HOLAAAAA!
This has been a crazy week it feels like, and maybe not in the best ways :(
First of all, I have officially completed my 9 month mark so I now have completed more time that I have left to serve! My companion asked me a million times "How do you feel? How do you feel?" But I don't feel the time really. It's crazy to think I have accomplished so much, but I still feel like I have a lot left to do. I'm happy about it though, because there are so many awesome things about being a missionary.
The reason I saw this week as hard, is because we ran into a lot of difficult people. Honestly, they tested my faith a little! One family we went to because they were a reference from a less active and, dang! To start, we got there and the wife asked what we wanted because she said she already knew everything we believed. I told her we wanted to share how we know we have a living day prophet. Haha, that was a mistake, because she began to tell us how SHE is a prophet, and her husband is a pastor of a church. They did let us in and they were honestly super nice, but everything I shared with them they had an argument for. It was frustrating because I don't know the bible super well, or Spanish perfectly, and was alone because my companion still can't understand/speak much... I could tell that it probably wouldn't have mattered much because they were VERY into their religion. Their family only believes in TV for watching church movies, and I'm pretty sure all they read is the bible. While we were talking to the parents the son was reading the bible and praying the whole hour or so we were there. Anyway, I feel like that was a fail. Their daughter was a ray of hope though, because she accepted our Book of Mormon. All things happen for a reason right?
A bunch of the other families we went to this week were SO awesome, just really happy and content with their religion. It really makes me wonder sometimes why they are so content when they don't know/have everything we do. It comes down to how well we teach our first lesson with them. After this week my companion and I have been thinking really hard of what we can teach right at the beginning to get them to understand and have that desire to know more.
Today in district meeting I felt like I got a lot of answers to all of those kinds of questions I had. It made me feel a lot better about this week. One thing I'm realizing is I need to have more confidence! Sometimes when I get there I doubt my testimony, if what we have really will make them happier, but honestly, I know it, so I have to act more like it!
On Sunday, one of the members spoke about afflictions and I really liked what he had to say. He hasn't been home from his mission for long, but he said lately he's prayed a lot for patience and humility and things like that. He says it's funny because when he asks for those things, he always gets answered with some kind of trial that day that teaches him that attribute he asked for. I got thinking about it, and I've been asking for stronger faith and I really believe this week God has been trying to help me out with that. What better way to learn faith than to be put in front of people who have one different than you? And not just a little different, but wayyy different! It’s true that every test we face is to make us better and stronger. Without trials and tests of our faith, we never get a chance to really know what we believe.
I know that I belong to the same church that Jesus Christ organized when he was on the earth. I know the Book of Mormon is an inspired book meant for us today to help keep us headed in the right direction. I know that there are things we must do to be able to return to live with God and that baptism is one of them. I know that the Holy Ghost exists and brings us peace and comfort and teaches and guides us, even if we don't realize it all the time.
I'm really glad for all my trials, no matter how little they have been, because I've learned a lot by going through them. And I’m thankful for you guys reading this: Don't get discouraged by your trials. God loves you, so he blesses you with trials. In Elder Bednar's talk last conference, he talked about the truck that got stuck, and only made it out by adding extra weights. Trials we get through now, are what help us survive trials later, they are our extra weights. We just have to choose to grow from them!
Love you all,
Hermana Harper
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