There is so much to convey to you about everything that
happened inside of me this week. I don't know where to begin. Let's start where
we left off...
After you dropped me off it was really exciting for me to
walk into the world of missionaries that you never see as a family member
standing on the curb. Getting my nametag was a tender moment. I was then sent
up to a classroom where a crazy-eyed BYU student ranted Spanish at me for 30
minutes before the rest of my district showed up and the day's events
continued. I LOVE Spanish! I feel like it is God's gift to me to ask me to
learn this language in order to communicate with the people I am going to love
so much. It is crazy how much I remember from 8th and 9th grade. We are talking
gift of tongues status here. I'm that annoying person in the class who makes
everyone else worry about how much Spanish they know. It is a beautiful
language though. The morning after our 3rd night here, the 5 girls who share a
room with me all were making fun of me becaus apparently in the middle of the
night I started sleep talking in Spanish: "The Spanish word of the day is:
JUGAR!" So the language was not my barrier. It is coming.
However, after that first initially exciting day of running
into a million people that I know, and standing in awe of the cafeteria, things
began to get difficult for Hermana Carter. I have learned a major lesson every
day that I feel would normally take years to learn. My heart has been squeezed,
contorted, and bent to learn what the Lord wants me to become. Imagine the
"Whistle While You Work" song from snow white, when the
animals are doing the dwarves laundry on the turtles stomach. My
heart was the laundry. Every day I would wake up with this tangible weight
on me because I knew that by the end of the day I would be a different person
and I dreaded the humility that I would have to have in order to realize
how unprepared I am for this task and rely completely on the Lord. That is the
most wonderful part about the MTC though. Every creature form of
comfort I have ever known is gone--family association, Mom's cooking,
being out in nature, doing whatever I want--and I am forced to come to
know very intimately the real Comforter. It truly is the Training
Center, where we come to know how to have conversations with the Spirit.
Anyway, my homesickness/apprehension/realization of the sacrifice a mission is
culminated on Sunday. Oh man that day was hard. I cried from about 4-7 pm. All
the way through dinner. You know it's bad when food can't cheer me up! I don't
even know why...it was just all the emotions of the week catching up to me, and
all I could think was, "Why didn't I finish The Sound of Music with my
Mom? Did I hug Dad enough times? I don't think I hugged Dad enough times. Why
didn't I hug him one more time?". I guess I was just coming to grips with
18 months and had to decide if this mission was worth it to me. But like
previous days, by the end of the day I had learned the most important lesson
yet. We watched President Bednar's talk to the MTC sometime ago on tape called
"Character of Christ" (If you can find a copy please mail it to me).
And long story very short and very poorly dictated, I learned what the
Atonement means to me. And since then I have been so happy to serve this
mission. What a privilege and incredible opportunity to consecrate my whole
heart to the Lord and be led by Him and let Him change me. Seriously. Every day
I am changed.
I also learned very quickly not to outpace myself (your
advice Dad was the first to come into play). I tend to run myself into the
ground when people say "Work your hardest" (which is all anyone says
around here) so I had to have some conversations with God about what my pace
should be, and I am doing much better. We study so diligently, but are also
learning to recognize when to pause and meditate and listen to the Spirit.
We've been teaching an investigator, Edgar, who is an RM
that pretends to be an investigator who is dear to him from his mission. We are
encouraged to believe he is real, because the Spirit can still be present in a
very real way and teach us real lessons. So we've been teaching him and it has
been the sweetest thing. It is so awesome to prepare all afternoon a
schmorgizborg (sorry I can't spell like Carolyn, world) of topics that you feel
influenced to study for him and then go into a lesson with a fervent heart and
watch how the Spirit leads the discussion. He totally believes in Joseph Smith
and is praying about being baptized even though initially I told him that if he
had faith he could be clean from all his fishes (pecado= sin and
pescado=fish)The miracle is that after one week I can understand 70 percent of
what he is saying and respond coherently (though slowly) to all his
questions.But we aren't here to learn Spanish. We are here to understand the
workings of the Spirit in people's hearts.
Know that I love you all so incredibly much but am so happy to be giving myself to this work. In everything I do, I hope to work with full purpose of heart. Look up 1 Samuel 10:9. Saul didn't believe Samuel had called the right person to lead the armies of israel, but as he turned to go, the Lord gave him another heart. This has been my experience.
Hermana Rosie Carter
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