Seriously, one of the best weeks. Ever. This week we went over to our investigator, Aremi´s house. She is the 15 year old from Paraguay, her and her twin sister are our investigators! We went over and watched the restoration video with her, and set a fecha (baptismal date) with her! It´s for the 7th of December! Her sister was asleep so she didn´t watch it with us and we didn´t set a fecha with her that night.
I seriously just love the members here. There´s a mother and her daughter (21) and her son (10) that live close to us, and apparently a few months ago they were less actives, but they are fully active and incredible now! They have us over every week to do a noche de hogar and are sharing the gospel with their friends nad feed us and they´re amazing! They´re from Paraguay, and they make this amazing red sauce thing, and it´s so great cuz they put it on everything! They made us chicken and other night hot dogs and another day pasta and every one of those had this salsa stuff on it that is delicious! I just love their family. There´s also another family that´s from Argentina, and i´m obsessed with them. They have a daughter in the Barcelona mission, and they have us over once every couple weeks and also they have a 20 year old daughter and we talk about school and music and she´s just awesome! And when we share spiritual thoughts she just looks so interested and she just is wonderful and she loves us. I don´t know, I wish I could give you a better picture of just how awesome they all are here, and the fun we have together and the spirit we feel but it´s hard to describe.
OKAY so i´m an epic fail! This week Elder Kearon, the general authority came, and i forgot to bring my notes, i just seriously want to tell you everything that happened and everything he said because it was just amazing! We had two separate conferences for all the missionaries in our mission, which means in each gathering there were about 110 missionaries! We had the luck of being here in Málaga, ward 1, because they picked to do it in our chapel! So we had like an 8 minute walk to the church, and some people had to come on buses for like 9 hours! It was a nice change for me to be right here where the conference was taking place.
He talked to us about dilligence and ´´attacking our morning´´ meaning that when we wake up and do our morning exercises they shouldn´t just be done going through the half hearted motions but we should put all we have into it! Even with our showers, he said, ´´give it a cold blast at the end, get yourself pumped up for the day!´´ and said even showering and getting ready ´´dilligently´´ can be a symbol for our dilligence for the day, showing the Lord that from the moment that clock rings 7am we´re going at our day hard! I just loved that. It was especially funny, because Hermana Cameron loves to run, so we go on runs in the morning. And i really like to run to, but man, this girl is a trained athlete. She is going super fast, and even though I go without stopping, she´s literally running circles around me, but she is so awesome, because she knows i´m giving it my all so she doesn´t mind. But yeah, the morning of this talk with Elder Kearon we went running, and I tried to go harder than usual, so we felt really good about our morning workout. Then that day, as he was talking about dilligence in our workouts, suddenly he turns to President and Hermana Deere and then turns to us 110 missionaries and is like, ´´Can we have Hermana Cameron and Hermana Miller come up here please?´´ and I was like, oh my is he going to have us bear our testimonies on morning workouts!? (because the week before we told our district leader that was one of the things we did well haha kinda as a joke!) . But then he just had us do a practice with him, where we had to contact him in the street, and say the things we´d normally say, just with no excitement in our voices. It was funny and weird first of all, contacting in english (cuz he´s from england, oh yeah so i forgot to mention our whole reunion was in english! it was such a cool thing since normally they´re all in spanish!), and second of all doing it without smiling! Haha. But it was cool because after, President Deere said in our leadership meeting that we had the day after with Elder Kearon, that Elder Kearon had asked him for a companionship that is just really happy and smiley (to make the practice funnier since we had to have no enthusiasm), and him and Hermana Deere said Hna Cameron and I. He said in the leadership meeting that those two are just full of light, and it meant so much to me. I don´t know, of course i´m not boasting in myself, but it just meant a lot to me that in a meeting with 110 missionaries, when someone asked my mission president and his wife for someone happy and loving, they would think of me. I just want to live worthy of that, I love this work and I love this gospel and the hope it brings to us. One of our investigators asked us the other day, ´´how are you two so happy?´´ and it´s funny because literally we just looked at each other and were like, ´´well, It´s really just because of the message we have, because of the gospel of Jesus Christ.´´ A true joy comes from knowing you´re a child of God. I´m literally obsessed with the new children´s song, ´´La familia es de Dios.´´ or in english ´´The family is of God.´´ I carry it around with me in my bag, i love when it says, ´´Our Father has a family, it´s me, it´s you all other too we are His children.´´ How simple is that truth? But it´s funny because I´ve met people out here who question that, or are even offended by that, saying it´s offensive to the Almighty Creator that we claim to be His children. But I know of the strength and conviction and peace and joy that come from knowing that simple truth. Elder Kearon also had all the Hermanas stand up and recite the young women theme, it was powerful. But also, I dont want to give people the wrong idea that i´m just out here smiling 24/7 and always thinking, ´´life´s good because I know who I am´´ no haha. Especially this week had rough times, Monday I got sick and I´ve been sick ever since, i have a terrible cold and my nose is constantly running and at night it´s hard to breathe and teaching lessons in spanish when these people can barely understand me with my accent as it is, and now it´s this american ginger speaking spanish with a rough accent and rough voice because I´m sick haha it´s frustrated me. I´ve been like, ´´God I wanna give you more but I don´t have much to give right now!´´ and also my feet have been killing because all my good shoes got trashed from walking so much, so I´ve purchased some other shoes that i thought would be good, they seemed good in the stores, but they just KILL my feet. And once we were out in the street, we didn´t have time to go back and change them, so I walked around in them all night and just tried not to cry, but man I´m sure my smile walking around that night looked pretty fake, haha but I was trying. Literally putting one step in front of the other because each step hurt. Hopefully I was just breaking them in because I dont spend more money on shoes haha. But anyway, I´m just saying that this week I was not feeling to great, but of course we just went and worked like normal and even though it wasn´t much, i just tried to give the Lord what I could by being mostly obedient, and really pushing to get our investigators to read the Book of Mormon and pray and especially come to church.
Well, Friday night we did intercambios and a brand new missionary came into my area with me, and I was in charge of the area alone for the first time! It was intense and went so so well! Even though i felt gross, we went to our citas, and hardly anyone failed us! We taught the plan of salvation to the twins, and set a fecha (baptismal date) with the other twin! So they´ll hopefully be getting baptized in two weeks! Then we went to one of the recent converts´ families home. His sister in law had a fecha for Nov. 30, and when we got there she said, ´´When did I say I would get baptized again?´´and we told her and she said, ´´great, will you put my husband down too? We´re getting baptized together!´´ She is fully commited, and I dont know if I even told the story of her, she´s been recieving the missionaries for a while, but she always said she wasnt ready for baptism, and one day we taught her the plan of salvation and asked her to pray with us to know if it was true, then she prayed about it, and when she asked about the plan the spirit came so strong. Then she went on to ask about the Book of Mormon, and the Spirit was even stronger, and when she finished she was just crying. That was a few weeks ago, but yeah, now she´s getting baptized this sunday and we´re excited! So that was a miracle!
Another miracle! So i was going through the area book my 2nd day in this area, and I was calling a lot of the old potential investigators (or street contacts) and i called this lady named Joy from Nigeria. Well long story short, for my whole time here we´ve been trying to meet with her but for one reason or another (her fault sometimes, our fault other times) it just hasn´t worked out. Well one day we were walking in the street and I hadnt tried for a while, and suddenly i just thought to call her, so I did, we set up an appointment and finally it worked out! We went and showed her the Book of Mormon and set a baptismal date with her in the 1st lesson! Which I don´t know if i´ve ever done before, but she´s just so prepared! Then we invited her to church, and she came! It was awesome, everyone kept coming up to her with the biggest smiles on their faces and asking her name and introducing themselves and i was just like, ´´wow, members are SO CRUCIAL to the work!´´ and she just kept saying, ´´í like being here, people are happy here´´ and it was awesome. So she came for all 3 hours, but really we had worked so hard to get our other investigators to church, especially sacrament meeting. So i was like calling the recent convert and asking if his family was coming and calling the twins and they said they were coming, haha it was just funny, i just really wanted them there so they could feel the spirit that we find in the church! Well, finally, 5 MORE INVESTIGATORS walk through the door at the beginning of sacrament meeting (we have sacrament meeting last in our ward) it was such a blessing! I have never had that many in church! I just wanted to cry and kept thanking God with the prayer in my heart for letting us see this miracle! It really proved a lot to me. It helped me see that God works the miracles, and I am nothing, but also that it is through our dilligence that the Lord can work His miracles, I felt like that dilligence was lacking in me the week before, but this week, even though I didnt have much to give, I gave what I had and the Lord worked with it. Elder Kearon talked about the miracle of Christ feeding the 5000 with the little bit of bread and fish, and how the disciples gave that to Christ, and that was all they had, but look what Christ did with the little they had? He fed a multitude. I know it´s the same with us. Even when we feel like we don´t have much to give to the Lord, because of sicknesses or weaknesses or fears or whatever it may be, as we give Him the little we´ve got, and we are dilligent and just sacrifice a little bit of our effort and time for the Kingdom of God, He can take those little offerings and work miracles with them. And as a reward we can feel the peace and pure happiness that come from knowing the Lord does His work, all He requires is that we try. So then i realized even in my snotty and pained foot state, trying to hold back the tears and keep walking...the Lord can work with that. We just have to let Him work with that, so when we´re in those hard situations, we cant let them turn our hearts hard, but instead we just have to turn our hearts to the Lord, and let Him work miracles with the little we have to offer Him. What a cool thing to be an instrument in His hands!
I love this work. I´m not perfect. I have hard moments, but I´m grateful that the Lord will work with me and that He´s allowing me to change, even if it´s really slowly...He´s patient haha.
Thank you all! And have a great Thanksgiving!!!
Love, Hermana Miller
Psalms 100:1-5
No comments:
Post a Comment