I had an interesting realization on tuesday. 5 months. over.
and what do i have to show for it?
i did a lot of thinking about that...
because have a lot.
i have dresses with oil and grease on them from my bike.
bruises from falling.
a bruised ego from getting rejected while contacting.
mob scares.
investigators 4 hours late to an appointment... because of the riots.
(don't worry mom! i am most safe.)
sickness.
and health.
switch offs.
confusion.
excitement.
miracles.
more miracles.
even MORE miracles.
me wondering if God really ever stops giving miracles... or if i'm just getting smarter and noticing them more.
i'll tell you one. just to prove it. ;)
we went on switch offs this last week. i went to an area called ดอน เมือง... ha. (it's pronouced don mxng... or mung.) and we were kind of stressed. because we needed to find people to get baptized. all of our potentional baptisms basically evaporated or disappeared this last week... so our hopes were very low when we started the week. it was rough. but miracles happen. i just kept praying that even though my contacting wasn't very successful... that sister phelps and sister mack were killing it in pakkret. and they did. prayers were answered. and sister phelps said that every person that they talked to... was soooo good! it's amazing. they all wanted to come to church. ahhhhhh! (that was me running around and doing fist pumps in my mind...)
so we went into sunday pretty pumped.
then nobody answered their phone.
nobody showed.
ahhhhhhh! (that might have been a real scream that time...)
coming out of our first meeting with bitter thoughts... and maybe slightly hopeless... we went to church. we did what we could. knowing that at least ONE investigator would make it to church... the one that comes every week even though he can't get baptized because he doesn't have a visa. or not. apparently the riots downtown were too much to get through today.
what is going on???
i didn't understand. we tried sooo hard! we were sooooo ready!
and then.
god gives us a miracle.
we spent a few hours cleaning out our phone this week when ALL of our appointments decided to bail. we called EVERYONE. we asked them if they wanted to learn and invited them ALL to come to church. so. we're at church. we see a guy that i've never met before. are you new? i've never seen you here before... (his response) well, you INVITED me.
oh.
i did?
i'm more convinced than ever about the lord knowing what he is doing.
even in giving someone as impatient, proud, and forgetful as myself.
it's pretty cool.
(understatement of the eternities? i think yes.)
i heard a quote this week:
fall down once. get back up. fall down twice. get back up. fall down three times... tie your shoelaces.
(hopefully we're not on 3 yet...)
i heard a lot about elder uchtdorf's talk "you can do it" a lot in church yesterday. i think it is time for me to study it. but YOU can. something they said in sacrament reminded me of our choir director in the mtc who was talking about an "unnamed movie" in which an orange, striped fish goes looking for his son with a gimpy fin and has a scatterbrained companion...
JUST KEEP SWIMMING.
well... we all know missionaries and water...
but you know what i mean.
;)
have an awesome week!
the work is WORKING! (because it's not MY work.)
love you!!!
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