When I first came to Ellington, I remember driving down the long
road to our apartment and seeing empty fields with nothing but teeny
little green leaves peeking out of the soil. Now i take the same drive
today and I see those little green leaves are not little anymore but
they are now over 8 feet tall and you can't see above them.
SIDE NOTE: Just paused to show this older guy a mormon message on
the computer at the library. He liked it and said how refreshing it was.
We see him all the time at the library so I said come back anytime and
we'd be happy to keep refreshing you. Whatd up. Love being a missionary.
Anyway...the season is starting to begin where they take a patch at
a time and are harvesting and cutting down the corn. The analogy
couldnt be better fit for Ellington. When I first came, they were just
sprouting, and as slowly as the corn grew, so has the area.
Slowly..patch by patch...things begin to be harvested. We have a couple
crazy months ahead of us. We are having a member of the mission
presidency coming to our ward next week, the week after i play a musical
number (which by the way i play the piano ALL THE TIME now..thank you
mom!), the week after is testimony meeting where sister barney and i
plan to share our testimony and have others with missionary experiences
share theirs AS WELL AS it is a 5th sunday where the bishopric is doing a whole 3rd hour on missionary work, then the week after is general conference!!!
In the mean time, Sister Barney and I are planning a fireside!! :)
Its not till Novemeber but we are doing a musical fireside and the focus
for the ward will be to invite nonmember friends and get the word out
to the community. It will all be songs and testimonies focused on
gratitude. We have peen praying sincerely for opportunities and we know
this has been amazing revelation. We are getting a couple other wards
involved. The ward council was hesitant because the nativity will be
coming up shortly after that and they felt like the ward would be
burdened. (Burdened?!?!?! Im SO SO sorry that you HAVE to take an hour
of your month to listen to peaceful music about gratitude and the
savior. Im so sorry we are spoon feeding you ways to share the gospel
with your friends.....can you tell i was a little upset that they shut
down our revelation?) We agreed to cancel it though and to put it on the
bench for future missionaries to plan in february. Then this past week
in ward council the bishop said how they discussed it as a bishopric and
they felt like we could and should still have it. We explained the
simplicity of it and ward council seemed happy. The bishop held up our
weekly progress sheet (which this week has been empty of investigators
and just had our work with less actives) and he said look at this - we
need to find people for these missionaries to teach - we could be doing
much better. I was SO happy that he reconfirmed the power of how much we
can't do this on our own as missionaries. I then shared my snipit
testimony on member missionary work. At first, although i was happy that
the bishop said it, I was also a little discouraged because it was
another realization that our investigator pool is very very shallow. Its
SO hard to not feel discouraged sometimes but I know that
discouragement are thoughts from satan. The savior ENCOURAGES not
DISCOURAGES. Then that night an amazing member called us and said he met
someone that agreed to meet with us! We have an appointment this week!
Talk about highs and lows in a day.
This is getting long. I do PLAN to keep them short, but then I
ramble and it turns into a personal journal entry, sorry! Just one more
thought for the week about agency:
We had an amazing zone meeting but our sister training leader and
her comp talked about the digital mission. missionaries were told to
write our own article so we would have a better testimony of the process
as we help our members. sister barney and i are of course are way ahead
of schedule but many havent written theirs yet. The sister missionary
up there was like, "You have no choice. You have to do this article.
President asked us to and we are like our investigators that dont follow
through with our commitments." I turned to sister Barney and laughed
and said "excuse me? i have my agency - i dont HAVE to do anything.
spirits gone." Dont worry I forgive her.. I know shes still learning how
to teach but sister Barney and I had a great discussion afterwards
about the beauty of the gospel - and that is agency. We laughed about
how if we hadnt already done our articles that would not have been
motivating and it would make me not want to do it. We had to humble
ourselves but we were like man if we were up there we would have pumped
them up saying how much success we've had with them so far and how they
should be so excited to work on them so they can have success as soon as
possible too. success stories builds success - not scare tactics.
We visited a less active family that we've been working with to get
to seminary. its hard - the 3 teenage girls have no support with their
mom always being sick in the hospital and their dad who works 3rd shift.
But the girls are so cute and have so much potential! They had a plan
for the ride situation and we decided to make another visit yesterday
since seminary starts today to make sure they had it all figured out.
Sure enough, theyre mom got put in the hospital this week and so they
dont have it figured out. they had it half figured out...just needed to
make a couple phone calls (which they wouldnt have done). the girl that
was least excited to go was excited yesterday and was the one that asked
if we could help her make some calls for rides. The oldest that we
thought would go said how much shes been dreading going and really didnt
want to. we testified of seminary and told her how she should just do
it. Then it was really quiet and i was so sad because in my mind i was
like, "stop making excuses and being lazy! Just go!" Then sister Barney
said, "you dont have to do anything you dont want to do. No one can make
you go to seminary." I thought of how true that was and had to remember
all those thoughts we had about agency. So glad sister barney listened
to the spirit instead of my impatient mind. I said, "Sister Barneys
right. You're a big girl. We recognize that it is really hard with your
parents always gone and you feel like you are being pushed into going.
But even if someone physically dragged you, you would have a terrible
seminary experience because you wouldnt be in the right mindset. And if
youre not in the right mindset, you wont be able to feel the spirit. and
if thats the case, it defeats the whole purpose of seminary." She said
after that she would think about going and was happy to know that she
had a possible ride set up (since her sisters going) that she could go
if/when she wanted to.
Agency. We each have it. Thats what frustrating about being a
missionary and im sure even more so about being a parent is that we have
our agency. no one can make anyone do anything. We do things out of our
own free will and desire. We choose to do certain things because we
have faith that positive blessings will come. We choose to do other
things because we become hopeless, or feel like we need to prove
something, or think there's any easier way...and that results in denying
ourselves of the positive blessings that were waiting for us to claim.
Thats what missionaries do....we teach the restored gospel...BUT
underlying we teach people how they can use their agency in this life
for good and the whys and hows. What a blessing to be able to do many
good things of our own free will and bring to pass much righteousness.
This week will be powerful. Make yours a powerful one too. Thank
you for your prayers. You guys sound like you are all so happy and
accomplishing great things. Shout out to Jared for soaring through the
hardest test ever and shout out to my cute pregnant sisters AND shoutout
to my amazing nephew who rocked the diabetes campaign and was on TV -
cool dude!! Love you guys!
Sister Bell
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