I am just going to hop right into this email so I can tell you everything.
This past week was the last week of our transfer. The mission is broken up into 6-week transfers, and at the end of each transfer, missionaries are moved to different places and start in their new areas. Normally in our mission, we stay in one area 2 or 3 transfers, sometimes 4. I think you already understood that. But anyway...
So again, this was the last week of our transfer. Since I was temporarily put in my area, Monterrico, it was pretty much certain that I would only be there for one transfer. So the past few weeks, we have been working really hard. I think I mentioned that last week...we had been in a little slump from the holidays, but we just really picked it up and were seeing lots of miracles and getting to know lots of people. We were working really hard. Last week (Tuesday I think) we had this night of changes. Not for the bad at all - we talked about so many things. I don´t even know how to explain it all, but we just learned so much. About each other, about our goals, etc. And all together, I think we learned about our real purpose as missionaries. All of us are in different places in the mission - I have 5ish months, Hna Killian has 10, and Hermana Phillips almost has 14 - but we all learned and grew that night. It was a really speacial experience for us.
THEN, the next day, we find out that Hermana Deoporto is going to get surgery and won´t be able to return to her area. It´s hard to explain the situation exactly, but basically, I was sitting in the mission office, happily talking to my companion and some other missionaries, and President and his wife come up to me and tell me that I have to leave Monterrico and go to the area of Hermana Deoporto to take her place. Looking back, I don´t really know why it hit me so hard. But that was like the end of the world for me. It was the last thing that I had expected. I had recently grown to really love Monterrico, I was getting to know the area, and my companions and I had had this really powerful spiritual growth together. We had so many goals for the end of the transfer, and here was President telling me that all of that was just getting thrown out the window. But it´s not like I have a choice...so I went. As soon as he walked away, tears just started rolling down my face. I wasn´t really even crying - it was just like this pain that had overcome my heart and the only way it was going to come out was through some never-ending tears rolling down my cheeks. We went back to the room, I packed up my stuff, and we left. The bus ride to Cieneguilla is like 2 hours, so I just sat there that whole time, with those broken-hearted tears rolling down my cheeks, thinking about our investigators, the families that we had come to know, and all that we had been planning to do. Maybe it sounds dramatic, but in that moment I just didn´t understand. I really didn´t. I was talking to God, just saying things like "Are you crazy? Seriously, are you crazy?" We teach people all the time that God has a plan for us, but in this moment, I just really didn´t get it.
To make the rest of this short, I just wanted to say that I figured it out. I learned more than I already have that really as missionaries WE DON´T DO ANYTHING. If He wanted to, God could just do all this stuff in 32 seconds. But He doesn´t. He gives us this year and a half or two years to learn and grow. He gives us the chance to know these people, He gives us this love that we feel for the people. It all comes from Him.
This scripture is what I read in Moroni in the Book of Mormon "I am mindful of you always in my prayers, continually praying unto God the Father in the name of his Holy Child, Jesus, that he, through his infinite agoodness and bgrace, will keep you through the endurance of faith on his name to the end."
I can´t be there forever. I can´t do everything. I´m just some weird American 20 year old, that walks around with ugly shoes and a backpack full of scriptures talking to people in broken spanish. The thing that actually matters is that the people we talk to can hear the message we have, and that we do all that we can to serve the people WHERE WE ARE, and do all we can. Take advantage of each moment that God has given us.
I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!
Have a great week, and just know that you are always in my prayers.
I LOVE YOU!
Con amor,
Hermana Michelle Scott
No comments:
Post a Comment