It's the same in Italian!!
So it was the best thing ever to hear your voices!!! Everyone sounds so happy and well and even though it gave me a shoot dang heart attack to hear how LOW DAVID'S VOICE IS, it made me happy! Russell is the best!
It's week #1 of transfer #11 and Hermana Barnes and I are staying together! None of us were surprised. We think that we'll be here together until August. I think ours is the only companionship that stayed the same in the entire zone! So I am STOKED to see what happens this transfer. I've got some good feelings and high expectations. Our zone leader just went AP so even the ZL's got switched. I love it when zones get switched around like this....new faces bring new energies and new goals so I am one stoked missionary right here.
It was a good week full of learning experiences....which basically means it was long and hard yet worth it haha. We went on two exchanges and I brought 2 missionaries down here in Santee with me. One of them was probably the hardest exchange I've been on. She is a brand new missionary and is very much not happy. I think the hardest thing about it is the decision she made that while on her mission, she was not going to find joy. She is expecting to go home soon and is looking forward to that day. I don't know, but that whole day and the days since then I've had this heavy feeling with me. It broke our hearts to see the early decision that some missionaries make that their missions are more about "enduring" than "enjoying". No matter what I or my companion said, her mind was made up and we can only pray that she lets herself feel the joy that only a mission can bring. It was one of those rough moments where we sat there and I had no idea how to fix it. And you know how well I react to those situations.....:) But the Lord can, and I am confident that she will find the peace that comes from being in His service soon!
We had a lesson with an investigator named Lyanne, whom we have been teaching for a couple weeks! She is 20 and has two kids and whenever we go to their home, they're screaming and her little sister keeps interrupting and I can never feel the Spirit. We had one of those lessons haha and I was getting frustrated, but my companion asked her how she felt and she replied "You know, I feel good. Peace. Like I have the energy to do the things that I didn't think I could do. Whenever you come, I feel so much happier!". Hellooooo humbling moment. I wasn't paying enough attention to the Spirit, but she was and it was felt by all those who were listening.
We were teaching a woman named Diana my first few transfers here (she is a boss!!), but with the area change we had to give her over to the elders. We had a dinner appointment with a member last night, who took it upon herself to invite Diana without telling us!! BEST surprise ever!! It was so good to see her. The elders hadn't been able to come by because she is a single mom and her son is in juvie, so it was definitely a needed lesson. She told us that even though she hasn't been reading or going to church, she was always confident that we and Heavenly Father were there. She says she wants to start taking the lessons again!!!!! Major miracle!!
I love the opportunity at the beginning of a new transfer to do some goal-setting. It's like a chance to have a change of heart every six weeks. This last transfer was a stressful one, what with losing all our investigators to the elders (who are great and doing great things with them!!) and having to start all over with a new area. I found myself having the wrong motives (like numbers and meeting the expectations of the other missionaries'...I am not proud of it! I have repented!!). I kept thinking "I'm an STL, people are looking to us to have a flourishing area and high numbers and a ton of baptisms.". And because of that attitude I had, I was missing out on a lot of the miracles that were there, but not recognized. I attribute a lot of the problems we face to that attitude I had....SO I had a little re-commitment "Come to Jesus" moment a few days ago. I needed to change my desires! And then this morning I read Alma 29....and verses 3-6 were some more answers to prayers. My motive is now "Because I Love God" (which is what it has always been....just got a little lost this past week or so....) instead of "because everyone expects great things out of the STL's". And just because of that attitude switch I had, I have been able to see more miracles and have gotten so much more stoked about the work, even in just 24 hours. I am grateful for chances to struggle and change. I am so far from perfect, but at least He makes up for the many things I lack.
Sorry it's a boring one! MTE season is upon us so now we get to go figure out how many days we are going to be able to proselyte in our own area this next month....our estimate is 13. I love MTE's (where we go and do some coaching to all the other zones in the mission). Miracles, people, they're going to happen!
I LOVE YOU!!!!!
Hermana Hess
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