it was a week of growth.
Throughout the week there was always at least something that gave us
that extra push to keep going on. Like Thursday, we got a new
investigator! She's this wonderful woman from Nigeria, who actually
accepted our visit to meet with her because she had set up an
appointment with missionaries from another religion. We stole their
appointment, oops! But she wants to meet with us again, so that's
awesome.
Wednesday we did companion exchanges and I was with Sorella Jarnagin!
It was so crazy to be reunited with her, many months later. She was
the first sister I trained, and it was so awesome teaching with her
during the scambio because her Italian has gotten so good! She's all
grown up.
Friday we went caroling with the senior couple and the Anziani. A
woman in our ward asked us to sing to some elderly women in her
building. I don't think caroling is really an Italian thing to do, so
people were kind of confused, haha, but it was fun.
Saturday, Saturday was really long. In the morning luckily we didn't
get yelled at, just a lot of rejection, in the afternoon we met with
an investigator we haven't been able to see since Sorella Graff has
been here. The lesson went well, and then she said she'll see us next
year, haha. We continued on with our day of searching the souls who
are ready for the prepared gospel, and really it was just rejection
aaaalllll day. Like not even the nice people that are like "no, but
thank you", well okay there was one of those but only because she was
from Sri Lanka and didn't speak English or Italian yet. She was way
nice!
And so we pressed forward. Coming home at night, a man at the metro
took the Book of Mormon out of my hands, and just as he begins
talking, I was thinking "oh no, he's crazy. Like I don't know exactly
what this guy is going to say but I know I don't want to hear it.
Heavenly Father I'm at my opposition maximum for the day, please right
now I really don't want the gift of tongues and I don't want to be
able to understand him" then I realized that is a pretty bad thing to
pray for, I probably can't pray for that. But don't worry we made it
out, he was a total creep, but all is well.
So I was feeling kind of down, and then yesterday was our fast and
testimony Sunday and Vescovo's mom bore her testimony. She shared how
the missionary who found her family faced a lot of opposition that
day, but how she was grateful that they overcame the opposition so
that they could bring the wonderful blessings of the gospel to her
home. That really touched me, and as I thought about it, and if there
is opposition I think it just means something really great is about to
happen. Like in swim practices we would sometimes do an exercise where
we would tie a bungee cord to us and to one side of the pool, and we
would try to swim to the other side. The closer we got to the end, the
closer we got to the other wall, the harder it got.
In life, and missionary work, it is like that sometimes when we verge
of something great, life's opposition comes at us pretty hard.
After church we went and ate real quick then we headed back out
fishing. Still, nothing, the whole afternoon. Then just as we were
headed to take a bus to go to another area, I was thinking, "man, if
this is really our whole day I'll probably cry tonight. I'll probably
sit on the sidewalk and cry for like 5 minutes. But I'm
training....that would be pretty traumatizing for a sister in her
first transfer. Maybe I won't." Then the thought came to my mind to
stop by this one woman who was in the area. She had been an
investigator in the past, I had never met her yet. I've tried stopping
by a couple times since I've been here since July, but never had luck.
This time however, she let us in! She even asked us to pray with her!
She seemed kind of reserved at the beginning but by the end we were
friends and she wants us to come back.
She asked us, "I don't understand. How do you missionaries keep
smiling even when people tell you no straight up to your face? How do
you just keep smiling?"
We smiled, we shrugged. She then said, "this has to be the help of
God. I want to know about this! I want to learn about this!" Then she
excitedly invited us back!
I love this woman we met last night soooo much! She shared some of her
life stories with us and she is literally AMAZING. I'm so excited that
we got to meet her. In the end, it was her 7 yr old daughter who let
us in, because we always see her playing outside and say hi.
2 weeks to Christmas! :) have a wonderful week, remember who your
greatest fountain of help is, and learn more about Him this Christmas
season!
Vi voglio un MONDO di bene ❤️
Also this girl from China took a picture with us at a park.
No comments:
Post a Comment