Forget-me-nots

 

WOW! What a week it has been. I'll start with what happened to me after I emailed you last week. We had one appointment set up for the evening after P-day. It was with the Rodriguez family--these two AMAZING girls who are 17 and 13, who are really smart, super involved with school, volunteer work, and with earnest desires to figure out what religion is all about. They actually prefer to speak in English (like most of the kids of the Hispanic people here) so we got to teach in English which was a tender mercy for me because I could actually understand what was transpiring. Teaching by the spirit was much a less of a guessing what they said, and trying to formulate an answer before they got to the next topic, and instead such a sweet experience of testifying to two girls just like Camille and Grace. I could see the light coming into their eyes. We taught them the first half of the plan of Salvation. They soaked it all up and kept saying things like, "Oh yeah! That makes sense! The Spirit is like pretty much my conscience, and I know what is right and wrong because I knew it before!" We asked them to pray at the end, and afterwards we promised that if they continue to pray, they will receive those same feelings of peace and truth from the Spirit, and the older sister said, "Oh no. I don't need to pray to know--I've already felt something with you two here." I walked out of that lesson truly understanding why people love missionary work. I was filled with the joy that comes from really knowing you helped someone understand their purpose here and their relationship to Jesus Christ.

Well, the next morning when I woke up, I was filled with doubts again. Like I said last week, the moments of waking up seem to be the hardest for me. The day looming ahead weighs on my heart, and in the back of my mind is always the little murmur, "I don't want to do this again for a whole day...and then for 18 months! I just want my mom and dad." The day before, I had finally taken out my little 'forget-me-not' seed kit that mom sent for my birthday, which I had saved to plant until I got here, and obediently waited until my first P-day to plant them, and with great love and care placed each little seed in the soft soil. There was a lot of emotion in those seeds. They brought me a lot of comfort and remind me of home. But, about 20 minutes later, I accidentally knocked them off the shelf while trying to move them to get more sunlight, and the whole top layer of dirt fell off, and with it, my precious seeds. Forget-me-nots are so small that there was no hope of my salvaging them. So I had to just shoulder my grief, muster all my courage, drag the vacuum out of the closet, and vacuum up my one source of comfort. I decided to water the remaining dirt.

 Heavenly Father sends me little tender mercies that help me to laugh and remember to be patient and look up with hope to Him. Some examples:

 My companion had the name of an old investigator come to mind so we went by and she said we arrived at just the perfect time, and she needs us, and she is now progressing again.

While my companion and I were sitting in our car, getting our things together, we saw this 12 yr old black kid jump off his bike, run behind this car where he thought he was hidden but where we could see him perfectly, and urinate all over the neighbor's driveway. Why is that a tender mercy? Well. Sometimes. You just need to laugh really hard.

After I explained to this little Niño that prophets are people who teach the people and testify of Christ he asked, "OH! So are YOU a prophet?"

Hispanic people can't say any word that starts with an 's' without adding and 'e' in front. For example SPencer's name would be ESpencer. And we taught this woman who afterwards when she opened the door, her dog ran outside and she yelled, "Esparky! Estop it!" which gave me a real chuckle.

The last tender mercy is this man named Miguel. Who I will tell you all about next week when I call. But it is just so nice to teach people who are earnestly seeking the truth. When they come to us like that, the Spirit works wonders in them.

To finish this story, I will say that when I woke up on Sunday, and looked in my little brown pot of dirt, there were 5 little sprout lings there. I don't know how any forget-me-nots survived. But I do know that God has not forgotten me in the Lone Star state.