Friday, July 25, 2014

STAND STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD

Buenas Dias!

Alright, I can´t lie.  It´s been a pretty tough week here in P_________. 

Don´t get me wrong, I love being a missionary and I love this area.  We have just seen a lot of disappointments this past week. 

We were supposed to have 3 baptisms on Sunday.  C_______, F________, and M_______ accepted their baptismal dates and where progressing right along.  However, when we went to visit them Friday night, they told us that they don’t want to be baptized anymore. 

It was crushing. 

To make things worse, our other baptismal candidates didn´t show up to church on Sunday thus disqualifying them for baptism this month.  We had a goal to baptize 8 people in our area this month, and we are yet to baptize any. 

And it looks more and more like we aren´t going to. 

Man, not baptizing is hard.  Especially when there are people who are ready to receive this message, yet we are doing something wrong. 

This isn’t as hard for Hermana B_______ because she baptized in her old area this month before coming here...

Every night the district leader calls to check in on us.  Friday night (immediately after C______ and her kids rejected their baptismal date) it was my turn to talk to him. 

Elder F_________:  ¨How are C_______, F_______ and M_________?¨

Me: ¨They rejected their baptismal dates tonight.  We have no idea why.  They just told us that they don’t want to get baptized anymore.¨

Elder F_________: ¨Hermana Wise, you guys need to work harder.  You HAVE to baptize this month.¨

Gee, thanks Elder. 

It´s been hard to fight off the ¨you´re a bad missionary¨ feelings that accompany not baptizing.  We saw so much success in this area the last change with Hermana H_________, and things just seem to be slowing.  We still have people who are progressing, the ward is still willing to help, but we just aren’t seeing many fruits of our labors this week. 

The icing on the cake was having the flu and throwing up in half our lessons for the past few days. 

I am trying so hard to be a happy little missionary.  But this week really has been tough.  This morning during my personal study, I was looking for scriptures about ¨hope¨ I found this great one in Doctrine and Covenants which I forgot how much I loved:

(Translated from Spanish.... Probably not correctly)

¨Thus, my beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do everything in our power so we can stand still with complete seguridad (assurity?.... English is hard) that we will see the salvation of God and he will reveal his arm to us.¨

Ok it´s D y C 123:17.  Someone will have to look it up in English for me. 

The point is, many times as a missionary we do everything physically in our power and yet things just don’t seem to be going our way.  But, I know that if we are humble, happy, and patient, we will eventually reap the rewards of our labors. 

Sometimes, we just need to stand still and trust in the Lord. 

I have a lot of faith that we will see a miracle and C_______ and her daughters will still get baptized this Sunday.  But if not, I know that The Lord wants me to learn something from this. 

Hermana H________ always taught me that we have really hard weeks right before really great weeks. 

So, I am hanging in there!!!

Still a happy little missionary.

Pray for C______!!!!!!!!

Love you guys!!!

- Hna Wise

PS - I got the package, thank you so much!!!

LINC! HOW THE HECK IS ECUADOR???? I need a full update. 

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