hey everyone!
it was an adventurous week! on wednesday we were on our way to our area--as in, on the FREEWAY-- and our care broke down! it started shaking and all these lights and messages started blinking on my dashboard and when i pushed on the gas it wouldn't engage until i reached like 5 thousand RPM. so i got off immediately... i was so scared that our car was going to explode or something! haha :) but we made it off the freeway alive (thankfully no one ran into us)... and even though that could have ruined my day, i actually enjoyed the adventure of it all! it put me in a better mood than i was already in! haha. i just got to enjoy the prospect of the funny situation we were about to be in and see what heavenly father had planned for us. :) we pulled over on a random road while we waited for our fleet coordinator to come save us... and outside of the little house we parked by was a little old man doing yard work. welp. naturally we decided to talk to him, considering he was the only human being in sight. :) he was such a SWEET little old man. his name was frank, and it just broke my heart talking to him. he lived alone, and it was his brother's birthday, the only family member he has thats still alive, but who lives on the east coast. he talked about how he always has panic attacks, and about how he felt like he wasn't worth anyone's time, that he just tries to do his best to live what they teach at church and not hurt anyone. we testified about the plan of salvation and about how he really COULD find happiness, that it didn't have to always be "elusively around the corner." he didn't give in to letting missionaries come by, but he expressed how glad he was that we came to talk to him... "that makes two good things that happened to me on my brother's birthday. someone offered me a puppy, and you girls came to talk to me. that makes it a good day." !!! it was such a blessing to talk to that sweet man... we left him with a chapter of the book of mormon to read. (he already had one.) i just can't wait for frank to see how much he really means to heavenly father... that he really has worth, despite his shame-filled opinion of himself and his life.
and guess what? since heavenly father's perfect, the two appointments we would have missed because of our break down fell through anyway on their own... you know me. i would have been real stressed to miss a lesson. :) but he took care of it. he's just so good. we got dropped off at our institute and still were able to have 4 lessons, despite the set back. one of them was with elisabeth, one of our investigators. she told us she didn't want to learn any more. oddly enough, i felt really good about it. i know that i did everything i was supposed to with her. i know she felt the spirit and right now she's just afraid of the truth. and i feel like her friend... like when she sees us around she'll still be excited to see us. and i will still be excited to see her. i LOVE that girl. and in the end she'll come around, because ultimately she wants to do what god wants her to do. so i'm not worried. :) it's a GREAT feeling, knowing that i accomplished my labor in that area of the vineyard, even if it means the fruit isn't fully grown yet.
guess what else was AWESOME? :) we had a special YSA fireside with the whole region. they're called mission president's firesides, and they are composed of a missionary choir, special musical numbers by missionaries, mormon message videos, and testimonies of recent converts. oh and a message from president clayton. and they are always SO GOOD. the spirit is soooo strong.... they're specifically for the purpose of inviting nonmembers so they can feel the spirit testifying of the truth. well, we had two investigators there (one was sara, who we lost last week, but she still wants to come around to the activities). so it was great. AND, the best part of ALL, i got to see all my friends from my wonderful black mountain branch!! josh, lily, courtney, meaghan, tori, heather, oliver, paul.... oh my heart was so happy. I LOVE YOU BLACK MOUNTAIN! (i know you're reading this. ;) )
i often have the thought come to mind--and maybe i've already written about this--that i wish an apostle could be my companion. like, i think to myself, "man, if elder holland were in that lesson, there's no way we would have lost that investigator." and then it hit me. even when JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF was testifying to people, they didn't believe him. the savior of the world, the master teacher, the son of god--and people didn't listen. it's not that. it's simply people's choice to harden their hearts or ignore the spirit. if i am living worthy of my calling, i am a representative of jesus christ. i stand in his place. and i just have just as much power to influence people by the spirit as if he or elder holland were standing right beside me. :) CRAZY, huh? (haha so i guess now the pressure is just to make sure i'm living worthy of my calling! sometimes i'm pretty sure i'm not. but i just have to keep trying.)
also, i'm grateful for inspired leaders. i had a pretty crazy doctrinal discussion with elder seegmiller, the battalion director... he loves those. the discussion basically turned into him seeing straight into my soul and saying something that i really needed to hear. (talk about root cause analysis. :P) i know he spoke directly by the spirit.... it was really strong. very powerful experience.
so. it's been an eventful few days. we finally got a couple good contacts this week, too... hopefully they'll turn into solid investigators soon! we're really in need of those. so those contacts were a huge blessing from heavenly father. (he was mostly blessing sister mulipola's faith... when i get discouraged cause we don't have people to teach, sister mulipola doesn't even question. she just says awesome faith-filled prayers and things turn out. :) good thing we have companions to make up for our weaknesses!)
sorry this email was a novel. ha. so much stuff to write about! but i love you ALL and i hope you've had a great week!
love
sister madsen
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