Dear Family!
I got your advent package! Thank you, thank you! What a cute missionary mom
you are.
Soooo yesterday we had two
people who were going to meet us at Schaffhausen
Bahnhof and walk to church with us (the chapel is not the absolute easiest to
find). And . . . neither of them came and neither of them would answer their
phone. That is very normal. We almost always have people who we hope will
come to church, and usually some that we're meeting so that
we can walk together.
Also, ignore the
random capitals. Or fix them. In German you capitalize all nouns and so sometimes
this Computer decides to capitalize my letters for me. Very annoying.
Also we saw the
elders at Bahnhof waiting for two people that they had planned on walking to
church with. And these two are actually investigators with baptismal Dates
but they didn't come that day either. So eventually the four of us walked to church
together, with no visitors. But, on the way to church we ran into one of the
elders' investigators (a different one)! So we convinced him to
come to church. And so that was a wonderful miracle. Then I'm sitting in Relief
Society (the hour of church that is the women's meeting)... and our branch president comes and pulls me out (Sister McEwen was in
Young Womens (the meeting for 12-18 year old girls) with our one Young woman and the Young Womens president) and says there's
someone here who says the sisters invited him. So I go out and I don't
recognize the man at all but that's fine because we invite tons
of people to church and I might not necessarily even recognize them. But
when he told me his name I remembered him. When we were working on the area
book once his record wiggled its way across the room. So we were asking
ourselves what that record was doing there and decided to call the person (a former investigator). And he said he wanted to meet us at church. So
we've called him pretty regularly, about once a week since and he finally
showed up at church. He was too late for Sacrament Meeting but it was also a
miracle that he showed up.
This week our ward
went to the temple with the youth. So we went too but we did initiatories. (FYI - a temple ordinance that pronounces eternal blessings on the individual). And
it is a little bit significant that missionaries don't wear their nametags in
the temple (FYI - In the temple, everyone wears very similar white clothing as a reminder that we are all equal in the sight of the Lord). And I just think it's cool because really everyone has a name tag
on when they're doing temple work. The temple matron was one of the workers for
our initiatories so that was cool. Also, I had some good conversations with our
DML (mission leader for the congregation) (instead of GML because we're a branch) in the car on the way there and
back. One of the things we talked about was how when he went on his mission he had
only been a member for a year and had no clue about a lot of the church's
doctrine. And he was just talking about his spiritual growth and about how he
is always growing spiritually. He grew so much on his mission, but he
has just continued to learn so much and grow so much spiritually. And he
still does continue!
It reminds me of
President Packer's Poem about growing old and waxing in spirituality. The problem is that if you somewhere along the way stop doing your part, you will
no longer grow spiritually. The missionaries who had a testimony on their
mission and came home and fell away obviously stopped reading the scriptures,
praying sincerely, and going to church. Why do the scriptures go on and on
about enduring to the end? Because so often that's the part we're messing up.
If you will just do
the big three (read, pray, attend church meetings), things will go better for
you. Yes you will still have trials. But you'll be able to deal with
them better. You will have your most important questions answered. Yesterday I
had an investigator ask me Point blank: "How has all this blessed your
life?"
And I know how! I
know God's plan for me and I know how I can return to him! I know the purpose
of life, I know that I can be with my family forever, I know that Jesus Christ
is my Savior. How has it not blessed me?! All of my important questions are
answered. And I could go on and on about other ways the Gospel has blessed my
life, but I would say the number one way is that I know the answers to the
questions that trouble so many people. I know my divine destiny.
Yeah okay hopefully
that made sense. I love you family! A super awesome article that Sister McEwen
read aloud to me in companionship study today is from the July 2012 Liahona and
it's called "Never give Up." So don't ever give up, okay?
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