Life is Good

Hello everyone!

It is the most wonderful Monday. It's 25 Degrees, thick cloudy weather, and there's Christmas decorations going up. It hasn't exactly snowed yet but it rains a lot and collects SUPER quickly into the HUGE east coast pot-holes. I love rain, and I love Christmas, and I love P-day. I can't wait to go home after this and take a nap. I haven't taken a nap since July. All of you people who have even the slightest bit of free time during the day; do not underestimate the power of a power-nap. If I could, I would TOTALLY take naps everyday. So use it to your advantage, all ye that are not heavy-laden and pre-scheduled 24/7. 

Not that I'm jealous.

Life is so good! 

Oh yeah. Remember that pattern of email that I was going to start doing? I changed my mind. I think it stressed me out even more trying to think of a particular funny story or a specific lesson learned.

Yeah, life is good! I'm going on month 11 now in the mission. In my mind I'm still just a newbee. It always surprises me when I realize how long I've been here. I feel like I shouldn't know the other missionaries yet or know the areas yet or know the patterns and rotations for all of our meetings. But I do. It seems totally normal to me to plan every minute of every day, and to call people with the request of "can we drop by your house tomorrow?" with no questions asked and a strong, "Of course!! What time?" in response. And to be honest, I don't know exactly why we're going over either. I just get names in my head and I think, "we should really go talk to so-and-so. It's been awhile." Most of the time that's reason enough. Just tell them it's been awhile and they'll have you right over! I don't know if people like me or if it's just typical for missionaries to make friends quickly, but I'll take all the friends I can get. 

The coolest part is once we have those appointments and drop-bys set, we get to talk about it the night before and figure out what exactly we're going to do when we get there. What have they been working on recently? Did they find a new job? Did their boyfriend ever accept their apology? Were they able to get a hold of their Dad finally? Have they been reading the scriptures? Has it been helping? Were they at church? Did they look happy? What did they say? What did they do?

Those questions are just our own ideas. It helps us remember the last thing we did with them and gets us thinking about what we could do to help. But just wait. It get's even cooler.

Then we say a prayer together, asking to know what we should share with each individual person. We ask to know what they need, and to understand how they feel. We ask so that we can do all we can to help them when we see them the next day.

Then we start planning again. Our questions change a little. Our ideas link to scriptures that link to explanations that link to personal stories and object lessons and all of this combined pieces together and creates a lesson. And it's just for them. Specifically with them in mind. 

The next day we finish putting it together in the morning and then we go out and teach, and serve, and find, and help, and listen, and talk, and hopefully do and say all of the same things that Christ would say if he were here. There is not a single thing that a missionary can't help with. Well, as long as it's keeping them obedient. I won't offer to help set up for a party at a bar but if you call me late one night and say that you really need help getting home, you can bet that I'll find you a ride. I'll do absolutely anything I'm asked to do for the people that I love.

WIND DOWN

So here it is. Every day is full of different, unique, crazy, sometimes boring, experiences. Good bad happy sad ugly. At the end of the day if you've done everything that you can, you feel pretty exhausted. This is my favorite feeling. When you get in bed completely sore, eyelids heavy, spiritually and mentally exhausted... and you have just a few minutes to think and be grateful for everything you have before falling into a deep sleep. 

How is this possible? 

Some would say that if you do all you can that you'll come home and collapse into a coma-like-sleep until you wake up the next day bright and early to do it all over again. 

Or maybe you'd say that if you really give it your all that you'd come home, diligently study till the last minutes of the night, and crawl into bed with more thoughts going and more ideas brewing. You'll probably lose half your sleep but you're going to be dead-center focused on the work you're doing.

If you have the option of staying out later, then "doing all you can" might be defined by staying out as long as you can. The more hours at work, the more successful the story. 

What I've learned is that there is genuinely, truthfully an order to all things. Organization is more than cleaning up what you just dirtied and having a place for everything. Organization means order in all things. There's an order in which you have to do things before you'll find true success. You have to take the time to learn a song and really study it piece by piece before you can effectively practice it. You have to learn how to chew a grape before you're capable of tackling a steak. And as a human being, you have to prepare before you do. You have to practice a little before you act. You have think before you say. Sure it's possible to do things in a different order. But think about it... if you really want to be successful in what you're doing then there's a particular order you need to follow. You are unique but you're not so different that you can be an exception to all the rules. 

A PROMISE

Everything you do, with a genuine effort, and a desire for it to go well, will eventually go well whether you see it or not. That might be a lame promise. But it's a lot better than if I were to promise that everything you set out to do will work out exactly how you want it to. That would be a lie. 

Yesterday I saw 4 things happen that wouldn't have happened had I not been here. 4 people learned something from 4 different things I've said or done. In the moment that I said it I had no idea if it was going to really effect them. But it did! Eventually. Last night I went to bed and I knew that everything I've done here has been worth it. 4 small things was all it took. A sister gave a lesson in church based on a chapter of a book that I copied and gave her a few months ago. She actually read it and not only that, she liked it enough to share it with 30 other women! A young girl with a track-record with nasty boyfriends made a list of characteristics she wants in a husband and she based it off of someone she met when she came to an appointment with us. We brought her specifically so that she could meet him. She remembered! And she actually learned something from it! A sweet sister stood up and bore her testimony of something she realized when she came and taught with us one day. A family that we work closely with always says "the sisters did this" or "the sisters taught us this" before they share it with others. A sweet old lady gave us a tupaware of macaroni for absolutely no reason... she simply made it, thought of us, and packaged it up and gave it to us. I have no idea why she did this. I haven't visited her recently. But she must have had something good happen to her... because she did something wonderful for us. 

I'm so grateful to be here and I'm so grateful to do the Lord's work! I'm grateful to all of you for putting up with me and for reading through my horrendously long blogs. I'm grateful for my family, and for my friends that are as-good-as family. I'm grateful for the teachers that have shaped my life and encouraged me along the way. Life is so good. 

You're life is good, too, isn't it?

LOVE YOU 

hermana hileman