Tomorrow is July 18th. Do y'all know what that means? I'VE BEEN OUT ON MY MISSION FOR SIX MONTHS!!!! I'm a third of the way done! I come home in a year, to my niece and nephew, my big brother, and all my books!!!!
This week has been... Interesting, to say the least. I've learned what it means to work hard, and to love the work you are doing. Sister Bingham and I have been busting our tails, that's for sure. I know the Lord understands, and I feel He and Heavenly Father are proud of us. But it seems no matter how hard or effective we work, we have had no new investigators this transfer. We know this is just a refiner's fire for us, and that the Lord is about to rain His blessings upon us. It's the "being patient in all your afflictions" that is tough, hahaha.
Monday, hhmm... We to start of, in our area, because we are over the YSA ward, we don't have definitive boundary lines with the Elders. So, we were knocking an apartment complex, and say a picture of Jesus Christ in a window. We freaked out, thinking we were about to discover someone so prepared for the Restored Gospel. We knocked on the door, and waited anxiously. Guess who answered? THE ELDERS!!! WE KNOCKED INTO THE ELDERS! All four of us were shocked, but we got a good laugh out of it. Ah, Mondays are full of surprises :)
Tuesday was the mission tour for our new mission president, President Lindhardt. He has an awesome sense of humor. I love learning through humor :) We said goodbye to Brother Andres Rubio on Wednesday, he went back to Columbia this weekend. Man, I'm gonna miss that kid. Thursday we volunteered at the Hahn Horticulture Gardens on VT campus. So gorgeous!! I cannot keep plants alive, but I can bless others by pulling unwanted ones out of the ground, hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe
Friday hit us hard. We've had very little success, and by late afternoon, we were heavily discouraged. To put the cherry on top, we knocked into an "agnostic-atheist" (his own words, I'm not kidding). For 30 minutes he interrogated us. He did not shake my faith, my testimony, or my foundation, but the way he asked questions than not accept our answers really made us mad. He corrected my articulation and sentence structure, and targeted Sister Bingham's vocabulary. I got pretty steamed up. We decided to leave, and take our lunch hour. We went to a nice quiet park. Since our rules do not allow us to be separated from each other, we each sat on opposite sides of the small park to think. I prayed very hard. I kind of expected to leave the other guy confounded, but he seemed to think he came off conqueror. Well, the Lord knows. We testified and invited him to learn. We have decided not to go back to that neighborhood until next transfer.
We reevaluated our finding efforts; prayed A LOT; and really felt the need for a break. We treated ourselves to ice cream and coconut-mango-hot-chocolate. We felt better the next day. Yesterday was church, and boy how thankful I am for five hours of church :) Very Spiritually uplifting :) I've buried myself in the scriptures, and Sister Bingham and I use our "free" time (meal times) to talk about books and stuff. I've also been studying from "Adjusting to Missionary Life," a booklet the Church gives every missionary in the MTC. Very applicable to any stage while out on a mission. We continue to work hard, and anxiously await the mail truck every day :D
Always hold on to what you know. Just because someone is intellectually smarter than you and wins the argument it does not mean they are right. The Lord knows. God knows. The Godhead has your back :)
~Sister Mary Sierra Peacock
West Virginia Charleston Mission
Blacksburg, Virginia
There were waves in the sky, that would ebb and flow with the wind tide
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