and said "When i opened the door you were the last person i would have guess to be standing there. She said, I know that this is not a coincidence that i met you in Nova Scotia and you are sitting her today." So if you don’t have a smile on your face or anything right now, don’t worry i have had one on for you! When we walked out of that lesson and got to the car i was dang near in tears. I finally know what my purpose as a missionary is serving in Moncton.
During my studies this week i was reading a talk from Elder Jeffery R. Holland talking about missionary work. My favorite part says. “ Some of you out here are new. Don’t be discouraged. Now that may be easy to say and hard for you to understand. The culture is new, the language is new, and you have every right and ever reason, at least every understandable reason, to be homesick. Everybody’s been there, and if it gives you any encouragement, just remember that I did this once too, and that no young man in the history of the world could have been more affected by a mission than I was.
My father was a convert and my mother had not served a mission, as sisters usually didn’t then. No one in my family had ever gone on a mission. I didn’t know the clothing to buy. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know anything about it. I knew zero about a mission, but I knew that I wanted to go, and I knew that I wanted to serve. As inadequate as I was, as unprepared as I was . . . I didn’t look right; I didn’t act right; I didn’t know anything about it. We didn’t have an MTC, and I don’t remember people or even remember a sheet telling us what clothing to bring. I don’t know, I had a suit my brother handed down to me. You could shave by it! You could hang it up and it glistened, it was so worn and so shiny. I had that suit and a green corduroy suit with matching vest and okra
lining. Boy, if you think my Mission President’s eyes didn’t pop out! What did I know? That’s all I owned, and my Mom said that I would probably be okay, and that’s what I took.
In two years my life was changed forever and forever and forever. Everything I hold dear, everything I cherish in one way or another, I owe to the experience that converged from my childhood, my lovely parents, and my good home. Converged and passed into my soul on a mission.
Everything -- my marriage to Sister Holland, my children, the fact that they have been on missions and all married in the temple and now are raising children to go on missions and be married in the temple, my education, and my chance to have a profession in education, my church assignments—everything that has ever blessed me I owe to the gospel, collectively, broadly, and to my mission specifically.
So don’t worry about being homesick. Don’t worry about being new. Don’t worry about the language. None of that matters. It will not matter. God loves you and this is the truth and you can do it! Just reach down, pull up your socks, and go to work. This is a time for you to go out. I plead with you. I plead with you, in the case of the Elders, to have a 24-month mission! Not 23, not 22, not 19, not 16, not 14…to have a 24-month mission! Sisters, have an 18-month mission—not 15, not 11, not 6. Start fast. Run hard, and to the tape! You can rest later.
From this I have decided to make my New Year's Resolution to Finish my 18 month mission, with all of my heart, might, mind, and strength. I will give everything I can to the Lord and those I am serving.
I want you to think about what your one goal for this year is and reach that. If you don't reach it and I find out mmmm we will leave it at that! ;)
I LOVE AND MISS YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!
8 Months down…… 10 to go……
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