More about diligence and patience

The women of the Valencia ward

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Good week! New friends, exchanges, and Maurilio & his boys' baptism!

This week was a really good week! It had its ups and downs just like any other week, but it's one of the best weeks I've had in this area! We're finally teaching pretty consistently!!

Also, I've started spending more time on our screened in balcony and let me tell you, that works wonders for your endorphins. That's where I'm sitting as I write this.  Florida is beautiful and the weather these days has been so incredible, although we have had some crazy storms this past week, likely due to the tropical storm down south. Even the rain fills me with joy, though.

Anyway, we've started teaching some really awesome people!! Alejandra is a sweetheart and she loves the Book of Mormon! She just has to work on Sundays so please pray that she can get Sundays off of work! Vanessa is super cute and loves having us over. We also met a whole family yesterday who have been taught before and love the Book of Mormon as well. Please pray that Carmelina and her family will be able to understand the importance of Priesthood authority!

We also went on exchanges with the Pleasant Hill sisters this week. Sister Murphy came to join me over here in Horizon West! She's super sweet and her Spanish is so good! She just got into the mission field 2 weeks ago and is already rocking it. 

After our exchange we drove with the Scott's over to Valencia to watch a family Sister Peterson had been teaching be baptized! It was so awesome. It was a dad (Maurilio) and his 3 boys. The program was beautiful and one of the boys gave the closing prayer, in which he said "thank you Heavenly Father for letting us get baptized." That was maybe the most heartwarming thing I have ever seen on my mission. Those boys are so special and I hope they all serve missions of their own!

One last miracle- Kendry! Kendry lives in the Dominican Republic and I got in contact with him over Facebook. We talked for a while, and then I sent him off as a referral to the sisters in the Dominican Republic. He had also been contacted by an Elder in the mission, who did the same. Somehow the Sisters lost contact with him, so he messaged me again to ask for help finding the missionaries again. It was a bit of a process to get in touch with ghe right people, but long story short, we had a video call with him, taught him about the Book of Mormon, and then he made it to church and got his copy! He's very excited to keep going to church and learning more. Very cool!

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More about diligence and patience 

Since writing my email last week, I have still been pondering a lot about diligence and patience. If I'm being honest, I think what I wrote last week was more for me than for anyone else. I hadn't entirely realized that those were things I needed to more actively work on until I sat down last week to see what Heavenly Father had been teaching me about in my studies and in my experiences. 

So, I continued my study relating to these themes. Or, better said: I tried to live what I had written, and as I did so, I continued to learn how to do so. Diligence and patience came up in each of my personal studies this week. It appears that Heavenly Father still has things for me to learn. 

I was reading in Alma this week and came across these verses: 

"Many thousands of others truly mourn for the loss of their kindred, yet they rejoice and exult in the hope, and even know, according to the promises of the Lord, that they are raised to dwell at the right hand of God, in a state of never-ending happiness.

And thus we see how great the inequality of man is because of sin and transgression, and the power of the devil, which comes by the cunning plans which he hath devised to ensnare the hearts of men.

And thus we see the great call of diligence of men to labor in the vineyards of the Lord; and thus we see the great reason of sorrow, and also of rejoicing—sorrow because of death and destruction among men, and joy because of the light of Christ unto life."

These verses are found just after a lot of death and bloodshed. People had lost loved ones. People were sad. Some of them, hopeless. 

And thus we see the great call of diligence!

That's the point. There are so many people out there who lack hope because they lack the gospel. Or maybe they have the gospel, but not in its fullness. That's what motivated those missionaries back in Alma's day. They were motivated by the love they had for their fellow man and their desire to help them find lasting happiness.

That's my motivation too! I know this gospel is important. That's why I'm out here on this mission. That's what motivates me to be diligent.

But I will be honest. Sometimes I just feel like I don't even know how to be diligent. Or maybe I just don't entirely understand what diligence looks like. 

With this frustration, to put it that way, in my mind, I started another personal study later on in the week. I found myself in Alma 32, one of the best in the book. I read this familiar chapter, thinking I had already learned all that there was to learn from this metaphoric chapter. 

Then these verse caught my attention:

"Nourish the word, yea, nourish the tree as it beginneth to grow, by your faith with great diligence, and with patience, looking forward to the fruit thereof, it shall take root; and behold it shall be a tree springing up unto everlasting life.

And because of your diligence and your faith and your patience with the word in nourishing it, that it may take root in you, behold, by and by ye shall pluck the fruit thereof, which is most precious, which is sweet above all that is sweet, and which is white above all that is white, yea, and pure above all that is pure; and ye shall feast upon this fruit even until ye are filled, that ye hunger not, neither shall ye thirst."

The tree grew because of 4 things. 3 are named above, on a couple of occasions.

Diligence.

Faith. 

Patience.

What's the fourth thing a tree needs in order to grow?

Time. 

Now you might say, "wait a minute there Sister Daugs, that's what it means by patience."

Sure, maybe. But I don't think the tree needs our patience in order for it to grow as much as we need the patience in order to wait for it!

I could be the most patient person in the whole world and plant a seed, with faith that it will grow. But my patient demeanor doesn't make the tree grow any faster! The tree still needs time. 

It's that golden combination: faith. diligence. patience. and time. 

That's what I've been learning lately. I can't just pray to be more patient and then expect the miracles to start pouring down like Florida rain. I can't even actually be more patient and then at the same time expect those things to happen. It takes more than patience. 

It takes time.

And it takes faith. 

And diligence. 

We gave a training in our District Council about diligence this week, and while we were discussing it, a thought came to my mind. Most of you know I'm a very metaphorical person. If there is a way to connect a gospel principle to a story or an event, my brain will do it. 

So, as we were talking about diligence, the thought came to my mind to compare it to Uno Attack. Have you ever played that game before?

It's like Uno, but instead of drawing a card on your turn, you push a button on a card-launching machine. Sometimes you don't get a card. Sometimes you get one or 2. And sometimes, the machine spits out so many cards you aren't sure if it will stop. 

That's what diligence looks like. How?

Diligence is completely under our control. Diligence is carrying on with the work even when you don't see the fruits of your labors. Diligence is clicking that button every time, regardless of if you've gotten cards before. (In this metaphor we're pretending getting cards is a good thing.)

You can't just give up if the miracles don't happen immediately. You can't click the button once, not receive anything, and decide never to click it again. That's not diligence. That's not faith. That's not patience. 

That's how missionary work is. Sometimes you do something good, and miracles come pouring down. Other times, nothing happens. But that isn't failure. That's an opportunity to exercise a little bit of faith, patience, and diligence. We just have to give our Heavenly Father time. Not because it takes Him a while to get around to things. Not because He's busy. Not because He'd rather not help us right then. No. 

Because His timing is perfect, and we ought not to want it any other way. 

New method of Finding.  ( Just kidding, but we did consider it :) )

One of the many times we got caught in the rain

Kendra with his new Book of Mormon

Diligence and Patience

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Christmas, my birthday, and the first week of the Spanish Zone!

This week was another crazy one. I genuinely feel like I don't remember half of the stuff that happened haha. But, here's the best summary I can give you:

Last Monday we decided as a district to celebrate Christmas pday. What does that entail? Well, for starters, we went to Ihop and ate so many pancakes. Then, we all changed into our Christmas pajamas, or the best version of Christmas pajamas that we could come up with. We all met up at the church in our pajamas and did a gift exchange(in which I gave 15 pounds of yams and received a tiny bible), talent show(in which I threw ice cream in a church gym and heard my zone leader rap about everyone in the district) and tron disk battle(the glow in the dark version). All in all, it was easily the best pday of my entire mission. I didn't take a lot of pictures but I do have some hilarious videos so if anyone wants to see them let me know and I'll send then your way.

The reason we celebrated so much on Monday is because Tuesday was transfer day! My companion, Sister Rowell, went to a different area (7 minutes away) and I got a new companion, Sister Peterson! I was sad to leave Sister Rowell after only having served with her for 1 transfer, but she's close by, so it's okay. And Sister Peterson is great! She's a hard worker and we have pretty similar personalities.

We are also now in an all Spanish district! We did District Council in Spanish this week and it was really great because we got to practice our skills and counsel together about more specific things that we are working on as Spanish missionaries. It's really exciting, I feel like a pioneer. 

My 2 favorite lessons this week were with Alejandra, and Mayra and Sofia. Alejandra had been taught before, so when we met her we asked her what she remembered about what she had been taught previously. She then proceeded to teach us everything we teach as missionaries, it was awesome! She's honestly so elect and so prepared. The only struggle is that she works on Sundays, so she can't come to church. So please please everyone pray that she can get Sundays off and start coming to church!!

Mayra and Sofia are a cute family we met last week! Last week they let us right into their home and I got to teach them about the BOM (I taught them alone because I was on exchange with a missionary that didn't speak Spanish) and Sofia, the daughter, looked at me the whole time like I was a Disney princess haha. Then, when we came back on Saturday, Sofia had read 16 chapters of 1 Nephi!! We has another lesson and at the end they made really yummy hot cocoa and we ate Venezuelan cookies and they sang Feliz cumpleaños because it was my birthday and it was awesome.

The last miracle I want to share is about our friend German! I think I've already mentioned that a member in the ward gave him a job. Well, this week I found out that he not only gave him a job. He gave him his very job! The member literally retired so German could work. That member and his wife (brother and sister Bori) are both incredible people and it was good to get to know them better this week!

Small Plates 

Diligence and Patience 

With all of these changes going on in the mission, I have found it very easy to get overwhelmed, I'll be honest. And there has been a lot of change in my area too, and a lot of things are out of my control. Those of you who know me well know I prefer to have things under control.

So, what I've been trying to do to combat the stress is focus on 2 Christlike attributes: Diligence and Patience.

I'm quite the perfectionist, so at times it can be really hard for me to see how hard I work and not see any of the fruits of my labors.  As I've pondered a bit on this problem I've been facing, my first instinct was "I just need to work harder."

That may be true. To an extent. But there is a limit on how hard any given missionary can work. No matter how hard I try, there are still only 24 hours in a day. 

So rather than running faster than I have strength (or faster than I have time), the better option is to be diligent with the time I do have. 

One of the missionaries I admire most is going home soon. But when I talked to him about it the last time I saw him, he didn't say, "I'm almost there!" He didn't say, "I only have x days left!" No. What he said is that he is so happy to have had the time here that he did, and that he's determined to keep working until the end. That's diligence. 

That's how I feel about my mission, too. Or at the very least, that's how I want to feel. There's definitely ups and downs in that aspect. I've been here a while, and sometimes I catch myself thinking about what I'm going to do as soon as I'm done. But then I remember how grateful I am to be here. I only have 18 months to do this. And I want to make the most of it. I want to work diligently every minute of every day until they make me leave this place I call home. 

But, even the most diligent missionary doesn't go their whole mission without a hard day, or without getting frustrated. That's where patience comes in. 

I know there are a lot of things I can do to improve. And I'm determined to continue to do so. But that doesn't eliminate the fact that not everyone wants to hear my message. As unfortunate as that may be, it's just true. Or, it may be that there are people who do want to hear the message, but it's going to take them some time to grasp it, internalize it, and be converted by it. 

That's why a patient missionary is a good missionary. 

A patient missionary recognizes that God is in control of His work. I've said it before and I'll say it again for the rest of my life. God is in control of His work.

So, if He's in control, that means we are not. Does that mean we just sit back and wait for Him to do it all? No. A patient missionary does what they can and then sees the miracles.

He called me to work. He called me to labor in His vineyard. And I will be diligent in fulfilling that calling. Because I know that whom the Lord calls, he qualifies. 

My companion and I are serving in a calling that at times I feel inadequate to hold. Sometimes I feel inadequate to even be a missionary at all. But then I remember that the reason I'm here is because I'm trying to be like my Savior. I feel like the best way I can articulate what that means to me is through a few simple words that have been coming to my mind constantly, almost relentlessly, this week:

"Here am I,

Send me."