Well here we are, pressing forward, further and further! I can't believe that we are halfway done with this change, the time is seriously flying. So cliche, I know, but I am honestly in awe of it all. Before we know it, we will be facing Christmas and then January and then February and that is just ridiculous. I don't want to think about it. So I will just share with you all the little blessings and wonderful experiences from this last week :)
This Monday evening, we had a FHE with a less active family in the ward. Only the mom of the family is active, and after Sacrament Meeting on Sunday, she asked if we could come the next night to put on a little something for her family. We of course said yes. About 20 minutes later, she came and found us again and said "can you just be sure to do something really great?" She obviously had high hopes, so we asked what it is she would like us to teach. She said "Oh I dunno, something about eternal families or something, whatever you think is best."
I think we all know what it is that she wanted ;)
The next day, she called to tell us that she had invited another inactive family that also happens to be in our sector that we are helping, and when we heard, it made us a little nervous. We planned a great lesson based on The Family: A Proclamation To The World, and these two families are very different and have very specific needs. We were a little weary about whether or not it would all work out, but we pushed forward with the same plan to teach about the proclamation and the temple and eternal families.
And you know what? That Family Home Evening rocked. It was AWESOME. Yeah, they are very different families. And they have their different needs. They have their different trials and excuses for not doing what they know they should, and even though what we shared was direct, it was done with love and with the spirit, and by the end, almost all of us were left in tears. I have such a testimony of the power of the words of the prophets- only something given by the mouth of the Lord's servants can work such wonders in the hearts of his children. I know that the whole experience comes off as very simple when I try to explain it, but just trust me when I say that the spirit was strong.
Another great experience happened with yet another family that is struggling with enduring to the end; when I first got here, we visiting them once and chose to put to them to the side for a moment because they weren't progressing and it was a tad obvious that they honestly didn't want visits from the missionaries. Last week, we felt a prompting to go visit them, and it turned out that it was just the moment when they were in spiritual need. We went in with a plan to teach one thing, but almost immediately, we both recognized that it was NOT the message that they needed. While we didn't know right away exactly what it was that they needed to listen to or feel, we just listened. Listened to what it was that they needed to say, knowing that the spirit would help us to know. And eventually it DID come. And it was a wonderful lesson.
It is wonderful that we as members of the church all have the humongous blessing of receiving the gift of the holy ghost, and that if we can tap into that communication that we have with God, that is how we can truly be instruments in the Lord's hands. I remember that being one of my biggest insecurities when I first started my mission. The idea of it all baffled me, being someone who had never felt that sensation of being "an instrument", or at least in the way that I expected it to be. Now, I really can testify that it is something marvelous to be under the complete influence of the spirit. Best job ever.
And to end, I wanted to share what I learned from our big visit this week from Elder Nelson. (Is it normal to receive so many visits from general authorities in your mission? I feel outrageously blessed!) It really was wonderful. He started out with a detailed description of the Abrahamic Covenant and the 12 tribes of Israel, and how these two things help to identify ourselves as missionaries and messengers of the Lord. I couldn't relay it to you all if I tried, but in the moment it all made sense and it was all very profound. He talked about our responsibility to help others to come to the path of the Lord or to return if they have turned astray. He just has the most adorable way about him, I am such a fan girl of our Prophet and his Apostles.
At the end, we had a pretty amazing experience. He said that he wanted to share his testimony. The whole while, he had someone translating everything for him. But he took a deep breath and began speaking in Spanish. Now, I don't know where he served his mission, I don't know if he knows how to speak Spanish...but what I do now is that his accent was perfect, he was rolling his rs, and he was talking in vuestro-vosotros, which is the Spanish biblical vocabulary. And he started his testimony by saying that he had an apostolic prophecy for us in the conference. Yeah, strong stuff. You can say it was a good meeting :)
May we all remember what we signed up for in the pre-mortal existence...Sister Nelson talked about our "earthly to do list" before her husband spoke, and it was very touching. Every thing that we go through in this life, good and bad, tough and miraculous, crushing and defining, seemingly-impossible and defining, are things that we KNEW we would go through. We all have a list of things to do. One of MY things on my to do list is to serve the Lord in Chile. And there are people that have on their list to accept the gospel from the sister missionaries in Chile. What's on your list? Chew on that. Food for thought. I'd love to hear your thoughts :)
So be bold, stay rad, do what you do, let your light so shine, and remember your to-do list!
Hermana Harkins
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