WOW. Can you say crazy awesome week?? Cause I can!!! Básicamente we were all just looking forward to Sunday the whole week haha! But first things first because I just cannot: I. LOVE. MY. ZONE. Seriously. I saw them so much this week. I just LOVE ALL OF THEM. Anyway, carrying on...
Let's go day by day to make sure I don't forget anything :)
MONDAY. Post-emailing we went with a member and got Ethiopian food! That was awesome. It was really different but really really good! My compañera was so excited haha she was reading the menu in Amharic and talking to the waiter in it just loving the music and the environment of it all. It was awesome. (And yes mom, we got pictures haha ). We went straight to FHE after dinner where we talked with the family about the discurso by President Uchtdorf "It Works Wonderfully!" Holy cow. I love that talk. He says in this talk, "I learned in my life that we don’t need to be 'more' of anything to start to become the person God intended us to become. God will take you as you are at this very moment and begin to work with you. All you need is a willing heart, a desire to believe, and trust in the Lord." I LOVE that quote. It really got me thinking about how repentance starts now from wherever we are. For a lot of my life I felt like to begin overcoming some things I was struggling with that I had to be to a certain point
before God could/would help me. Almost like I hadn't done enough of "my part" to receive His help. I know that was wrong. I know that God loves us so very much, and He is anxious and willing to help us as
soon as we allow Him to. And I am incredibly thankful for that and for His mercy and goodness to us!
Movin’ on to Tuesday, we had district meeting! ...other than that...to be honest I really cannot remember what happened... But I remember it was a pretty fun day... Oh yeah! We were on the train heading back
from Coney and these two Dominican guys sat down kiddy corner from us, so of course we talked to them! That was a lot of fun. They talk very quickly and with a lot of slang so I was struggling a bit haha. But we invited them to English class and gave them pass along cards. That was a good time. And of course district meeting was fabulous, as always. Man, I think I love these guys too much a veces haha!
Wednesday though. Can I give two words to describe this days? HEEBIE. JEEBIE. YES. So we have servicio every Wednesday at Prospect Park --which is SO FUN, I cannot even cause I just love my zone so much-- and this service day was particularly especial por qué después we went to Wendy's across the street from the subway station with Hermana Fouts and Hermana Taylor and this is where the good part comes in. First of all, to preface, who of y'all knows what a heebie jeebie (not sure if that's spelled right cause we just decided on that spelling juntos) is? Well, a heebie jeebie is a member of this religion who believes that Jesus was black and that at the Second Coming He is going to come down and "begin slayin all the white peoples!" Uh huh! So mostly it's just a group of dudes from Africa who are always on somethin and who carry swords around (like legit swords) to "help in the slayin of His comin!" So yeah!
So we are standing in line all talking and this dude comes up and tells Hermana Taylor in this rough and slurred African English, "yo skin...is beautiful!!" We're like, "thaaaaaaanks....?" And he goes on about how he "used to be a man....but now [he's] somethin mo!" Then he sees my compañera and he goes, coming closer, "YO SKIN...ITS EVEN MO BEAUTIFUL!!" And he goes on about how "she's a goddess!! Nah, not yet, you a PRINCESS! Cause she got da MELON in er! Lemme 'splain the dif'rence to yo between chocolate n vanilla..." And he just keeps going on and on. But then he got really angry because we were wearing pants (cause we'd been at service)...he finally left after telling us to not judge him for having "ma joint right'er" and to "stay close to er [my comp]...she'll teach you's a lotta things." Haha! So that was a fun time!!
Moving along to Thursday. OH MY. THIS WAS, BY FAR, THE BEST DAY OF MY MISSION TO DATE. I'm sorry, no, that's not because it was super spiritual or anything like that but because it was the national day of prayer. So all the missionaries in Brooklyn were asked to attend specifically a Brooklyn day of prayer thing being hosted at some Christian cultural center place I think by all these different heads of religion. IT. WAS. AWESOME. Not even anything close to what we do in our church, not. even. close. But it was still awesome. During the first song I could feel the Spirit and then the drums got a little too crazy aaaaand Spirit was gone... But we got some great gospel singing, shouting some hallelujahs, a few "can I hear ya say 'amen'??"s, a bundle of "MERCY"s from the guy behind us, and some crazy passionate preaching. It was unlike anything I have ever experienced in my life. It was kinda like a really church centered concert haha. I quite enjoyed it. Being with all these other people who were praising the same God as me --in very different ways yes, but hey, they're Christian, I'm Christian, we're friends :)-- and had fairly similar values, despite our differences in religion, all of us coming together...it was awesome.
Afterwards we were all just loving life. We took some pictures and then this dude asked if we wanted a picture with the Brooklyn borough president. So we did! And supposedly it's on his Facebook page haha! But this was seriously the best time. This prayer meeting was almost two hours away so all of us piled into the same bus and headed out, so we got to spend a ton of time with other missionaries in the area and other zones. It was so fun. Missions are work. And there is a lot of joy to be found in the work. But I think the most joy is found in the people you work with. The members. The investigators. And of course, your fellow missionaries. Be obedient and strive to do your best but don't turn into a machine where you're so worried about just being obedient and getting the job done that you miss the relationships you could have developed along the way! Letting yourself love the people and get attached to them is hard -- because then you have to say goodbye at some point-- but it's so worth it! And it makes the work better and more fun. I don't believe God intends for us to not develop friendships while we're here and to have a good time. So, this day was relatively unproductive considering we were traveling for half of it and in a prayer day meeting for the other half, but it was definitely the highlight of my mission thus far because of the people I was with.
Next we have FRIDAY! Guess what? Zone training meeting!!! This was a very good day. We only got one lesson though because we had zone training all through the morning (we got more pictures!! They're all really cute and somewhat formal...other than the fact that Elder Mari cannot take a serious photo ) and then we went to lunch with Hermana Fouts and Hermana Taylor before going to help a member family move with the rest of our district. Can I just say, you do not want to move all of someone's stuff from the third floor...to the first floor...into a moving truck with only eight people It was a lot of work but hey, GREAT workout, and they feed you after, so that was great haha.
We also met up with one of the members were are working with and taught her a lesson over frozen yogurt that night. We ended up finishing talking a little about patriarchal blessings. She said she'd lost hers so we invited her to find it and study it. She texted us twenty minutes after we left saying she'd found it After we invited her to read her blessing, I realized in the whole time I've been in the field I have thought about reading mine a lot but never done it. No coincidence, I think, that Saturday morning after I was about to close my personal study I picked up my scriptures and my folded up copy of my blessing fell out. So...I read it. Studied it a bit. And I think it's amazing how we can always get something new out of the scriptures and our blessings – personal scripture for us-- when we study them. I'm so thankful for this gospel and the knowledge I have of it. It’s amazing to me.
Anywho, it has básicamente been raining all week off and on, but Saturday we got just a little bit of sunshine! We did our studies and this was the only day we didn't see anyone from our district/zone. It
was a little sad haha No, it was okay, but just different from the rest of the week thus far. We took our weekly trip to Africa. We had a great lesson with them and I think their hearts are being softened a bit :) we talked a lot about how the gospel plays such a huge role in our lives and we were able to
share testimonies with each other about how the gospel has helped us or "worked" for us. They want to go to church --just not where a certain member is-- and asked us yesterday about the other options
they have for attending and are finally willing to at least go to a Spanish branch somewhere where they can understand --as they were going to and English ward before-- which means they're understanding the significance of church. AND, they're willing to do something about it. Even though it's small, it's still a step in the right direction. That's a big plus!:)
Here comes Sunday! But not the sun, cause it was POURING all morning. We had tried to get a hold of our investigator to see if she wanted us to walk to church with her or meet her there, but for three days all we were getting was voicemail. We decided we'd show up. So we did! Waking up at six and after a long bus ride, we arrived in Jewville to wake up our Ecuadorean friend. And wake her up we did. She had us come in then ran out of the room. She came back five minutes later fully dressed for church. She dressed her son (by the way, she dresses him ridiculously adorably so they both looked on point for Mother's Day 🏻) and we headed out! Well, we tried. We didn't make it very far cause the rain was insane, so we called a cab. We got to church with time to spare!
Her little boy was not really having it during sacrament but somehow she was still able to pay attention and learn a few things. She would tell me every once in a while "oh I like what she/he said" or she'd just go "ooooh" haha! This was a great week for her to come though cause we had a talk on el día de reposa, Sunday school about la organización de la sacerdocio, y la ley de diezmo in relief society. So basically we hit up three main things we need to teach her. It was awesome. And she understood most of it, we think. We will be meeting with her Tuesday morning to teach the plan of salvation and see if she had any questions from church. Hopefully she's still excited for her baptism and even more, hopefully her ex-boyfriend is moved out by now!
After church we took a picture with her outside because miraculously, "here comes the sun!!" (#Beatles) then we had a district meeting where we attempted to come up with what we're going to do for our "part" in the ward party this Friday. We have no idea what we're doing yet, but all I know is I am very excited for my first real fiesta!! I have been looking forward to it for the last three weeks so it better be good haha Our ward mission leader was also released so we talked with him for a bit as well, then we all headed home for lunch.
Fun fact of the day, I am currently writing all of this between the hours of 4 and 6 on Sunday because my compañera is skyping her family and I am waiting for mine! So it's Mother's Day and currently five fifteen. Elder Brenkman is also skyping his family right now so we just met them really quick. Everyone looks so happy!!
..............
Aaaaaaand we are post-skype. 9:17. And I'm alive I feel really good and happy. I think it's sad saying bye but talking to the family was awesome. Talking with them was a rejuvenator for me. It gave me more motivation to keep going with the work. I'm so thankful for all of my family and how much they support me in what I have chosen to do. We had this weird realization it'll be seven months before we hear our families voices again...but yet they say that time goes so fast... And I believe it cause the last two and a-little-bit months have gone crazy fast. Elder Gill said on Friday when he bore his testimony to not think about going home. Don't think about "oh my that's never coming, it's so far away" and what not, cause he said he can't believe he's going now. Live in the moment, find joy in the journey!! :)
Now that I have another novella to send…I think we can be and are used in building the kingdom a lot more than we may at times think. When we share our testimonies through our words or simply through our actions as an example of Christ, we strengthen others around us. "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord". He has been loyal to us always, let us also always be loyal to Him and the testimonies He has given us by His Spirit, but not only keep them for ourselves, but set the light He has given us upon a candlestick that it giveth light to all the house! Don't be afraid to share what you know, and I'd invite everyone who reads this to soften their hearts and when the Spirit prompts you to share something, do it.
The scriptures from Doctrine and Covenants 80 don't only apply to missionaries..."Wherefore, go ye and preach my gospel, whether to the north or to the south, to the east or to the west, it mattereth not, for ye cannot go amiss. Therefore, declare the things which ye have heard, and verily believe, and know to be true. Behold, this is the will of Him who hath called you, your Redeemer, even Jesus Christ. Amen"
I know this is God's work and I'm so blessed to know He trusts me enough to give me stewardship over a portion of His vineyard, that I am able to labor in the field alongside all the other members of the church. Always remain true to that which God has revealed to you to be true. And if you don't feel He has given you that knowledge of truth, have you asked?:) I would invite you all to check your personal testimony and ask our Father if He would reconfirm to you that which you know to be true. He will. Then, seek to do His will with those talents He hath given you. I love you all so much, I'm starting to get preachy over here haha:) thank you all so much for your support and love!
Con tanto amor,
Hermana Karra Gourley
Sent from my iPad
No comments:
Post a Comment