Sorry I don't have many missionary stories to tell. I've never been a good story teller, and I feel like a liar telling stories anyways because everyone knows a "good story" is largely way more entertaining and even really story worthy after the fact, and in the moment, it's whatever. All the good, in the moment happenings make for uninteresting stories to tell.
To be honest, I felt like the spiritual moments were more poignant in Nauvoo. Maybe more nuanced, but they felt more. . .effective? Influential?
We've finished a transfer already. And Sister Reynolds and I are staying together in Greenbrier which is for the best, as we are on the brink of accomplishing some good things, but have yet to see a lot of results. We have yet to be able to meet with Kevin again. We set up some appointments but he hasn't been home. This has happened a lot with us.
We've been working with a 17 year old girl whose younger brothers got baptized somewhat recently but are now inactive. She is super sweet but their family is going through hard times--the single mom's only way to work, the car, broke down--and the mood is just super depressed whenever we go there. There's no hope there, and it's hard to know how to instill hope--that God is there, that He answers prayers--without there being any faith. And of course the family has trouble having faith because times are so hard. I guess that's the thing about faith. Sometimes you just have to act without really believing or having hope. A desire is really all it takes. But try to convey that to others--"You just need a desire! Oh, you don't have a desire . . .? Well, then you have to get one." Hence, if your heart is soft, opposition in all things takes its role eventually, and your desire will grow.
I had a very good prayer experience the other day. Some of the best experiences are prayer experiences, let me tell you. I was feeling awful and very in need of direction (I think that's one of my big problems these days--sensory overload. Too many weaknesses/problems/confusion in too many directions. I don't know where to start or what the core of my problem is, or how to approach it. What do I really need to improve on? Charity, humility, faith, gratitude, etc? Well, I've prayed for all of them--I don't know what else to do.) Anyways, so I pretty much started my prayer off asking for things because I just felt the need for so much direction. I realized, that later in life/eternity, I"ll probably be embarrassed at how whiny my prayers were, so I decided to just pray for things I was grateful for, even though I didn't want to. And soon enough, Heavenly Father gave me things to be thankful for that came to mind that made me feel happy. It doesn't happen all the time like that. But I'm taking the little things, and I've realized that I have enough faith and I just need to wait on the Lord's timing now. It's always worked out for me in the past.
But you know, when things seem bad, it feels like they've always been bad. And vice versa.
Ok, love you!
Love, Rachel
No comments:
Post a Comment