Thursday, October 23, 2014

buscar a este Jesús

                                                                                                                                                             October 20, 2014
¡Hola!  

Thanks for looking up all that stuff on my Facebook.  It's fun to hear about what people are doing.  :)   I am so happy for Kristyn!  She is fabulous.  You can accept the friend request from A.  She is one of my investigators who just got baptized about a month ago.  Of course Daddy isn't taking his allergy medicine.  :P  I have been taking some because it helps me wake up with less headache.  With the flash drive...the thing I have is just a speaker with a USB port.  So whatever flash drive works to listen to music.  Abby is so sweet!  If she just copies the CDs onto the flash drive, it'll be good for my speaker.  The Relief Society meeting sounds awesome!  I don't know President Galt, but his wife was our stake YW president when we first moved to Georgia and she is awesome.  So I am excited to get to know him when I come home!  I'm sad that K came home early.  :(  Honestly, being a missionary is such a special, sacred time.  How sad to cut it short when it is so short to begin with!  It is hard.  But it is so, so worth it.

We have transfers on Wednesday, but since Hermana Wadsworth and I just started out together 2 weeks ago, I really don't think we are going to have transfers.  But it's just crazy because I only have 3 transfers left!  That's only 4 months!  AhHhHhH!!!  How CRAZY!  I can't even believe how fast this last transfer went by.  Every transfer goes by faster.  I told Daddy in my email that I feel the opposite of the people who come home early from their missions.  "Can I have more than 4 months left in Chile?"  But I know that there is a reason that the Lord called me for only 18 months, and that I need to finish this mission to be able to continue to progress in life.  But today I talked to one of the senior missionaries, and he told me something that made a lot of sense to me.  He said that we have to take the next step in our lives just as we have taken the mission...with faith in the Lord, and trust that He will help.  There is really no use in worrying, or wondering what the next phase of my life will bring.  I just need to give it all I've got for four more months, and then come home to do the very best that I can in my new life.  I have learned so much on this mission.  It is completely priceless and I wouldn't trade it for the world.  Even the hard days are memories that I treasure and times when I could come closer to my Savior.  I'm doing really good right now.  I feel stable.  I am more patient and loving with myself, which makes me more able to do the work that the Lord needs me to do.  Of course life can never be perfect and there are still tough days or moments.  But I just have a happier outlook and a lot of hope for every new day.  I feel like with the Lord's help, I can handle whatever comes.  I told the senior missionary today that I feel better than I have felt in probably years!  I feel so happy with the progress I have been able to make and I thank my Heavenly Father and Jesus for all of the experiences and people They have sent me to make it this far!  

This week was a tougher week.  A bunch of our investigators all at once just lost interest, and since we are still both new here, we don't know many people.  So we knocked a lot of doors and did a lot of street contacting.  It was just a lot of walking and searching.  Then I lost my umbrella, and the next day it rained a ton...we locked ourselves out of our house one day....we had planned to go to a district Relief Society activity, but our investigator had to cancel at the last minute...so we had a lot of little frustrating things that made it a tough week.  But Hermana Wadsworth is so awesome and she just keeps saying that all of this opposition and all of the work we are putting into this means that something great is around the corner.  And I am thankful for a hard missionary week so that when the blessings come, I will recognize and appreciate them more.  It also gives me a chance to build my faith that this is the Lord's work, and He is preparing people, so He will show us how to find them.  Also, the more time we had to walk around gave us more time to talk and get to know each other better.  Hermana Wadsworth is fabulous.  I love her so much!  She doesn't go to BYU, she goes to Utah.  But it is still close enough that we can see each other once we are home too.  It's been funny that all of my U.S. companions in the mission have been from basically the same area (Alpine, then Highland, now Lehi).  We are enjoying our time together and learning to appreciate the little miracles.  This week we had one awesome lesson with a member.  We went to visit some new investigators we found and we taught them the Restoration.  We know that they felt the Spirit and we have been praying for them to remember it.

The theme this week comes from one of my favorite scriptures in Ether 12:41.  "Buscar a este Jesús" in English is "seek this Jesus."  In the Book of Mormon, the prophets tell us all about Jesus, about His life, His sufferings, and His attributes.  But I just love the invitation that this verse gives to each of us...to seek this Jesus in our lives.  Seek is an action word...and it is also a word with a promise.  Anyone who truly seeks for something with an honest heart is bound to find it.  I know that if we follow the invitation to seek Jesus in our lives, we will find that He is much closer than we ever imagined Him to be.

I love you all so much!  I hope you enjoy your autumn and think of me when you make caramel popcorn!  :)



Gigantes abrazos, Hermana Latham

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