Thursday, March 9, 2017

"I shall come forth as gold"

Both of our facial expressions in this picture
accurately sum up what life at the MTC feels like


Hola!!

The highlight of the week is that it's finally starting to feel a little like Spring, and there have been two ducks spotted multiple times waddling around outside our building. Our district is still debating over names, and we're either going with Oscar and Felix or Samson and Delilah. I also learned an important lesson in our devotional last night, we're going to be laughing about the things that bother us and the things that try our patience in 5 years, so we might as well starting laughing about it now. 

So we're still beginning spanish speakers, and we mix words up a lot, and the word "mujer" means women, but "mejor" means better, or best. So in a lesson we were teaching about the Plan of Salvation, and we were trying to say something like "The Atonement will help you become better" but we ended up saying "The Atonement will help you become a woman" And our investigator looked as like we were crazy for a second, but we caught it and were like "mejor, mejor!" So hopefully she didn't get the wrong idea. Don't even get us started on "pescado"means fish and "pecado" means sins, because who knows how many lessons have been taught about how the Atonement can clean us from our fishes. 

The Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders both get cell phones in the MTC, just to call the front desk and in case they need to get a hold of someone in our district. But we feel like we have a lot of power because we get this peculiar piece of technology from the outside world.

One of the most challenging parts of missionary work right now is trying to look at the language barrier as a blessing rather than, well a barrier. In our lessons right now sometimes I'll be able to understand what they're saying, and then they'll ask a question, and I'll know exactly what I want to say to them in my head, but the Spanish isn't there. There are so many things I want to share with them about the amazing truths of this gospel, but I don't have any of the words to say it. The truth is though, it is a huge blessing. When you have a very limited vocabulary, you have to talk about everything in very simple terms and you have to be 100% dependent on the spirit. And the gospel of Jesus Christ is beautiful, but it's also simple. We know how to say "This is God's plan for you, we know he loves you, and if you read this amazing book, you can know too" And then the Spirit will teach them the rest, and our limited vocabulary and broken testimonies become a stronger testament to them than the most eloquent of words could ever be. 

Missionary work is hard, and it tries all aspects of your life, but that's how life is. Being a disciple of Christ should never be easy an business. In learning Bible stories as Hermanas this week, we've been talking a lot about Job. He had his joy and his faith solely in God, and because God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, we can always have that joy when it rests in God and in our Savior. If our faith depends on our circumstances, we can never be happy because one minute we might lose everything we're used to. Not always necessarily in the material sense that Job lost everything, but facing a new environment with new challenges with new people with a new language is really hard, and as many of us leave for the mission field in the next couple of weeks it will only continue to change more and more. If our faith is dependent on our level of comfort in our surroundings, none of us will every get very far. It's ok that things are hard, and it's ok that missionary work is hard, and it's ok that life is hard and we all feel like we're having our lives swept out from under our feet sometimes. As long as our faith is in God, and"we esteem his words more than our necessary food" we can be refined into the person He wants us to be. The faith of Job is incredible.

Hermana Meredith

Job 23:10-12 "But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold. My foot hath held his steps, his way have I kept, and not declined. Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food."

No comments:

Post a Comment