Where to begin? Oh, I know. Happy Memorial Day! I hope it's a good one :)
I feel like a lot happened this week. We had zone training meeting on Tuesday. One of the things I liked that we talked about was how whenever you leave a place you leave a reflection of the church. People know who we are and they will make judgements or observations about our religion by the way we behave. I'm reminded of something Elder Holland said: "You never check your religion at the door, not ever." We promise to stand of witnesses of God at all times and in all things and in all places. That means our actions should be a positive reflection on Him. Our we being good examples of our Father in Heaven and our Savior? Our we testifying of them through our actions? Just something to think about.
We've been meeting with a few teenage girls lately, Katea, Mihaela, and Valeria. We help them with English and then share gospel lessons with them. We were able to meet with them twice this week. They are so great, and I'm glad they listen to what we have to say even if our language skills are flawed. I'm suprised they still have confidence that we speak English! Their English books are confusing! And who really knows the specific definition of "bungalow" anyway. Turns out it's a one story home that may or may not have an attic. At least I knew it was a house. Anyway, we talked to them about faith yesterday. We had them do a trust fall exercise to illustrate that even though we can't physically see our Heavenly Father, He's always there and will help us in our trials. They seemed to have fun with it. They're really sweet. Hopefully they'll come to our activities this week.
We had exchanges on Thursday with Sora Caruso and Sora Bynum. I really enjoyed working with Sora Caruso for the day. We had a good day, one where it just felt successful in the end. One of the things we talked about on the exchange was the importance of putting our trust in God and not in man. We had a lesson together with Victoria, the one from English who has been coming to our activities. It was the first official lesson with her, and I think it went really well. When I asked her to pray to know if our message is true, she said she already did! She said she still needs mroe time to be sure of an answer and so she can learn more, but basically I'm just hugely impressed that she did that on her own without any prompting from us! We will be meeting with her again this week.
Sometimes I'm just really impressed by the love of some people or the courtesy they show to others, even those they don't know. Sora Cox and I were contacting the other day, and we came to this woman on a park bench. We told her about our English classes, and she started to tell us about her daughter who is a translater and knows a good handful of languages. I wasn't sure where the conversation was going as I've had people use that in a negative way, but she was very pleasant as she went on to say that she didn't think she would be able to learn at her age. She had been eating a small cheese filled pastry, and out of no where she reached into her purse and grabbed the other two she had and told us to take them, and to eat with her. I tried to refuse, but she was so sweet and insisted that we share with her. She got a phone call and then had to leave, so we weren't able to talk more, but at least we were able to tell her who we are, and if nothing else I hope that she will always associate the Church of Jesus of Christ of Latter-day Saints with the two young women she shared pastries with in the park on a beautiful sunny day. I hope that we left a good impression, that, as I mentioned in the beginning of this message, we were good examples of our Savior. It was a very pleasant experience.
We have a lot of lessons lined up for this week, including English which starts on Tuesday. It should be a good one. You're all amazing. And you are loved!
No comments:
Post a Comment