!Feliz Vispera de Todos los Santos! (80)
(It's a ghost.)
This was a great week. Yesterday, Elaine S. Dalton was our speaker in Relief Society. Holy cow, she is so awesome! She is seriously like an angel! She talked to us about "last words a mother would give her daughters as they venture into the mission field." She boosted our confidence as she talked all about our divine nature, purpose, potential, and different stories and scriptures that help her in tough times. She told a story of a time when she was on a run with her husband. She gets competitive and wanted to beat him up a large hill, but when he passed her, she gave up and called "Honey, I'm going back to the car." He ran back down to her, grabbed her hand, and said "You can do this, we'll do it together." She related it to how when we get halfway up a difficult "hill" in our lives, we have equal distance to turn around and go all the way back to the car or keep pressing forward. She said if she had given up and decided to go sulk because of pride, she would have missed the most beautiful sunrise of her life. She related it to when we get stuck in the middle of our hill and are tired and want to turn back, the Savior takes our hand and helps us up to the "incredible sunrise." So when the going gets tough, never give up! It's simply not worth it to turn around and go back.
Thank you so much for sending watches!! That is so sweet. I haven't had the chance to visit the mail room but I'll pick them up today.
Today my district sisters and I are doing initiatories in the temple instead of endownments. I'm excited.
I told everyone I'm going to be a missionary for Halloween. My costume is pretty convincing. It's scary enough to scare the dickens out of Satan himself!
;)
Man I sure miss you all. I'll have to get over that, I've got 17 more months! Hahah. But I'm doin fine.
What are you all doing for Halloween?? Did you do anything over the weekend? I wish I could carve pumpkins and stuff! My companion said that when we contact our new investigator today, when he opens the door, we'll say "trick or treat."
This week we had an awesome experience teaching. We've been very frustrated and discouraged with our investigator Maria. She often doesn't keep commitments and even when we know she is feeling the Spirit and receiving a witness of the truth, she still says, "Mm, maybe. Maybe I'll read. Maybe I'll go to church. Eh." But this week in Preach My Gospel, I learned that investigator's needs are like an iceberg~you can only see the tip of it, that's all they'll give you, but under the surface is the real lot of it, the majority of what's really going on. So it's up to us to ask and ask and ask questions until we get to the very source of the problem, the very root of what they don't understand or what they need or what's holding them back. So in our last lesson with Maria, I realized I had been flipping through the scriptures while my companion talked, thinking of what to say next, when the thought came to my mind (that I learned from Preach My Gospel this week also): "Stop thinking of what to say next, and just LISTEN." So I stopped and listened to what Maria and my companion were trying to say and it made all the difference in the world. I was totally prompted by the Spirit as to what to say and ask and share and it was exactly what Maria needed to hear. We've always had to try so hard to get her to pray or do anything at all, and this time she willingly prayed right there with us and pleaded for a forgiveness of her sins. It was so heartfelt. She was crying. She told us she wanted to go to church with us on Sunday.
This lesson was the answer to mine and Hermana Alley's prayers. Maria had me legit soooo discouraged about the whole mission for so long. I felt like every single investigator would be just like her and I would never be able to help convert anybody because they just weren't going to listen. I had no faith in myself or in my future investigators. But when I changed this attititude and finally started teaching the way He wants me to teach, it was successful. And I'll tell you, that one moment made every single other struggle with her completely worth it. I would go through it all again and even more if it meant achieving the same result. One of my friends Scott from King Henry was talking to me right before I left and he said "It doesn't matter if you even BLED for that person to be baptized, it's all worth it in the end." And I can already feel that's so true! It gave me all the boost and motivation I needed to keep pressing on. It also made me think of President Hinckley, when he said that life is actally mostly about the hard times, doing the stuff you don't wanna do every day, and that the awesome happy moments are actually somewhat rare blessings. But when you have those moments, it's amazing how it gives you the strength to do everything all over again.
One more experience~~ a few days ago I was just feeling awful. I just was having no confidence and no faith and feeling insecure and couldn't focus or do anything right or just bleh. I was studying Spanish and could NOT understand the concept of Past Subjunctive and I just kinda broke down. I felt so stupid cause the whole class saw me crying over Spanish hahha. But my awesome teacher Hermana Arroyo came and comforted me and said that God knows I can do this. He's there helping me and He wouldn't give me any challenge I couldn't suceed in. I felt such a comforting feeling when she said that. My companion took me to the bathroom so I could just cry for a bit and let it all out ahhah and while I was in the stall I felt someone there with me, comforting me so much. I KNEW either the Savior or a ministering angel was right there with me and was taking away my huge burden, filling me with so much love. It then turned into I couldn't stop crying because I felt Heaven'y FAther's incredible love for me and my significance to Him. It gave me such a stronger testimony of Him and the SAvior's reality and their great love and pacience with all of us. Their whole purpose really is for us to succeed. They don't have other things on their adgenda but to help us make it throguh this life and gain salvation. They love us more that I can know. I've been wondering, though, if it could have been an angel there with me, maybe my dad. I'm not sure but I keep praying to know if it could have been him who was there. I wouldn't doubt it at all if it was. Often when I feel his presence like that it's incredibly strong and undeniable.
Well I have to run cause I'm already al little past my time but I love you all!!! Thank you so much for all your prayers and letters! I wanna make you proud and Heavenly FAther is helping me to do so!
PS Kim gets here on WEDNESDAY!!!! THREE DAYS!!!! AHHHHH!!!!
Okay LOVE YOU!!!!
Happy Halloween!!!
Hermana Wadsworth :)
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