Week 10: Joys and Heartache of Agency

The theme of this week is the joy and heartache of agency.

We’ve been working with the members more this week, meaning that we’re trying to meet them and be trusted. Be their fwends, if you will. And I will. ;) They are so excited to work with missionaries, and every day I am reminded that I need to be THAT much better to be worthy of their love, their respect.

This week we have made the hard decision to drop investigators. I don’t know how to describe that feeling. It’s like someone has been in the sun all day, working hard, and is just sweating profusely. You offer them cold water, but they insist that they either don’t want anything to drink, or that they prefer hot, soured milk. You can try to explain the benefits, try to lovingly convince them to at least take a sip to decide, but they’re pretty insistent. Hot, soured milk will be much better than that cool water. There’s nothing you can do. Nothing.

That´s how I feel.

We had three youth we were teaching. Taught about plan of salvation, they had questions, seemed genuinely interested. Then the next visit we reviewed and started talking about the Restoration. In the room, you could just… feel the doubt. Feel the lack of the Spirit. After that, it’s been downhill with them. They have a member friend who comes with us, but somehow we need to improve how we involve her. It just is heartbreaking that these three have the beautiful blessing to decide for themselves… but that they’re choosing to stay thirsty.

We have another member, Theresa, who belongs to another faith. She is very loving and inviting to us (a good amount of people are very hospitable), and it has taken us two lessons to figure out that she really doesn’t have a desire to find out for herself. That to her, this is just another church. Just another belief. I feel so personally responsible to her, and to Vivian, Angie, and Kevin (the youth) that somehow my deficiency of teaching is why they’re not feeling His love. That something I’m doing is why they don’t feel the desire to at least ASK Him in prayer. Don´t trust us. ASK Him.

That heartbreak aside, the work goes forth boldly and nobly.  These thoughts leave me feeling pensive.

We have had the marvelous opportunity to bring members to lessons. WOW their testimonies are powerful! We had one member who is older, Hermano Raul, and his wife. They just brought such a…. friendly atmosphere. It was in their neighborhood, you could call it. Their neck of the woods.J lit´rally. As he bore His testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith, I felt that if she could not feel the power of his words, she was trying not to.

This area has MANY MANY MANY inactives. Hermana Nuñez and I are trying to understand why. We constantly meet people that have been baptized, but just didn’t think anything of it. They remember their missionaries, could tell about the first vision, explain the Book of Mormon, but it just lacks meaning. That reassures me that when we teach, we need them to FEEL the reality of this. That their families truly ARE together forever through this gospel.

It has been a week of learning for both Hermana Nunez and I. I love working with her. This week, too, we had our first li’l differences of ideas, and I absolutely loved how we resolved it. We were walking back from church, and I was feeling frustrated (this will surprise you) that we were late to meetings. I know, me, of all people, to be frustrated of that. Now I understand how Kristie feels. ;) EVERY DAY with me. Ha ha Likewise, she was frustrated at the necessity to be so strictly punctual. We walked about 5 minutes in a somewhat tense silence. But anyway, the moment we got into our apartment, we got on our knees to pray, as per usual. (I love that custom. Any time we enter or leave the apartment, we hit our knees in prayer first). Hermana Nunez prayed, thanking Heavenly Father for our differences. We spent the next 20 minutes after the prayer sitting on the floor, talking out our frustrations. That mainly we were not frustrated at each other, but each of us feel so inadequate in this work. That we can improve in every way.

Interesting experience I don’t really know how to explain. We have this AMAZING investigator, Mary. She is so open, so ready to read the Book of Mormon, pray about it. Amazing. We were having a lesson in the house of a member, so we were just chatting as we walked. She lives here alone and works, has a boyfriend that lives in a different department (state).  As we were talking, she was telling me about her sisters. There was a pause in the conversation, and I didn’t even THINK of this question, but I asked her how old her DAUGHTER was.

Instead of a really awkward moment, we discovered that she really DOES have a daughter! Uh…. Gift of tongues? I just know I was inspired to ask that. I don’t know HOW that never came up before. I think she was afraid we would judge her or something. But, thanks to a gringo listening to the Spirit because she can’t speak this language, we were blessed to learn more about her.

Love you all! Love it here!

Enjoy to the end,

(the picture of holding the fan is because we set off the fire alarm and grabbed the nearest fan to try and make it be quiet). Yes, also learning how to cook in our spare time.