Sounds like a super fun week at home. Diana wrote me a letter and told me all about Yolanda and her family. That's so cool to be able to see that after 31 years (you guys are old ;) the person you both helped bring to the truth is just thriving and now her own family is. What a blessing to be able to see the fruit of your labors. OK. so update on our area, I came in into this area with 3 investigators (one of them eternal), and a not so obedient comp....now after these few weeks we have been blessed with 22 new investigators and 6 of them were at church on Sunday. This is NOT usual by the way. This is HUGE. Its been so much fun to see that obedience and hard work brings forth such wonderful blessings. However it takes a companion to make is work. I've learned so much about how unity with your companion makes all the difference. Its been so nice to FINALLY have a comp that wants to work and now that we are unified, I can see a difference in our work here. Our district had 10 investigators at church with 2 other investigators from different missionaries. That makes 12...such a blessing. I will say that I have never been more stressed at church in my life!! Let me tell you why...so I am the translator b/c we have a ton of Brothas from Africa that all come to our branch. So, when ever anyone has an investigator that is English only...they come to us. So it starts of with no investigators showing up at the beginning of the meeting (b/c all of the brothas work in "African Time" as they call it, which means that you come at least 30 minutes late). It was Branch conference so there were already a lot of people. Then Sacrament mtg starts and I get a phone call from one who is trying to make his way over to the church, so I stepped out side to take the call and as I do, I see 5 brothas walk in to the hall, 3 of them being our investigators. So I took the call and Ruslan said that he'll be 20 min late but he's coming. Then sacrament ends and I go back in to see that there are no more headphones ( I use a micro phone that is connected to a transmitter that sends my voice to a ton of headphones) for every one b/c they are all being used...so Our friend had to translate for some and I translated for the rest. Then, as I'm translating, the phone goes off again and another investigator is trying to find his way to church, but forgot how so as I'm trying to do my best translating (which is SOOOOOO hard by the way) I'm also texting an investigator the address of our church (which is actually an institute and a lot of people get confused when we tell them that our church is at an institute....) and I'm worrying that the words I'm trying text aren't come out of my mouth....and that words I'm supposed to be saying are making sense to all the people listening to me ...5 of them investigators and out of those 5, 3 of them were first timers, so of course you don't want them to get a bad 1st impression. I don't think my brain has ever been that used before. THEN, the missionaries performed a musical number. I wrote an arrangement to "Oh, come all ye faithful" and our district sang it. The performance went well but then I had to go back to translating and there weren't enough headphones for everyone so those with out head phones had to sit around me to hear my voice while the others were in the congregation somewhere. So at the end I had an investigator (not English speaking) sitting next to me on a ledge of the wall b/c we ran out of seats, and I was trying to speak loud enough for the English speakers that weren't with headphones but not loud enough that everyone else would get annoyed with me making too much noise and trying to just understand what was being said by the speakers. IT WAS CRAZY!!! I think the problem was that I had the phone on me and not my comp and he was sitting with other investigators in the front and I was in the back translating. He DEFINITELY gets the phone next time haha. So that was one crazy first hour and I'm just so excited that I was worthy for the spirit b/c with the spirit...I wouldn't have been able to do anything. I love this gospel and I love being so stacked with things to do that I feel like there is not enough time in the day to get it all done. I know that God is the perfect "planner" b/c His house is one of order and with out order there is chaos. I'm grateful some much to do b/c it is teaching me how to manage my time well and how to become more like my Savior. I will say that the a big motivating factor when dealing with all of the things of missionary work is that Jesus Christ worked "tirelessly" and that is something that I'm trying to apply in my life; to always have energy to keep a smile on my face. I'm not sure if anything in my letter made any sense but, I'll just say that I'm having a blast and love being here. Definitely the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, but now I have more of a capacity to handle it all, and I know that source of my success is b/c of the Savior and the enabling power of the His atonement.
I love you!! I'll let you know next week what times I'll be able to Skype....wait actually, you guys need to tell me and I'll make it happen :)
have a great week!
- Sean
No comments:
Post a Comment