Howdy howdy!
Large plates
We started off this week with a mission devotional & it was GREAT. My mission president and his wife, the Ashcrafts, are incredible people. Also they picked on me to do the role play in front of everyone so that was awesome (and by awesome I mean not awesome haha). But anyway! It was great and gave us the motivation we needed to try even harder this week.
So we tried harder. And basically just got rejected the whole time. I won't tell you about all of our rejections cause that would take an eternity. But here are some of my favorites:
We stopped by the house of someone we were teaching. We knocked once. We could see everyone cause their door is mostly glass. They all looked at the door, and then back at the TV. Our friend started to put on a sweater over her shirt. We knock again. Our friend walks around the corner. Her daughter comes to the door, and tells us her mom is in the shower. Obviously we couldn't tell her we just saw her mom, who was actually putting on extra clothes, so we just said okay & went on our way haha.
At a different house, we knocked on the door and the lady walked up to the door. There were blinds on her window, so we could only see her feet. She looked through a slit in the blinds, saw it was us, and backed away, as slowly and quietly as she could. Oh well
Oh also. This wasn't really a rejection but it fits in this part of the email. We were walking though an apartment complex and a car sped past us and his a pothole that was full of muddy stinky Florida water & it splashed us & got us soaking wet. Wahoo! I've never felt more like a missionary than I did it that moment haha.
Ok ok now that I'm done being negative, this week actually wasn't bad at all. We started having lessons with a new friend and she is the SWEETEST. She & her husband have 2 kids and they always welcome us into their home with big smiles. We taught them the plan of salvation this week and they loved it.
Another miracle: another friend we've been teaching went to church yesterday! She didn't come to our ward, she went with one of our member friends who is in another ward. But thats still so awesome! Its really hard to get people to come to church because everyone works for Amazon or for the hotels around here, and Sunday is always the busiest day so they can never get work off. We're praying for a few friends right now that really want to come to church but can't.
Also a random note: Elder Moss left to Brazil this week,
we're all so excited for him, but we're gonna miss him tons. From day 1 he was such a good friend and example. Brazil's getting a good one.
Small plates
One thing we do as missionaries (and that we should all probably do more of, whether we're missionaries or not) is set goals and strive diligently to improve each day. This week I tried to focus on patience. Patience for myself, for my companion (though that's not hard at all cause she's literally the best), and patience in this work. Ironically, it's also the week we've seen more rejection than I've ever seen before.
What can I learn from this?
First: pray and ask our Heavenly Father to help us grow. He knows just what we need to help us become the people He knows we have the potential to become. He'll answer our prayers, every single time.
Second: take each punch with grace. Life's gonna knock you down. Time and time again. I hate to say it, but it's true. But if we learn to take our trials with grace, we can appreciate them, even in the midst of them. Ask yourself, "what is this teaching me?" And be grateful for the growth you will experience. And even if you can't see what it's teaching you, still be grateful. It is helping you become a better person, and helping you fulfill your divine potential.
Third: give yourself grace. You aren't perfect yet, nor will you be at any point in our mortal existence. So do the best you can with what you have and who you are. You've got this.
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