Casi Navidad!

So the biggest thing that has hit me this week is how little everyone knows about us, and how difficult it is to inform them as a missionary. Almost everyone just assumes we are robots coming to assimilate them and don't even want to look at us too long. There was even a lady who saw us coming and opened her door before we even got there and shouted no thanks and slammed it. No one really realizes that we are real people who have made and are making big sacrifices to be here because we care about them.  Obviously we think it'd be fantastic if they listened to our message, felt the truthfulness of it and joined the church, but we don't force it on them. We just invite to learn and help people come closer to Christ, and if they don't want to do that, then we're always happy to just do some service. We're not as aggressive and forceful as they think... but that's the first thing that comes to mind when they see the suits and nametags. That's why regular members are so much more effective at finding, they are just seen as normal people, and they make friends first, then when it's known that they are Mormon, the other people don't run away.  The people who understand that we are just there to help, even if they don't want our message stop and talk and we always have a pleasant conversation. so I just want to encourage everyone who reads this and is a member to make sure everyone who knows you knows it, and if missionaries ever come up in conversation, just make it clear that we are here only to help and teach and uplift people, we don't want to force them to do anything or fight or whatever... That way we might get a little less flak when we're trying to jsut brighten their day.

Another challenge I'd like to make is to anyone who is reading this who is not a member of the church. If you haven't taken the time to learn about the church and it's history and beleifs, do so. A great way to do that is to read The Book of Mormon, or tak to the missionaries. I promise that neither of those things will brainwash you. You can even tell the missionaries you just want to learn and not convert. They'll probably still ask you to pray about the things they teach and maybe even if you'll get baptized, but don't let it scare you. Your obligation is not to them, but to yourself and your God. So just do what feels right to you. We had a lady get really mad at us and not really let us talk because she said that she only studies from the Bible, the word of God, and not from a man made book, but I'm sure she hasn't ever even looked at the Book of Mormon.  We only really had time to simply say we know the Book of Mormon is of God before she closed the door.  What I would say to her if I had time is this: I have read nearly all of the Bible, and I have felt it's truthfullness insomuch that I would say I know it to be the word of God, but I have also read The Book of Mormon and have felt the same testimony of it's truth and know it to be the word of God as well. What qualifies us in saying that God can't give us more testimony of His son? and if He did, would you deny it? So read the book first, then look me in the eye and tell me it isn't a good book, tell me it's not from God. You won't be able to, for it is.

Something that made me happy, though, is the daughter in the Briggs family. They're the ones I wrote about last week who we found by talking to people at the dumpster. Anyways, she took the time to let us share a little bit of our message, and to serve her and her family, and she told us that she's been to a lot of churches, and we are the first ones she's met that really try to do what Jesus would do. She's impressed by that and wants to get involved. See what happens? if you just give us a couple minutes to learn about you and help you, you'll see we aren't bad. Then, if you give us a little more to teach you what we believe, you'll see that that is good too.  You don't even have to agree with us necessarily, it's just nice when people recognize that the work is good and we are only extending a hand of support. So tell your friends how nice we really are. It does wonders.

We also went to check on a lady who was being taught by the missionaries a long time ago, and they kinda stopped teaching her because she said she wanted to come to church and do stuff, but would always bail out at the last minute and just wouldn't keep any commitments. Some members of the church still wen't by periodically, but the missionaries didn't really have time. So yeah, we went back and talked to her and were very nice and offered tours of the church and stuff to make her more comfortable, and invited her to a christmas musical devotional that was last night. She had kind of a hard time... Her husband died ten years ago and she still cries at the drop of a hat about it. She got remarried briefly, but then got divorced and has been going through huge custody battles in the court ever since and is dealing with the mother's pain of feeling like she's losing her children and people calling her a bad mother all the time, and criticizing her ability to be a parent, while her children just tell her that they want to be with her. She prays, and tries to be forgiving, but she's put herself in a little bubble. She takes a couple classes, but doesn't work. She goes to a support group where it sounds like people just go to cry and complain to eachother and be told that everyone there is having a hard time, but not really be helped in any way. She goes to counseling, but the counsellor just seems to try to tell her that she's really strong enough to deal with it all and needs to not worry. That is actually counter productive because she keeps feeling the need to just keep trucking on by herself, because she can be strong enough, but then she gets overwhelmed and does nothing. So she gets up and goes through the same, meaningless routine every day hoping her problems will go away. She says she believes Jesus can help her, but doesn't do anything about it. We were pretty blunt with her and told her that God will answer her prayers and show her the answers and His love if she'll just show him. She needs to get out of her little bubble, out of her comfort zone, and then she'll be able to see changes. Once she actually does something to cope, she'll be able to overcome that pain and sorrow that she has just come to accept as part of her burden. The atonement of Christ can lift us to infinite heights, but only after we have done all we can do to do what he has asked. She seemed touched by that. She actually came to the devotional!!!! After like a year and a half of zero action, of saying she wants help, but doing nothing to get it, she actually got out of her little comfort zone, did something she was scared to do, and it was awesome. She really enjoyed it. It was like pulling teeth, and we were half an hour late, but she got there and loved it. I think that means she's going to make it to church too. She said it would anyways... but yeah. It was a huge step. She has a lot of potential.

So yeah... I was going to say something else, but I forgot... I still get to practice Spanish. Every day I pray for opportunities to use is it, and when I look for them I always end up talking to at least one spanish speaker. It's harder than you might think here. My area has the lowest hispanic population of the mission, and I'm in an english ward, so yeah... anyways, thank you for everything, sorry if my email doesn't really make sense, my brain is tired. I love you all :)