Siam I Am: thoughts on a rough week.

February 16, 2014

this week was a different kind of week for me.

remember training? that lonely desert land.... that tests and tries every bit of your sanity and makes you seriously reflect on the reasons why you decided to come on a mission in the first place...? i am glad that season on my life is over. but what i learned this week is that trials... they never end.

two weeks ago we got an awesome referral from the elders in our district. lucky us... being the only missionaries in the international ward... we get ALL of the referrals for the international people around us. (they have the other international sisters downtown... we get everything that is too far away from them.) so. ching chong. chen zhen. or... as we like to call him, jay... came to church. and stayed for a baptism. and you could SEE the light in his face. you could see the spirit working in him. over the next week, we had many awesome lessons. he is super intelligent. (maybe too much for his own good...) but had the best questions. we taught him everything. a couple of times he came to our lessons... "i was reading on the website... and it says you can't drink beer." and by the end of the lesson, he told us that he wouldn't drink beer anymore. or coffee. or tea. the next lesson we had a chinese member help us. he went off for about 15 minutes in chinese (no... the gift of tongues didn't exactly work...) but she turned to us and started talking about tithing.

what? we haven't taught him that yet!

"but he said he read it on the website..."

oh boy.

"but he's willing to pay it."

what????

long story short. people's agency. i can't stand it sometimes. it is the best gift that we've been given. and probably the single-most aggravating thing in missionary work. when you KNOW that they KNOW it is true. you can see it change them. and then they still choose... other stuff.

that's the rough-ness of this week.

we started this week fairly sure that we would have a baptism yesterday, and by thursday night, that pretty much disappeared. it was actually REALLY depressing. i don't think i could have taken a break-up any worse.... it just hurt my heart. now i actually understand what all of those missionaries talked about. bringing someone sooooo close! and watching them choose not to follow.

we're not giving up. (just in case you were wondering.)

but this week as a whole was just hard.

blazing heat.

super humid. i don't know what happened... but it's back to the you-step-outside-and-you-sweat feeling again. i liked the brief "winter" here...

sister phelp's pinched nerve. no biking. no fast walking...

getting approximately 2 numbers while contacting... ALL week.

and then... no one deciding that they had time to meet with us.

like a knife to the heart!

so. i bet you are thinking...

1. jess is just being whiney

2. her life really does kinda stink right now.

in my opinion. it is neither.

i learned a lot from this week.

a lot about the kind of missionary that i want to be. there are times when i think it would be soooo great just to sleep in every morning. or to not go outside and deal with the heat. and then... i'm stuck inside all day and that's ALL i WANT to do. heavenly father has a funny way of showing me what i really want out of life. it's just funny when i have to see the OPPOSITE to really understand it.

i was reading about job this morning.

he had it pretty rough.

and... i realized my life: sore neck, pinched nerves, inability to bike, being stood-up, people not answering their phones... it's not really that bad.

i was talking to the district leader the other night. and he said something i want to remember forever. "if you aren't facing opposition, you aren't doing something right."

alright then heavenly father. i get it. opposition. is good. now what?

i'm not giving up.

press forward.

endure.

firm and steadfast.

those are the words that keep coming to my mind.

satan is going to keep trying to stop the work. to keep us from doing good. his opposition won't go away. so the only thing that we can do is work HARDER and be just as annoying to him as he is to us.

all right. nuf said.

time to go annoy satan.

love you all!

sister ellis