Сайн байцгаана уу? How are you guys this wonderful week? This week has been full of fun adventures!
Tuesday:
Last pday, we met up with some other sisters and went thrift shopping! I bought a bunch of souvenirs for my siblings and enjoyed hanging out with all the city sisters. We also went to the stake center and my companion played basketball while I wrote more essays haha.
Wednesday:
On Wednesday, we successfully met with a Facebook referral! This is the first time a Facebook referral has been successful for me so that was pretty exciting! And she seemed really interested! She asked us so many difficult questions that really pushed my language abilities which was a great experience. She also asked really important questions such as "what do you do during your church services?" "Are the church services in your church's other buildings the same?" "What are things your church members are not allowed to do?" And many many other questions. It was difficult because the questions were so good but we had to try and explain them without overwhelming her with too much information. I think we did well because we were able to schedule a follow up lesson with her and she said she felt the Spirit strongly in our first lesson! It was super amazing and I'm thankful to work with her! We also did studies, contacting, and taught piano and english which all went well. Our students were a little crazy because they were only ages 9-12 but they seemed to learn a lot about jobs so that was fun!
Thursday:
We started the day off by trying to find the address of an inactive young woman with our new YW's president. We unfortunately didn't find the young woman, but we were able to contact two other young women we were trying to find with our President. We also bonded with our yw president and built trust with her so now we'll be working closely with her to support all of our yw new members and inactive youth! Then we did studies because two referrals flaked on their appointments with us. After that, we went to visit a member with the elders but we found out that she lived all the way in Khan Uul...but we couldn't back out of the appointment because she was already mad that we were running late. Long story short, we traveled 5 hours there and back to visit her but it was a very good visit. I think she needed it and she said missionaries don't visit her much because she lives far away. So that was a miracle and we all felt the Spirit!
Friday:
Friday was a party! We taught 4th, 5th, 7th, and 8th graders at the middle school for 3 hours, then went straight to a ward karaoke activity. It was the most fun ward activity I've ever been to in Mongolia! The members taught us so many songs and we just had a party! They also snuck snacks into the karaoke room we reserved so we were stocked up. If you ever get the chance to sing old songs with 60 year olds, definitely don't pass it up! Both those things took up the whole day so besides those, we just did studies haha.
Saturday:
We cleaned the church by ourselves because the ward members didn't show up. We also jammed out to the elf soundtrack while we cleaned haha. Then we did studies and had a fun mutual. We played different games with sheep ankle bones and played ping pong with our youth. Not many people showed up but thankfully 1 investigator and 1 new member came! Then we had a leadership training with all the stake leaders and the adult session of stake conference. Both were super motivating and spirit filled and many people came!
Sunday:
We had two lessons in the morning. One was a follow up lesson with our Facebook referral and she still seems super interested and excited to learn more! So we gave her a Book of Mormon, taught her about Joseph Smith, and invited her to read! We also had a lesson with one of our super progressing investigators and actually put her on date for baptism! She seems excited and nervous so we planned for a month away to give her time to prep for it. She also told us that she will start practicing reading the Book of Mormon so that she will be able to understand it before her baptism. She is so ready and I am so happy to work with her as well! She also told us she will start to work on convincing her husband and kids to take lessons from us so we might get to baptize her whole family eventually! Then we were late to stake conference because of our awesome lessons, but that was okay. Stake Conference was great and so many people came! It honestly surprised me to see so many people there! I got to see so many people from my previous areas that I missed a lot! It was pretty special!
Then we had a member visit that was honestly so difficult to get through. The whole time, the member was bashing us for being bad missionaries. He was especially hostile towards me because I was the oldest missionary there. He criticized my language a lot and then criticized all of our faith and our teaching abilities saying we weren't strong or faithful enough. He said a bunch of other stuff I won't get into but needless to say, it was a hard visit for the four of us missionaries and left us kind of disappointed in ourselves. But after a sincere prayer, I felt peace from Christ and He helped me remember that none of us are perfect but He had called us to do His work despite this. This motivated me so we're still going strong!
Monday:
We taught at the middle school again and taught the kids about Thanksgiving! It was fun to get them in a festive mood for it even though they don't celebrate it. We also did studies, and had 2 investigators flake on us. But despite this we kept busy and had a good day!
This week was full of highs and lows but I am thankful for all the experiences we had this week. The mission is always hard but also always rewarding and fun. I am so thankful for all the things the mission has taught me. This week, I was reading in 3 Nephi and came across one of my favorite gospel principles. 3 Nephi 12 says:
14 Verily, verily, I say unto you, I give unto you to be the light of this people. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.
15 Behold, do men light a candle and put it under a bushel? Nay, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light to all that are in the house;
16 Therefore let your light so shine before this people, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
I love that we are all given Christ's light. It is our responsibility to share His light with everyone around us. Instead of complaining about the problems around us, we can instead see things with optimism. We can show others the joy we choose to feel, which will help them feel the light of Christ. I want to always choose joy, no matter how difficult my circumstances become.
Choosing joy will bring light into your life. I am thankful for the joy and light of Christ's gospel. It has blessed my life and it will bless yours too. I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!
Love,
Sister Potter
No comments:
Post a Comment