for behold, the field is white already to harvest

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Monday, January 14, 2013

Thank You, Mr. Gardener!!

Hi all!

I would like to start this week's post with this article; please read the whole article before continuing to read this blog post :)

http://www.lds.org/new-era/1973/01/the-currant-bush

I love that story; every time I read or hear it, I always tear up a little.

I'm not gonna lie, the life of a missionary is hard.  Life in general is hard.  But what it all comes down to is what are you going to do about it?  How are you going to be PROactive instead of REactive?  How will you *trust* in God that He will lead you the right way & help you in your struggles?

I would like to tie the currant bush story to my own:

The first week of the year was a bit of a rough one; we had gone through 2-3 weeks that were seemingly unproductive.  Appointments had fallen through, some people were sick, and others were busy.  While we did have bits of success in each week, I was still very frustrated that so many things weren't working out right.  You could say I was very much like the little bush, cut down & feeling rather upset.  Negativity constantly came at me, and I had to stop myself & remember that being in that frustrated, negative state of mind is exactly where Satan wanted me.

Like verse 4 of the hymn "The Time Is Far Spent" goes:

"Be fixed in your purpose, for Satan will try you;
The weight of your calling he perfectly knows."

and boy, he sure does!  He definitely does not want any of us to succeed in finding happiness through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, nor does he want us to succeed in helping others come unto Christ.  But the last part of the same verse is this:

"Your path may be thorny, but Jesus is nigh you;
His arm is sufficient, tho demons oppose."

How true it is that Christ can help us through any hardship, if we will "trust in the Lord with all [our] heart[s]" (Prov. 3:5-6)!!

Last week, I tried to lighten up my attitude more, & I truly feel like Heavenly Father helped me in doing so, and that I could not have done it myself.  As the week went on, we had our visit from the Traveling Sisters, who came to train & help us in different areas of our work.  It helped SO much, & they gave us awesome pointers.  We had scheduled multiple appointments for that day & were able to get to almost all of them, and they became new investigators!  We had a great lesson with another investigator later in the week, & the Spirit was there so strongly as we testified.

On Saturday, we spent a good amount of the day doing service for a lady who was taught by the previous Elders & was almost not wanting to meet with missionaries anymore.  While we were there, she became much more comfortable with us & as we were talking with her about prayer, her neighbors came over.  The husband had seen us outside shoveling snow & chipping ice and asked if we were Sister Missionaries.  Turns out he was an inactive member & his wife was not a member--they both wanted to start going to church, & she wanted to learn from missionaries!  As we talked with them & the lady we were visiting (I'll call her Lindsay), Lindsay shared with them her experience with missionaries so far: at first she was afraid that we would just try to force her to do something, but that day realized that we truly want to help her & care about her.  It was the best experience ever!!!  I have a testimony that if we are striving to do our best in doing what Heavenly Father would have us do, He WILL put good things in our paths, and will let all things come together for our good.  We ended the week with 12 lessons (4 times as many as the week before), and 7 new investigators (blowing away our average of 1 or 2)!!  I am so grateful that we were finally able to have a lesson with so many people we were struggling to get a hold of for a while--it was really a miracle!

Well, I gotta run now, but know that God is there & he is mindful of you.  He hears every prayer & answers with what is best for us.  I say that in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Love you all, may you have an awesome week!

Be strong & faithful because Jesus was!
~Sister San Diego

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