Monday, January 4, 2016

"Count your many blessings"

January 4, 2016

I'm going to start off explaining my subject... so yes I'm sitting in sacrament yesterday... waiting... and waiting.... and waiting... for an investigator to walk through the door. I keep waiting and waiting through the whole meeting... and no one. Of course I start to get frustrated... I start to compare myself to the missionaries that were in this area before... how they used to have investigators at church and now that I'm here it's like people are running away haha... but then we sing the closing song of "count your many blessings" and I was able to look around and see so many of our less-actives at church... like 5 of them, and then the recent converts we were working with got up and bore their testimonies and I realized how truly blessed I was. Sometimes you might have to say 0 investigators at church on your key indicators... but the service that counts the most is usually recognized by God alone.
okay this week:
Alice: Alice is on date for the 17th... but is struggling with church attendance. ahh pray for her!! but TENDER MERCY: we taught word of wisdom and heyyy she was not happy about the tea thing... we thought she was gonna struggle.. but we go back a couple days later and SHE HADN'T DRUNKEN TEA OR COFFEE. she told us she was tempted so many times but every time she would just pray and then go get some juice. ahhh so happy.
exchanges: so i went on my first exchanges this week as STL... aish. I have a lot lot lot lot to learn. I was pretty nervous because i'm only 6 months old on mission and i was going with a sister who has been out 15 months from Uganda.. Sister Nyachwo. I love her she is so great... we were supposed to do our training on effective planning to increase member present and father led lessons... and i did the more informal route... like did really give it to her straight, mainly cause I was pretty intimidated to be honest... but i've been able to look back on the experience to see how i need to improve. There's a reason I was called here so I can do it:)
funny stories:  while we were on exchanges we were visting this member.. and as we were walking to his house he introduced us to 3 of his friends.  they are all really smart guys who have all graduated from university. one of them is my favorite... first he was like "wow.. you're the first american that i've seen in the flesh.." uhhhh what.. and then i pull out the book of mormon and he is like stunned and kinda took a step back. (his name is austin) and he was just like... "ohhh i've researched you people... you must be from texas" and then i jump in real fast to explain that we're not polygamist. and he was like "oh good... i thought i was staring at a product of polygamy" hahahah so i pull out a picture of my family to prove we're just an average family and he was like "wow... a real mormon family." hahah i dunno i was just so fascinating to him i guess. but he said he loves reading and so he took the book of mormon and said he would read it a month. it's gonna change his life.
funny story x2: so for those of you who aren't missionaries.. you start and end both personal study and companionship study in prayer. and the other day i kneel down to close my personal study and as i'm praying sister solomone starts praying out loud to open our companionship study.... hahahaha i just bust up laughing.. it was so funny...
funny story x3... i'm too tall for my bed... so I kick out my mosquito net in the night and my legs are just covered... malaria BO. just kidding... thank goodness for doxy.

referrals: TENDER MERCY. soooo all of the investigators taht the past missionaries were teaching are not progressing... like at all... and so we have really been searching for new invesitagors and this week... Heavenly Father loves us... we had 8 contacted referrals. all who we should be seeing this next week. One is a less-active... who he texted us how he has been less active for 7 years.. but all he wants is to come back to church and to be a good example for his family. He has always known the church has something special about it, and he wants to start from the very beginning and learn all that he can so he can find his way back to Christ... it was a very powerful text and he was at church this sunday. We'll be meeting his family tomorrow <3
Friday and Saturday my poor companion was sick... i'm the worst companion ever and made her go out and teach saturday morning... until i realized that she was about to die so we took her home... we had some great lessons planned for saturday so i was a little bummed.. but it's all in god's hands right?
new year: it's the new year which means new years resolutions. Hey it was hard to think of some... i have so many things I want to accomplish this year. I love how 2016 gets to be completely dedicated to the Lord... I get the whole year to serve as a missionary and it's not enough time. I have so much more i want to improve on and so much more I want to accomplish... but I need to take it step by step. I'm scared at how fast this year is going to go by, so I gotta make every day count:)
Any who!! I love THE GREAT ZAMBIA LUSAKA MISSION. I love being a missionary.. i'm learning so much, and I love these people. sorry pictures are so lame this week... i'll speedily repent;)







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