One year older and a little wiser too, but not very much taller or cooler

A FUNNY
I turned 22! It's not funny except that I'm one of the last 22 year olds in the whole word serving a mission. Another funny is that while I'm serving a mission all of my friends are getting married and having babies. That's only funny because they're all younger than me, too. And here's what's reeeeally funny. My companion, Hermana Brown, she's turning 24 tomorrow. So it all balances out! 

A GOOD STORY

We were supposed to have dinner with a girl named Evelyn but when we called her the night before we had to tell her that we wouldn't make it. She asked if we had anything going on for lunch and we said no to which she said, "OH NO! Oh, you're gonna be hungry!" and promptly invited us over for lunch. Going to her house is always fun. She lives in the basement of a house and she's decorated it so super-cutely. There's always seasonal decorations and brightly coloured nick-nacks placed here and there. She has 3 boys, ages 3, 2, and 4 months. She has got to be one tough lady because she always seems very level-headed even while the boys are frolicking around, literally running into walls. She's been a member of the church her whole life but she told us that she's never been very strong in the beliefs.  Since it's been such a long time, though, and she's known so many missionaries, and had so many lessons, and been to so many activities and heard so many people say that the church is true and STILL she doesn't really know it for herself... we never know what to teach her. That morning as we prepared to go see her we planned a lesson to help her be an example to her non-member husband and a friend that she invites to church sometimes. Near the end of our planning one of my companions asked, "How is it possible that she doesn't know the church is true? That just doesn't make sense to me." So we back-tracked and planned the lesson all over again. We picked a talk from General Conference and decided to teach around that.

As soon as we started watching the conference talk everything got chaotic. The baby needed to be fed, the macaroni was boiling over, one of the boys had put baby cologne in his eye and the other was drawing with markers on the floor. Evelyn really wanted to hear the talk, though. When we teach her she loves to talk and listen but we never exactly connect with her on anything... this day she really wanted to listen to this talk. So she finished the macaroni and got the baby fed and I sat on the floor with Adrian and asked him to go find some paper. Sitting there I couldn't imagine that she was actually getting anything out of it, but when it ended and we started talking about it she suddenly told us all of these things that she want's to start doing better! Stuff like this happens all the time, but never when it's my idea. Only when we've prayed and asked what God needs us to teach; what HE would teach if he were here. And when we do those lessons, people find their answers.

I know that God knows his children. He knows every single one of us individually, and he knows us perfectly. If we ever need to "talk it out" or set our ideas straight in our head, we can think about it on our own till our face turns blue. One time growing up I was really, really bummed. I got in my car and drove till I got to a fun looking exit, then I drove as high high high as I could, then I got out and hiked as hiiiigh as I could. I sat up on top of this huge hill with a few elk (that miraculously were totally cool with my being there) and just thought. For 10 hours I just thought. I only had this one thought in my mind the whole time and it just kept cycling through and through again. I left that hill feeling just as confused as I did when I got there. I went to pick up a friend and he joined me in my sitting and thinking. He asked how I was, but I didn't answer. He asked what happened, but I didn't answer. I was stuck on that one thought... just the one thought. It was a question. Finally he asked if we could drive somewhere, so we traded spots and he drove aimlessly into the night. After about 30 minutes he pulled into a gas-station at the foot of the Rocky Mountains and we went inside and bought Chocolate Milk and Apple Juice. For the first time all day I talked. And as soon as I talked I felt better! And the sooner that I asked, the quicker we started working through my question. I went to bed that night not entirely sure of what to do next, but I knew that I could do it. I wasn't devastated anymore. The sadness and uncertainty had been replaced with a determination and a faith greater than I had ever known.

There is NO NEED for anyone to sit for 10 hours asking themselves the same question. There is no need to carry the same question from place to place, storing it in the back of your mind till the "time is right". The time is now. RIGHT now! You don't need to wait to find that friend, or to get done with work, or to tackle that last bit of homework, or wait till you're lying in bed at night or sitting on top of a mountain. You can kneel down right now wherever you are and ask your question.The sooner you ask, the sooner you'll find your answer.

A LESSON LEARNED

Missionaries help people progress, right? We go to people's homes and listen to them and ask them questions so that we can figure out what their real needs are. You know when you aren't sure how you're feeling but then when you sit down with a friend and talk it out a bit? You say things that surprise even yourself and by the end of the conversation, whether you agree with your friend or not, you suddenly know exactly how you feel. This is what missionaries do. We help people find answers. The Massachusetts Boston Mission has a website called Real Life Answers that I've been writing and taking pictures for. All the missionaries and church members here are contributing to the website. When people have questions, they go searching for the answers and our hope is that in the right time we'll be able to find them and help them talk through it... help them find answers.

This week I learned that I can do this same thing. I can be a walking blog post. I don't need to wait for the opportunity to sit down with someone in order to tell them something that will help them. Even more than that, I learned that I can turn everything I say into something uplifting. Something I always think of is how important it is to strive to be like Christ. To really, truly, genuinely be like Christ is impossible, but the more we strive for it the closer we will come. I realized that every time I say something negative, I'm not portraying myself as Christ would. When I say a funny sarcastic comment, I'm not following Christ's example. Sometimes I wonder if I'll lose my sense of humor or become a really dry boring lady if I cut out these "funny" things. But then I immediately remember that I'm hilarious, and I have no need to worry about that. But honestly, if we could all try to be more like Jesus... can you imagine how amazing the world would be? Remember those WWJD bracelets? Or the CTR rings that we wear? Constant reminders... but how often do we act on that prompting? Well I am going to do my best to get better at it.


PICTURES

 

1)Elder Gifford Nielsen of the 70 came to our conference last Thursday. It was awesome. He and his wife are some of the nicest people I know.

 

2)The transformation: last night as 21, first morning as 22! It was a really successful transition, I'd say.