This week was probably one of the best weeks of my mission. We honestly cannot count the blessings. But we will share a few of the ones we can count. First off, we had interviews with President Tuesday. That was probably the best thing that could have happened for me personally. I absolutely love President and Sister Reynolds, and they truly do so much for us, it is amazing to me.
I don't know how they have as much love for us as they do. But that was the best thing that possibly could have been done that day. I will testify that we need to sustain our leaders. They truly are called of God. If you have a problem with one of your leaders pray for understanding to see them as God sees them and look for the good in them. We are all simply trying our best and some God has called to lead not because they want it or are seeking after it, but because He sees something in them and we need to respect and sustain that. To sustain is to support and it is a privilege we have as members of the church to sustain God's chosen leaders. Just, don't criticize those the Lord has called. And if you don't feel they are doing a good job or should have been called at all, pray and ask God to change your mindset. We will be a lot happier that way. Sorry, not sure why I went off on that preachy tangent there, maybe someone needs to hear that. But this is one of the things I have come to believe and know the most during my time here. But yeah, interview with President, dang good stuff :)
We also had the opportunity this week to visit a bunch of our beautiful women in our ward. There is this new thing in our mission called "operation gold mine" and basically the idea is finding. We have taken that to heart this week and ended with one of the most blessed weeks I have ever had as we found three new investigators and taught thirteen lessons. It was amazing. Such a miracle and tender mercy to me to finally see all the work in this area start to amount to something. It's getting there. It really is. That was one of the most joyful things for me to see this week.
It is so awesome to see our hard work paying off and the Lord has truly been raining down blessings. We were the most effective this last week than we have ever been, even though my compañera was crazy sick for over half of it. I am so thankful we are able to work hard and have fun while seeing the hastening of the Lord's work in Brooklyn. This truly is the best area in the mission (no, I'm not biased, what are you talking about).
Yesterday we had the best lesson ever. We both came out of it dumbfounded. That is how missionary work is supposed to be. That is what "the field is white" looks like. Remember the guy we found at the train platform last week when we were singing? We finally met his wife yesterday. She is Hungarian (shhhhh, no we can keep her. doesn't matter she doesn't speak Spanish. we aren't gonna have to pass her off, what are you talking about!) and the most darling thing. Her name means flower, so we call her Flower. She is absolutely fabulous. She told us how she used to be so closed off to "things like this" but now she is just "something changed in me" and she's open to everything. We taught her about Christ and the Atonement. We taught her the resurrection and she got so excited and said, "that's what I believe!!" and looked at her husband for confirmation. He just smiled and said, "yes, that is what you believe!" It was the most awesome thing. We taught her to pray and invited her to offer the closing prayer. It was perfect. We're seeing her again Wednesday :)
This has all in all been a great week. I cannot believe it is already week six...I honestly cannot believe it. We will have transfer calls already made in a week. Crazy. I am so glad I am here serving these people I love. Learning to become more like my Savior has never been such a priority for me. I don't know how I ever lived before. It is times like these when I look back and can't even remember where I was before. I have never felt so close to my Father and my Savior. The best thing is, the mission is what has allowed me to change (#foreverchanged) and I don't have to stop changing after! I have been thinking about post-mission a lot (ugh, school and real life...thanks mom 😜) and am really excited actually to carry this time with me for the rest of my life. They say we give a year and a half or two years of our lives to the Lord but really we give nothing compared to what He gives us. We give our whole selves and all that we are to Him and in return He gives us Himself, all He is, and all He has. I don't think that's an even trade! I hope we can all strive to give a little more fully of ourselves to the Lord and remember Him this time of year and always, that we may ever submit to His will. I love you very much and pray for you always. Don't forget to #LIGHTtheWORLD :)
Muchísimo amor,
Hermana Karra Gourley
My List of Positive and Joyful Things:
#bendiciones
Lunes
1. Once again, preparation day = happy
2. Taught A.!! Finally. After two months of being missing in action we finally found this sister again. She's coming to church with us Sunday and we gonna teach M. how to have a clean mouth, gosh dang it.
3. Set up a lesson with a familia finally for next week
4. Planned on the go for all our peeps and finally set lessons with some our LAs
5. The china lady who walked by us smelling oddly of cucumbers *walks by* *looks at each other* Hna Platt: "was that...." together: "cucumbers??"
Martes
1. Found L.!! We showed her the new Christmas video and set up another lesson for Saturday :)
2. Talked with a super sweet lady on the bus who said it'd been a rough day. Made her smile and also Hna Platt gave her her umbrella, so that was nice :)
3. Interviews! God sent. Goodness. Exactly what I needed. Perfect.
4. Talking with Sister Reynolds.
5. Just got a hold of G.!! Finally! We will be visiting her later tonight!!
6. Sitting at the Chinese place waiting for our food and hearing these kids talk next to us. They were disgusting...so of the world. It was sad to see. But. It brought me joy because it reminded me of Sunday when we were in young women's with Stephanie and we got to see these awesome youth of the church. So I have even more joy and appreciation of them and their willingness to truly stand as an example and hold to what they believe when those they are surrounded by are so strongly opposed in values
7. Visiting G. and her girls and are seeing them again Saturday before our other lesson
Miércoles
1. Receiving personal revelation #andatlastiseethelight
2. Visited A. and her family. Shared the new Christmas video with them
3. Finding people to talk and share the gospel with on the bus heading to a less active lookup. We ended up not doing the lookup, but found some people who really benefited from us talking with them and listening to them (on both buses!) #bendiciones #Hiswaysarehigherthanourways
4. Had time to write once we got home, let it go a bit haha
Jueves
1. Does improv count as a workout? Dancing this morning. Still have more stress though that I feel like I need to get out...may or may not dance a bit when we get to the church for weekly planning (got the gym. yes. where I can be loud and jump and make noise without having to worry about waking someone up beneath me haha) ...man, just gotta let it go sometimes!
2. Personal study, reading more about faith and not needing to be perfect to be perfect in effort
3. Compañera is feeling a lot better #prayerswork
4. Figured everything out. FINALLY.
5. #dinerfood #breakfast #babyorangejuice #worthittho
Viernes
1. Compañera is feeling even better than yesterday!
2. Filmed our video. You will see :) (...this is what happens when you arrive to your appointment before they're home so you decide to lip-sync/carol from the porch to passersby #LIGHTtheWORLD #harktheheroldangelsing)
3. #talkwitheveryone took this for real today...and are going to try and apply it to every day now even more. We showed the video and talked with a lot of people.
4. Correlation. We have a ward mission leader who is wanting to do his job and trying to do it well. I am very happy for that.
5. When a nonmember offers you coffee and the less active you are visiting tells them you don't drink coffee, but then proceeds to offer you tea instead ;)
Sábado
1. Lessons lesson lessons! Our day is full of lessons! Yay!!
2. Trying to get dinner and a bathroom #caaaaarbs #nolosnecesito #cookiesforabathroom #....whatdoyoumeanthereisntabathroom?
3. Invitation to go to a member's house and try cake they made #freefood #dontneedtogetfatter #butourlessactiveisthere #weareonourway
4. Met this gem outside on our way to our lesson #storytime
- Me: *sees cute little old man on the street* hi!
- Guy: *looks us up and down kind of surprised* You look very good
- Hna Platt: Thank you
- Guy: *looking at me* Where you from? Irish?
- Me: *tries to contain wind blown hair so as to see his face* Nope, German
- Guy: Awwww! *speaks rapid german*
- Me: Oh no, haha, I don't speak German.
- Guy: Oh... *looks at Hna Platt* And you, where are you from?
- Hna Platt: Swedish!
- Guy: Ahhhh! *speaks rapidly in another language*
- Hna Platt: Wait I don't speak that language either
- Guy: Where are you from in Greece?
- Hna Platt: No no not Greek, Swedish!
- Guy: Oh... so you don't speak Greek
- Hna Platt: Nope
- Guy: What are you? Christian?
- Us: Yes we are missionaries for the LDS church!
- Guy: that's nice. Everybody Christian! Well...*Lifting up his cane and tapping my side with it* Good day *tap* nice to meet you *tap* and merry Christmas! *tap*
5. Visited the M. family which means we got to visit with I. for a bit!! It was great! Also, she said this and it was absolutely hilarious: "New York rats aren't like normal rats, they're jacked up on pizza." --100% true, they're huge
Domingo
1. Made it to church for the sacrament. Barely. We were late, but we made it. (#needshelpunderstandingtheimportanceofthingsandwhentonotbestressed #gettingtochurchlatewithyourinvestigatorandlessactive #busesdontcome #shouldhaveplannedbetter #itiswhatitis...? #couldhavedonemore...? #ugh #atleastwemadeit)
2. #throwback #"whatqualifiesasabadhairday?"
3. AWESOME lesson with Flower!! 🌸 she is the definition of real intent and has been so prepared...we are so excited for her :)
4. Christmas devotional. ...well, the elders trying to get the devotional in Spanish. That was hilarious. Then, the actual devotional. I love Christmas.
5. This was a blessed week.
Lunes (hasta ahora)
1. Grocery shopping and they were playing Christmas music!!
2. Walked by this guy in the grocery store and in a full fledged baritone voice he sings to himself, "Rudolph, the red nosed reindeer." That made me happy :)
3. Pizza for lunch #italiapizza #madebymexicans #seeds
Foods of the week:
Ma-sopa: 😜 nah, it was just soup...she asked the "más sopa" thing and we had been trying to understand what she was saying the name of it was so when she said that, we thought she asked if we like the soup, calling it "masopa" as if that was the name. Still not sure what the soup was. Little skinny short noodles swimming in orange juice and tasting like chicken noodle soup...with none of the ingredients for said soup. Was really good though!
Tacos dorados: literally just means hard/crunchy tacos but they were chicken filled and eaten with Mexican cheese and a super pica sauce. Super good.
Pomegranate vitamin water: lots of it in place of tea! Really good and love the substitute ;)
NY bagels: not bad, but man, do New Yorkers love their cream cheese #thatwasamistake #notagain #adisgracetohnaplatt
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