Is that title dramatic enough for you? Ha.
Hello all!
This week I learned some good lessons:
1. Trust the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding.
2. Jump roping can be dangerous.
3. Plaza Azteca is a yummy restaurant.
But before I get into those things, there's something that I meant to say last week and forgot. And that is: Someone get Taylor Fletcher on the phone and tell her that I found her long lost twin and she's my companion. Seriously. Hermana Johnson, one of my trainees, is so much like Fletcher it kind of freaks me out sometimes. She looks like her, she acts like her, she even runs like her! I almost start to reference old stories from high school sometimes before I catch myself. Here's a picture of her in Walmart... next to a big stack of beer... whoops. She's great, though. I thoroughly enjoy having a mini Fletcher around all the time.
All right, on to the lessons, shall we?
1. One of the biggest challenges as a missionary is to learn how to listen to the Spirit when you're teaching. You find out pretty fast that you can say everything you can think of, but you'll never understand the needs of other people as well as Heavenly Father does, so it's best to rely on His wisdom when you're talking to them. The hard part is figuring out exactly what His wisdom is. Maybe it comes naturally to some people, but personally I am constantly second guessing myself and trying to figure out if the feelings that I have are coming from the Spirit or just from my Hermana Bennett head. Thankfully, this week I think I made some progress.
The first one was with one of our investigators, Aurelia. She has been taught almost all of the lessons and feels the Spirit, but doesn't see the need to change religions and join this church. We have invited her to pray about it lots of times, but she just never gets around to it. Well, last week we decided to have a conversation exactly about that - why she hasn't prayed about it. As we were doing it, it seemed like we were at a stalemate and we just needed to give up, but for some reason I just kept feeling like I needed to be super bold with her. In the end I basically ended up telling her, "Your church isn't true. It isn't led by Jesus Christ. You need to pray to ask if you should join this church." Whaaaaat? I would never say that to someone. And yet she took it really well and agreed to do it. That's how I knew that the Spirit was the one telling me to be so bold, and not me.
Then, a few days ago, we tried to go to an appointment but they weren't home, so we started walking down the street to visit another investigator that lives close by. On the way we saw a member outside with two of his friends, so we walked over and started talking to them. After a few minutes I asked them if they would like to hear our message and they said yes, so we went inside and began talking about what it is that we do as missionaries, their religious background, etc. As part of that conversation, the woman mentioned some difficulties that she was going through, and I felt strongly that we needed to talk about the Plan of Salvation instead of the Restoration like we normally would with new investigators. So we did, and it went really well. At the end I asked them how they felt and, after struggling to explain their feelings, I was able to help them understand that they were feeling the Spirit. Since then we have gone back and taught the Restoration and they accepted a Book of Mormon!
I am so grateful for these experiences that help me to learn how to understand the Spirit and have more confidence as a missionary. That's one thing that I have noticed over these past few weeks of training - I feel like I am receiving a lot more revelation for my investigators because I am the one that knows them the best and that can communicate with them. It is an amazing experience to feel the love that Heavenly Father has for His children and feel Him working through me to communicate with them.
2. This morning I was jump roping during our half hour of exercise. One second I was jumping along fine and the next I was one the ground moaning... Sprained ankle. Ouch. Pretty soon it swelled up pretty big, so we called the mission office and they made me go to an urgent care place to make sure everything was ok. A few x-rays and a million years later they gave me a little stability shoe and some crutches and told me to take it easy for a few days. Good thing we have a car and not bikes! I'm hoping that people will take pity on me and let us in more readily :)
3. There's this Mexican restaurant here in Newport News called Plaza Azteca. So. Delicious. We went there the other day for dinner and it was amazing! Plus, the elders know every single worker in the place, so as soon as we walked in we were greeted by, "Hola, hermanas! Como estan?" We felt like celebrities! So fun.
Well, that's about it! Here's a picture of some nice yard art in a trailer park and me in a wheelchair at the doctor's office.
Have a great week everyone!
Hermana Bennett
No comments:
Post a Comment