Guys, this week has been a series of miracles. Remember last week? When all of our investigators were dropping us and no matter how hard we tried we couldn't succeed in any of our efforts and I was freaking for our conference and asked you all to pray? The past few days have been the complete opposite. Quite possibly the best days so far of my mission.
Okay, let me try to start this.
So the conference, right? Utterly amazing. My mission president is the absolute best. He is a man of the Lord. He loves us so much, knows our potential, and is giving everything he has to help us to reach it. Its a hard path that he's been leading us on (like, as in realllllly hard) but at the conference with Elder Arden the curtains were thrown back and we got a glimpse of what President has been seeing the whole time. I hate to say it but I think that this is one of those weeks that will be better expressed when I get home. (Or next week on skype). I'll try and express at least a few,thoughts.
Mom, thanks for choosing us. Do you realize what an effect that has had on me? Yes, you chose us over a career or personal interests to be a full time mother, but I'm talking about the little things. The times when the ladies in our neighborhood would invite you to lunch and I would hear you on the phone say "Thank you, but I'd rather stay home with my kids." When the other moms would say how excited they are for summer to be over so their kids will be back in school and they'll finally have a clean house to themselves and you would reply "I would miss my kids so much if they were at school all day" and then later tell us that you were secretly glad too that their kids would be back in school because it meant that you would have more time with us. Do you know how that made me feel? That you would rather spend time with me than do anything else? Do you know how awesome that makes me feel? Thanks for choosing us.
One of our stellar zone leaders gave a training on better receiving the spirit, it was awesome and doesn't apply to missionaries only. He compared it to us being a tube for the spirit to flow through unhindered, which allows us to live our lives with a companionship of the spirit similar to our Prophet, President Monson. Oftentimes we allow this tube to be clogged which blocks the flow. It can be blocked by disobedience, music, unkind thoughts towards our companions and others, thoughts of home, negativity, etc. Most of the time we don't realize that we are blocking our tubes. Its a really simple principle but was really profound for me. I've kept in the back of my mind since then and have been shocked by how much blocking I was unknowingly allowing in my tube! It isn't the big things that hold us back from our potential, its the little ones. Thats what makes the difference in our conversion.
Ah! I'm not even scratching the surface! Cge lang, skype na lang.
Okay lets just get to the best part, you want to know what that conference did to the work? Saturday and Sunday were ridiculous. With a conscious effort to do much better, increased faith in the Lord, and the power of YOUR FAST (THANK YOU. I LITERALLY CRIED WHEN I READ THAT YOU FASTED. YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THAT DID FOR US) we went about the same work that we have done every day but everything was different. From our tricycle driver telling us that he was a member and wanted to come back to church so that he could prepare for a mission but has been too shy, a woman whose daughter was in the hospital and when we began to share our message just about fainted because we pulled out our pamphlet which had miraculously been placed by someone on her kitchen table and she had been wanting to find the people who knew more about that message, a referral from our branch president that led us to a family with 8 kids who all accepted a baptism date... along with about 3 of their friends, working out a member split (which i've only been able to do 2 other times my whole mission) and finding a part member family who wants to come back to church but has also been too shy and has a daughter who hasn't been baptized yet, our investigator Aiza having a conversion experience and getting so excited for her baptism only to have her parents who live 4 hours away so no.. and then to find out that they will be visiting on thursday and her aunt is going to speak to them and will be able to get her permission... okay I literally cannot list them all. It has been one after another after another after another. Saturday and Sunday we walked around working with our jaws to the floor.
Many missionaries will speak of times of planting and times of harvesting in the mission. Hastening the work of the Lord means harvesting what you plant. I know that this is the Lord's work. You have no idea what is going on in this mission but I would NEVER want to be called to another mission. Why on earth did I ever want to go to France?? Or Switzerland? Trust in the Lord. We cannot even being to imagine what He has in store for those who follow Him. It must be His plan that I will skype next week because I am having the hardest time getting any of this across.
OH. HOW COULD I FORGET. Mom, last week after email and grocery shopping and all that I finally got home and was able to read Romans 8:16-18... bawled my eyes out. For the entire week before that email it has been in me and Sister Cinco's daily conversation about our divine potential and how literally amazing that is, and JUST THAT MORNING in our companionship study the whole thing was about how we are children of God. Do we get what that means?? We are literally His children!! And then, in that week, when I was having so many inexplicable trials, you send me that scripture. Its my favorite scripture now. Most of these experiences I'm trying to share are dead in this email compared to the spirit I felt when I experienced them. Thats what has made them so amazing. I hope that whoever reads this email can just have that same spirit so you can see what I'm trying to see.
I love you all beyond words. I'm so so so so so so so excited to skype you :) I will call Monday the 12th (here) sometime around 10:30 I have no idea what my skype info is so can you please send me an email with cams info so that I can just log into his? Or moms or someones, just so I can log in and talk.
Thank you so much for your fast. Isn't our Heavenly Father the best?? You guys can fast thousands of miles away and I can feel it like a physical hug and see it manifest throughout my day. Have the best week ever!!!!!!!!
ALL MY LOVE- Sister Manwaring
P.S. Dad, I'm going to conference :)
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