November 10, 2014
All is well :)
....but I will be honest with you. I am getting a little bit tired. I am feeling a little bit overwhelmed, but it is okay, because that is helping me to rely on Christ. I am really learning what it means to rely on him when you have no more energy left both physically, mentally, emotionally, and even spiritually. Know who is really good at helping me to conquer fears and doubts though? My dear companion. It's so good that we have companions. We work really well together in the fact that I will get a prompting and then immediately tell her, then when it comes down to actually doing it I am tempted to back out (embarrassing) and she says, "No let's do it!!" and you know what? We have seen SO many miracles by actually following through with such promptings. It really helps me when I just open my mouth and blurt out my promptings too, because I can't take back my words, she heard the prompting, and if I won't follow through with it, she will make sure we do :)
We are seeing MIRACLES. And I have noticed so many of the times that Satan tries to drag us down right before they are about to happen, just like he did with our dear Joseph Smith. The most important part is that we end up following through with it in the end, just like he did. For example this week we had a 4 hour block for contacting, visiting less actives all along the way (oh how I love contacting! No sarcasm!) we focused the entire day on following promptings of the spirit, picking up our pace to talk to a woman, focusing on families (particularly women with stollers), and giving out church invitations. I feel that Heavenly Father gave us a confirmation that we were following through with HIS plans when we arrived at a less active's home and sadly... she wasn't home. We noticed her neighbors were standing outside their door though and we decided to talk to them instead, we asked if they knew the member and they said, "you mean her?" pointing behind us. We turned around and there was the less active :) our pathes crossed at just the right moment. She let us in her house and we invited her to start reading the Book of Mormon again. Well she invited us over last night, and she has been reading from the Book of Mormon! (I have to admit that I doubted that she would read, we just give out many commitments to people and they never follow them, how can I continue to have faith in these people? Actually that's right, I need to rely on Christ. That answers that question.) The less active, A., said that she read a verse she really liked about repentance. She knows that she needs to repent and the sad thing is that she is too afraid to face God, she doesn't feel worthy to pray. The ironic thing about repentance though and feeling worthy to pray... is that in order to recieve forgiveness you MUST pray. However let's remember that OUR Heavenly Father always has his arms open to us. Just like the story of the prodigal's son.
This week I also learned a valuable lesson... there was a day during the week, early in the morning where we were waiting to receive permission to hold our planning session on another day, and we literally had NO other time to have it during the week, but we were still getting no calls or texts back. And because we weren't getting the permission we would have to go work outside contacting until we got permission. But I already knew what would happen, we'd take 10 minutes getting on all our gear... we'd be outside for 5 minutes, and then we'd get the "okay." I was getting very impatient with our system out here... and suddenly I turned into a child :) I couldn't stop complaining! You know what happened? We got all dressed up, and right as we were about to head out the door we got the permission text. Just like I knew would happen. I was beat red... I don't know what was with my mood that morning but my patience was at a zero.
My companion and I sat down to plan, and she said to me, "Sister Wilson, can I be honest with you?" I already knew what she was going to say... "You have been complaining a lot today." I told her that I realized that and I was sincerely sorry for my sour attitude. I didn't want such an attitude! But it was definitely there. Then she said something that really changed my point of view, it hit me very hard. She told me, "On a mission, you don't have control over anything." She was completely right. This is time of our life Heavenly Father is literally completely in charge of our time, of our circumstances... I have heard that many times "You can't change your circumstances, but you can change your attitude." But I never understood it until now. We literally can't control whether our plans fall through, whether or not people will read the book of mormon, whether or not we will get permission to plan.... every single little thing is in the control of God. Once we understand that, once we trust him, we can have perspective in literally EVERYTHING. And that's what happened to me in that moment. I realized I didn't trust God! I was angry with my circumstances, when really I could have just put a smile on my face, said, "man this is silly, but I will be obedient, and I will be cheerful about it." I know God gave me that experience to choose whether or not I would take that situation and have a good attitude and laugh about it, or get frustrated and act like a big baby. Unfortunately I chose the latter... but I surely learned something from it :) and I am now putting my complaints on the table of sacrifice! I have realized that it is actually easier in the end not to complain at all. Complaints never make anything better anyway.
Also for those of you who have been praying that we will find a family... We found a family a little while ago, and we felt so blessed to have met them, a mother and a daughter and they were both SO interested. However when we tried to call them nothing worked out... their numbers didn't work. Well last night Sister Martinez and I were coming home from a lesson (and already late!) and we decided to run after a girl pushing a stroller. We gave her an invitation to church and told her to call us if she had any questions, we were about to start running home but she said, "actually I do have questions." We both turned around and then to our surprise we saw that it was the daughter that we'd met in the past. She is only 16 years old, but has a baby. She told us her daughter is blind, and I think she's got some questions for God right now :) She also told us that her number changed, but she is still interested in meeting us. We will be meeting with her today around 2 or 3 :) What a blessing! Thanks for all the prayers! I'll keep you updated.
Remember that we have a God of miracles!
Love you all :)
--Sister Brooklyn Wilson
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