And this week was a good one. Remember all those emails from last month where it was a lot of walking, a lot of doors knocked, a lot of contacts, and just not too much success? Well, it is all starting to catch up in these last two weeks since Hermana Damian has come. I really just know that God knows what to do to lift up his new missionaries and get them animated; some need a rough start and some need explosive success, and it makes me very thankful that my hijita can start out her mission teaching and inviting a lot. She really is a gem, I am so motherly-prideful.
One of the best experiences from this week happened with a woman we found named Ana. She was kind when we started talking to her in the street, very direct in saying that she is part of the Evangelist church, but was open to letting us come back to her home to share a message with her. Once we got there we started talking with her, trying to get to know her, but she dived right in and said "I want to hear about what you all believe in."
Alrighty, then! Lets get started!
So we shared with her about the Restoration of the Gospel, started with how God is our heavenly father and ending with Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.She was relatively silent the whole way through, simply nodding her head when we asked her questions, but she wasn't saying anything. So we get to the point where we invite her to pray to know if what we taught is true, and she said that she would. She then told us that she had heard many things about "the Mormons", and that more than anything, she invited us to come back because she wanted to know if we believe in God and in Jesus Christ. That she was thankful that she did let us come back, because for many years, she was taught that we worship Joseph Smith and that we don't believe in the Bible.
Now that is honestly not the first time that I have heard that from someone. But the amazing thing with Ana is that she took the time to let us come and teach with the spirit, clarify the shady areas, and she had a strong desire to let us come back, to accept a copy of the Book of Mormon, and to really do her part to know if this is the truth. Perhaps she was silent. Perhaps she was stoic. But she has DESIRE. And that is what we are looking for.
Fun fact, an 11 year old jovencito that we are teaching has a coin collection, and he gave me a nickel and a Chilean coin from 1895. That was on Halloween, we taught him the 10 commandments, and when we invited him to keep the commandments, he said "Well, it IS Halloween. I think my only problem will be the "thou shalt not kill."" What a gem, right? For Halloween, we switched name tags. We have our fun :)
Another great thing that happened this week was with a recently baptized 9 year chiquilla. She loves having us missionaries over to share messages with her, and she has some crazy big desires to go to church, but she never reads her Book of Mormon. And her mom tells her that she cant go to church unless she does her reading. We started really hunkering down on that, because we want to get that little girl coming to church again, and when we went to her house this week, she ran out to the gate to let us in screaming "I read, hermanas! I read!"
Oh my goodness, best thing ever to see a little girl so excited to tell us that she DID it. She DID her part, what she knew she was supposed to do! To make her mom happy, to make the missionaries happy, to make HERSELF happy so that she could go to church, but more than any of that, to make her Heavenly Father happy. We made her a little card and gave her a candy bar to reward her, she was the happiest individual alive in the chapel this Sunday, wearing her new skirt and new shoes and grinning from ear to ear...I have the best job.
As for training, it is going pretty well. I definitely love my comp, she is a doll. But there are some interesting things that go down when you train. I really know that God is with us every step of the way, and that He gives us experiences and challenges to shape us into who He needs us to be, because we have had some weird stuff go down since she has arrived. We have had people yell at us, conversations with a few drunk people, we had someone confess to us...all sorts of crazy shenanigans, some of which I had never had happen to me until this point in my mission. It's certainly an adventure, we are having our fun figuring it all out together :)
And of course I recognize that it is mom training. I realized something this week- I realized that I cannot make her the type of missionary that I think she should be, or what I think a missionary should be like. I don't know, I think I went into this thinking that I had to help her become a missionary. But it's not like that, she already IS a missionary. She has already been set apart. And she already has her course set by her Heavenly Father to become a wonderful messenger of His truth. I am only here to guide her and to teach how to teach, how to gain people's confidence, I am only here to help her know the rules, teach her the rails, set her on the missionary path. Never before have I felt so much like an instrument. Not in the way, like "wow, I am an instrument in the Lords hands, how rad am I." No. Not even close.
It has humbled me to the dust! I am ONLY an instrument. That in and of itself is a big responsibility, but I am simply an instrument to guide her to know what it is that she must do to be an effective missionary. In that first week, I was so nervous about the training program, about the little things she did that she didn't even know were against the rules (yeah! 6:30, time to wake up!), I fretted over every little thing, like I'm sure every trainer- or mom- does when they first get their kidlette. But I came to the realization this week that I am only an instrument. Only here to help, only here to love. Everything else will fall into place.
Well y'all, I hope you have a marvelous week. Be bold, stay rad, DO WHAT YOU DOOOOO and let your light so shine!
Hermana Harkins
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| Me and my hijita :) |
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| For Mitchell- better believe I've got an investigator in Toronto ;) |
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