This week was a pretty dang good one. I've come to a lot of pivotal realizations as I am slowly trying to figure out the weird (but good) shift of becoming a missionary.
Pageant is a fun place to do missionary work, and in some ways is easier because you can pick people out more, and everyone's feeling more social. Sometimes it's a little awkward though. I guess it depends. Somehow, Sister Garner and I got talking to these two guys (mid-late 20s ish?). One was a member and one was not. They were both incredibly intelligent. It was a fantastically philosophical conversation, which I have missed so so dearly. And the Spirit was there--as sometimes seemingly "philosophical" conversations are actually simply cynical, and the conversation really just feels like a giant house falling in on itself . . .if that makes sense. I have come to realize that cynicism is not equal to new/intellectual thought, despite what the little punks on mormon.org chat seem to think.
Anyways, the member was taking issue on what I guess I would define as the rhetorical strategy for feeling the spirit in Nauvoo. Some of the other young sisters he had come in contact with, he felt had been stuck in a box and wound up (and some other pretty funny figures of speech), and he felt like it inhibited the spirit. He felt like the places speak for themselves and didn't like being told how to feel. We then had a conversation about how the Spirit can be felt, and what facilitates it (Ah, the age old dilemma).
Through the course of the conversation, he taught me some important things. I think he ultimately just felt like the presentations were a bit robotic, and that the missionaries didn't really have a passion for what they were teaching. He told of a time towards the end of his mission in which his bishop wrote him, "Teach what you love." I found that highly fascinating in the context of missionary work. I had never thought to think that because, in theory, as missionaries of course we are teaching what we love. That's why we are missionaries.
But I did come to realize that sometimes you feel things more than others. And you can't just say "These broken plates remind us of the Atonement. Just as they were put back together, Christ can make us whole as well," without thinking about it, and truly feeling the importance of it beforehand. When you get in a routine, it's easy to do that. I know the "answers" for most things, but I had to think about how often I really am thinking and caring deeply about it when I express it to others. And of course, I care pretty deeply most of the time. But it helped me re-evaluate how I do tours. If I feel like a certain metaphor will be forced, I'm just not saying it. Yes, I believe "families can be together forever," but if I'm not internalizing the reality of that as the Woodruff family experienced, I'm not saying it in their home just because.
I also had a powerful experience in post greeting at the Pageant this week. S.Garner and I were up towards the front of the stage where the actors were, and I was getting frustrated because there was no one to talk to and all the people were rushing to go/socializing with friends. But then I turned around and there was a lady just sitting there. No one just sits there. It was little bit of a forced conversation. Not because she didn't want to talk per se, but I think she just didn't know how to deal with it all (it being the pageant, other emotions, etc.). It turned out she was a non-member who comes to Pageant with the person she takes care of. Somehow it got out that her partner/husband had died a few years ago and it was apparent that she had not gotten over it. She said she felt like she had lost her best friend, and she got tears in her eyes.
I was able to tell her that relationships are eternal, and that her partner is looking after her, and caring about her and her growth right now. I said things I did not know I really had to say. Things I had believed beforehand, of course, but nothing I had really ever put into words before. Then I just left, and it was like, "what just happened?" Those kind of experiences are hard for me to comprehend. I think largely because I'm simply the instrument that God is using, and I don't understand why the conversation is significant, but I can feel that it is. It's funny how that happens some times. In some conversations, before anything of importance is really even said, you can just feel that it's going to be important.
Transfers are this week! We get 3 new girls (such an anomaly, by the way), and everyone wants people to guess what's going to happen, but of course no one really has any idea. It's a fruitless endeavor. I don't think S.Garner and I are going to stay together. Having accepted that, I'm excited for change (theoretically, of course)! This next transfer will only be 4 weeks, and then some of my favorite sisters will be going home. It's a sad, sad day. There are too many people I want to be companions with and not enough transfers left.
Ok, well I love you!
Love, Sister Ross
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