Hola familia y amigos,
Disclaimer: I'm going to give you a little window into the missionary world before I start this email. Emailing in the missionary world is a bit like suddenly realizing that the bubble you are living in is now the world as it is, or the world as you know it, and that people do all these super normal things while you are gone that are no longer in your life vocabulary. So it's a little hard in that way. Especially if you've been staying REALLY FOCUSED; which I have been trying to be. That being said, I will try to not be awkward in this email.
Ok OVERVIEW
This week feels like a turning point. We had this meeting for trainers/trainees with President Mullen and the AP's and in that meeting they said a few things that made me realize how I can change my attitude for the better in missionary work. Point no. 1) We develop Christlike attributes by using the Atonement. I had never even THOUGHT of that before, and it made me super happy because one of the most stressful things about being on a mission has been comparing myself to Christ everyday and realizing almost constantly how UN-Christlike I actually am. To know that we don't have to do it alone/relying on our own strength (which I guess I should have understood) made me realize that I can become more Christlike, step by step, as I exercise faith in my Savior and His Atonement, and have patience with myself. Point no. 2) This one isn't as easily squeezed into one sentence, but I sort of realized that if I am as exactly obedient as I can be and as diligent/focused as I can be (improving every day), then I won't feel bad about the things that don't work out. This has translated into the changing of a few behaviors that I believe are going to really help me/us (because we changed a few of them together as a companionship) become much more effective missionaries. Now of course it's not that we were these huge rebellious rule breakers before, it's just that there were a few little things that we needed to tweak and we have DEFINITELY seen the blessings of doing so. And in terms of diligence, mostly I have been trying to improve the effectiveness of my personal study. I was really motivated by the training that the AP's did on effective companion study and I have been inspired to make some changes to my personal study because of it. Buying a watch has definitely helped me with this too, because every 15-20 minutes I can move my study to a different topic for a different lesson/person. Some of you may be wondering now how on earth I survived without a watch. The answer-- you are always within sight and hearing of your companion and if they have a watch you are ok, therefore I was always fine. But I determined that for TRULY effective personal study, I was going to need a watch of my own! Anyways, I guess the point is that I have realized that if I put forth my 100%, then I can deal with the rejection and I can deal with having to drop people and being dropped by people and everything else along that line. I didn't realize it UNTIL THAT MEETING, but I was really stressed because I didn't feel that I was doing EVERYTHING POSSIBLE for these people, and now I feel like I am. It's actually pretty funny, our mission focus for the month includes having more effective planning, and the other night our district leader was surprised that when he called us (he's a good district leader and calls every night to see how our day went and remind us to send in our numbers) we were still planning. Our planning sessions have started to be almost an hour long every day and while that has left less time for journeling and has basically cut out my bedtime snack (but goodness knows I can do without that!); I have truly seen how we have been blessed by it, especially in the past few days and I can testify that I have strong faith in good planning and effective planning sessions. Per example, we got 11 NEW INVESTIGATORS THIS WEEK. All from being prayerful and taking time to plan about what potentials and formers to visit!! missionary vocabulary translation moment-- Potentials= people that we met (or previous missionaries met) on the street, in a park, in a parking lot or at a store or something that signified interest to one level or another and provided a phone number and or an address. Formers= people that were taught before but were dropped/dropped the missionaries that were teaching them for one reason or another. I LOVE sifting through formers while planning. It is like my absolute most favorit-ist thing to do! I just love the idea that we could finish someone's journey. There is actually one lady that has like literally 6 pages of reports dedicated just to her that was dropped and re-picked up like a million times and it is my secret dream to baptize her before we leave Moreno Valley. Unfortunately, she is not usually home...
SPIRITUAL LIGHTBULB OF THE WEEK
All right, now that I've admitted my dorky attraction to the area book, let's move on to what I learned spiritually cause the fact is it is directly related to the more temporal(ish-- cause let's face it, even the temporal stuff is spiritual on a mission...) lessons learned above. I've decided that I've got to exercise more faith. I may have mentioned last week that something I found in the bible dictionary (under the definition of "faith") said "Faith is a principle of POWER." (capitilization and colorization courtesy of moi) This has become my new moto. I jokingly used it to motivate myself and others at thanksgiving, but in the end it actually helps with absolutely anything. You know that phrase "If you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right." ? I guess that's what this goes under. It's weird because LOGICALLY whether or not you THINK something is going to happen, should not affect whether or not it is actually going to happen; but there are to things I have to say about that 1. Let's face it-- Missionary work, logically speaking, would never work without something more than logic at play. Because if we all had only considered logic, and never listened to the spirit (which does not often speak in the most logical/realistic of terms), none of us would even BE HERE. 2. THERE ACTUALLY IS A LOGICAL EXPLANATION FOR WHY IT WORKS. If you believe something is going to happen-- or that it is likely to happen-- you work harder for it. And I had my own arguments to this logic at first, until this week when I exercised faith and saw this concept at play. If you have hope that any of the work you are doing is actually going to count/make a difference, then you have more emotional strength to do it. AND THUS SEE HOW EVEN IN THE LOGICAL/SCIENTIFIC/BIOLOGICAL WORLD IT IS CLEAR THAT FAITH TRULY IS A PRINCIPLE OF POWER. I hope that made sense. I think it's really cool anyways...
JOKE OF THE WEEK
Ok so remember my constant problem of needing to eat the hugest dinners in the world every night? I HAVE FOUND THE SOLUTION. Oh haha, ok so to explain the solution I have to explain a constant situation that I have left out of my letters. Elders. I had no idea, before my mission, how much I would have to deal with Elders. I thought, for some reason, that since you are not really supposed to interact with members of the opposite gender in a romantic way that they would keep us all pretty far away from each other. BOY WAS I WRONG. We have meetings with them at LEAST once a week, the district leader (as I mentioned before) calls us every day, and pretty much every person we ever need to report to about anything ends up being an Elder. SO MANY ELDERS. I actually thought about writing to you guys about this in the MTC but decided not too because it wouldn't have been funny like this. There was a point in the MTC at which I was absolutely pulling all the hair out of my head over this situation. Because let's face it, under those suits and ties and name tags, Elders are just boys and for anyone that knows me really well-- I'm not that good at dealing with boys. Guess that's a lesson I'm gonna learn on the mission; fortunately or unfortunately. haha Anyways, my point. So one day, we went to zone conference and I like had my usual bad reaction to being in a room with 6 sisters and like a bajillion elders in it, and right afterwards we went to lunch. I ate (and I kid you not) an entire bowl of chicken soup, half a plate of mashed potatoes filled with spinach, half a plate of white rice, and 3 pieces of pork in like-- less than 20 minutes. I finished before all the other sisters, and THEN downed a thing of jello. So my new solution to eating all this food is that I just think of the annoyance of Elders before I eat and then I am granted the magical capability of being able to eat everything way faster than anybody else. hahaha... No worries though I'm not gaining weight as far as I can tell, and besides I don't really have a choice. I have to eat it either way. Running and zumba and small morning meals are saving me from getting huge, I think/hope. haha but anyways I thought people who knew me really well might think that was funny! haha :P
Sorry to quit out on the top ten again this week. What you basically need to know is that this week we took on 3 new families and as a preview for next week we are working with a guy named J now who I think we will basically be able to work a miracle with. He said we came at just the right time! Unfortunately I've got to send in my weekly report now before my time's up, but I'll fill you in on all our new investigators and the actual stuff that we are doing next week. Sorry I just really wanted to tell you all the cool stuff I am learning first! Just know I am doing really well and I'm pretty sure that it is all uphill from here!!! :D
Love you all buckets!
Hermana Lindsey