12/23/13

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

I've never felt the true Christmas spirit as I have on my mission. Being a set-apart servant of Him whose birth we celebrate is very special. 

So last week, we had been asked by both wards to give a short little presentation or message in the primary classes on Christmas and missionary work. We had planned a cute little thing about giving Jesus a present for Christmas and then giving them all pass-along cards to give to their friends. We went in for our presentation in the first ward and they announced us as the "special guests" and, in the spirit of Christmas, they were going to give US gifts. They took a sheet off a huge box full of individually wrapped presents and said we were going to open them all in front of the kids and to ham it up. :) We got MOUNTAINS of food. We counted 8 boxes of cereal and at least four boxes of mac & cheese, 2 jars of spaghetti sauce, many many cans of fruit, dishwasher detergent, dryer sheets, and (this cracked the kids up) two packages of toilet paper. All of this times two because we're in two wards. So the kids probably thought those were pretty lame presents but holy cow that saves us so much money on P day! I'll attach a picture of our bounty. (That was a toilet paper pun.) They also did the same thing for the elders in each ward. (I attached a picture of the second ward elders as well, Elder Vaoga our district leader and Elder Jeffries. We cart them around a lot for meetings and such because they're on bikes.)

Yesterday was very humbling as I made a few scheduling mistakes and realized afresh how imperfect I am and how much I need to work on. This morning in my reading of the Book of Mormon, I read Ether 12:27- how true that scripture is. 

Sister Gentry and I are working with a less-active who has a unique situation. She believe whole-heartedly that the church is true, the Book of Mormon is true, she's gone through the temple, everything- but she says that she was driving by a church one day and God told her to go to that church, and she has ever since and doesn't plan on changing until God says so. Sister Gentry and I worked very hard to plan for her next lesson and I had just decided to love her more than I have and see where the Spirit took us. In that lesson, I was never frustrated with her (like I had been in the past) and I could plainly feel the promptings of the Spirit. We extended a commitment that we had not planned but we both felt prompted to do (which was her coming out on exchanges and teaching with us; she says she feels 'called to the ministry' and being a member missionary does that). As soon as the commitment was extended, I felt that our job had been done for that lesson- that's what needed to be accomplished for that visit. 

The next night, which was last night, Sister Gentry and I both felt very prompted to go to a certain investigator's house, but when we go there, no one answered the door. I was a little troubled as to why the Spirit would tell us to do something that didn't come to fruition. Then as we were walking back to our car, we again both felt prompted to go knock on the house next door where we met a man named Kenneth. He had a Book of Mormon that he had never read, had met elders before, and was curious about our religion. He loved the restoration. And he told us that he didn't live at that house- he happened to be visiting a friend that night. 

The Spirit is never wrong!