Dear family,
First of all, I have a couple additions to my
"You know you're a missionary when..." List
You know you're a missionary when:
-You spend 20 minutes in the evening with your companions trying to figure out which investigators and members would be good eternal companions
- You have dreams about the people in the pictures from the General Conference Liahona
-You cry when the less-active you are working with finally comes to church
-You have a scripture or hymn for any situation
-You write a poem entitled "Oh To Be In Pants Again" (Its still a work in progress. I'll send it once its perfected)
You know you're a missionary when:
-You spend 20 minutes in the evening with your companions trying to figure out which investigators and members would be good eternal companions
- You have dreams about the people in the pictures from the General Conference Liahona
-You cry when the less-active you are working with finally comes to church
-You have a scripture or hymn for any situation
-You write a poem entitled "Oh To Be In Pants Again" (Its still a work in progress. I'll send it once its perfected)
Well Hello again! Time is FLYING. I've already been up here in f-town for
almost a whole transfer! I can't believe it. But its been my favorite time of my
mission so far. I absolutely love it up here. I loved Gabs but there is just
something special about it here.
This week was full of hard work and hard lessons. But also a lot of really great lessons both learned and taught. Elder Renlund of the 70 was here this week and we as missionaries had a big meeting with him. Him and President Wilson both spoke to us and I learned a LOT. I won't go into most of it but there is one particular lesson that stuck out to me a lot. He was giving us advise on how to keep a positive attitude even when times are hard. He reminded us of the pre-existence. Our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ laid out a perfect plan for us. They then taught us about the plan perfectly. So the perfect plan was taught to us by the perfect teachers. And still 1/3 of the hosts of heaven chose to not follow. He told us to remember this when we start to get discouraged about people not progressing or people not keeping commitments, etc. If the perfect companionship (Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ) lost a third of their "investigators", I as a human and imperfect teacher, can't give myself a hard time when people choose to not accept the gospel. I need to do my best to help as many people as I can but I can't beat myself up about it when people choose differently. It was a real eye opener. And a real encouragement after the aforementioned hard lessons. This week we taught a lot of people who have very strong beliefs in things that are just simply not true. And despite our best efforts to help them understand the truth, not much progress was made. It's frustrating beyond belief but I am trying to stay positive. The council from Elder Renlund definitely helped.
But we also taught some pretty incredible people too. Ishmael Adam is still doing great. We found out this week that there are some issues that are going to prevent him from being baptized as soon as we thought but he is doing fantastic at working through them. He just gets it. He sees the blessings that the gospel is bringing into his life and he is holding fast to that. Every time we see him, at least once in a lesson he gets this look in his eyes that just shows he understands. I can't really describe it. Anybody who has served a mission knows what I'm talking about. The moment when a principle of the gospel just clicks in someone is incredible. And it happens with him all the time. He's just incredible.
One of the other great lessons was with Tshepi. He is a 14 year old boy who is the only active member in his family. A few others in his family are members but he is the only one who comes to church. So we go and visit him to give him encouragement. Well a few Sundays ago he got to pass the sacrament. I don't think I have ever seen someone so excited and so proud to be fulfilling his priesthood duty. We met with him this week and asked how he felt while he was passing the sacrament he said "It felt GREAT!" So much love and excitement for the gospel in someone in such a tough situation is inspiring.
Another happy moment was something I mentioned in my list. Setlalekgosi came to church!!!!!!!!! He is a less active that we have been working with for a long time. And he finally came!!!!!!!!!!!! I guess there isn't much else to say about it but I'm just excited so I want to tell the world.
This week was full of hard work and hard lessons. But also a lot of really great lessons both learned and taught. Elder Renlund of the 70 was here this week and we as missionaries had a big meeting with him. Him and President Wilson both spoke to us and I learned a LOT. I won't go into most of it but there is one particular lesson that stuck out to me a lot. He was giving us advise on how to keep a positive attitude even when times are hard. He reminded us of the pre-existence. Our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ laid out a perfect plan for us. They then taught us about the plan perfectly. So the perfect plan was taught to us by the perfect teachers. And still 1/3 of the hosts of heaven chose to not follow. He told us to remember this when we start to get discouraged about people not progressing or people not keeping commitments, etc. If the perfect companionship (Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ) lost a third of their "investigators", I as a human and imperfect teacher, can't give myself a hard time when people choose to not accept the gospel. I need to do my best to help as many people as I can but I can't beat myself up about it when people choose differently. It was a real eye opener. And a real encouragement after the aforementioned hard lessons. This week we taught a lot of people who have very strong beliefs in things that are just simply not true. And despite our best efforts to help them understand the truth, not much progress was made. It's frustrating beyond belief but I am trying to stay positive. The council from Elder Renlund definitely helped.
But we also taught some pretty incredible people too. Ishmael Adam is still doing great. We found out this week that there are some issues that are going to prevent him from being baptized as soon as we thought but he is doing fantastic at working through them. He just gets it. He sees the blessings that the gospel is bringing into his life and he is holding fast to that. Every time we see him, at least once in a lesson he gets this look in his eyes that just shows he understands. I can't really describe it. Anybody who has served a mission knows what I'm talking about. The moment when a principle of the gospel just clicks in someone is incredible. And it happens with him all the time. He's just incredible.
One of the other great lessons was with Tshepi. He is a 14 year old boy who is the only active member in his family. A few others in his family are members but he is the only one who comes to church. So we go and visit him to give him encouragement. Well a few Sundays ago he got to pass the sacrament. I don't think I have ever seen someone so excited and so proud to be fulfilling his priesthood duty. We met with him this week and asked how he felt while he was passing the sacrament he said "It felt GREAT!" So much love and excitement for the gospel in someone in such a tough situation is inspiring.
Another happy moment was something I mentioned in my list. Setlalekgosi came to church!!!!!!!!! He is a less active that we have been working with for a long time. And he finally came!!!!!!!!!!!! I guess there isn't much else to say about it but I'm just excited so I want to tell the world.
Also I have an update on Morati! The 8 year old girl who came to church on
her own. Well we went to her house this week and next week we have an
appointment to teach her entire family! We are praying something comes of
it.
Another pretty cool thing this week is that one of the APs told our district leader to congratulate us (our companionship). He said that as of this transfer, we are the hardest working sisters in the whole mission. It was just nice to hear it from one of our leaders that our hard work hasn't gone unnoticed.
Well that's about it for this week. Lots of missionary work and not a whole lot of anything else. My favorite scripture of the week was Helaman 10:4-5. It gave me a pick me up that if I work hard ill be blessed.
I love you lots and lots.
Another pretty cool thing this week is that one of the APs told our district leader to congratulate us (our companionship). He said that as of this transfer, we are the hardest working sisters in the whole mission. It was just nice to hear it from one of our leaders that our hard work hasn't gone unnoticed.
Well that's about it for this week. Lots of missionary work and not a whole lot of anything else. My favorite scripture of the week was Helaman 10:4-5. It gave me a pick me up that if I work hard ill be blessed.
I love you lots and lots.
Love, Sister Gehring
p.s. I still don't have residency but I got a 90 day extension!!! So I'm safe for at least another 3 months. Thank you for the fasting and prayers.
p.s. I still don't have residency but I got a 90 day extension!!! So I'm safe for at least another 3 months. Thank you for the fasting and prayers.
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| Last P-day we had a contest who could jump the highest on the mini trampoline. I won! |
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| We each have a different color scarf. We wore them all on the same day to match. It was pretty cute. But, who says the pictures have to be cute. Right? |
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