I learned a lot this week. It was hard to learn in the moment, but I'm
really grateful for it.
It all started on Thursday when I went on companion exchanges with our
Sister Training Leaders. Sister Lamborn went to the Gainesville ward
for 24 hours with Sister Smith and Sister Lindmeir came to Haymarket
with me! It was a great exchange. In the past, I have not had good
experiences on exchanges for various reasons. But Sister Lindmeir is
great. She was my roommate when I served in the Potomac Mid Singles
ward!!! She is going home in three weeks and it's really weird. She's
a really good missionary. She's really obedient and always keeps busy.
I followed her example a lot when I was a brand new missionary and
didn't know what I was doing. So it's pretty cool that she's my leader
now. She gave me lots of great ideas of ways I could improve and
better the Haymarket ward, of which I am very grateful! I love
improvement! I love it when people tell me ways that I need to change.
While we were on the exchange, we met with Bishop Gardener. Okay. He
is the BEST Bishop I have ever served with! He's retired and loves to
golf all the time. He is always really pleased with the efforts that
we put forth and it feels really good that he cares about the
work we're doing. Half of the ward is inactive so we spend a lot of
time meeting them and reporting back to him. Yes, literally half of
the ward is less active. We have a TON of work to do here!!!!
One thing that I've learned is how fragile our testimonies really are.
The small and simple things like reading our scriptures, praying every
morning and night and praying throughout the day and going to church
completely necessary to our salvation and enduring to the end. They
seem so easy and it's really easy to justify not doing them because we
might be too tired or busy, but the moment that we decide that they
aren't as important as sleep, work, school, sports, play time,
whatever it might be, we are toast! They're commandments for a reason-
not because it does anything for God, but because it helps US. All the
less active or inactive members of the church have their various
reasons or excuses for not actively participating in the church, but
without fail, every time it comes back to their decision to not study
their scriptures or pray daily. Honestly, that terrifies me. Before my
mission, I did not study every day. I don't want to get into a huge
confession, but until this time of my life, I didn't realize that I
was allowing myself to have a "less active" mentality. We meet lots of
men and women who served faithful missions who are now less active,
and that scares me even more. I have committed myself right NOW to set
those three things as a priority in my life- for the rest of my life.
No matter how crazy life becomes. God is my priority, and I never want
to forget that.
After our companion exchanges, we switched back and went home to do
our weekly planning. We started with a prayer, and out of nowhere, I
gave myself an anxiety attack. I still don't understand why and I was
frustrated with myself. Another thing I've learned is that even when I
don't understand my thoughts or emotions, there's one person who does.
And He loves me no matter what. I'm so grateful for that, and I'm
learning how to be patient with myself. :) Although, I realized that I
felt that way because I wasn't taking very good care of myself.
Anyway. Sister Lamborn is a great companion! She pulled out her
missionary stress management booklet and made me take the test. Then
we spent the next little while going over the tips and suggestions in
the booklet that would help me. We set goals together for the
transfer. Some of those goals that we set are to wake up every morning
at 6 to go on a run, keep a gratitude journal, drink lots of water,
find a strength in every weakness, and a few others that I can't
remember...
I LOVE SISTER LAMBORN!!!!! The moment we were put together as
companions, we were best friends. It was amazing. We were talking and
telling stories and laughing together. For the first week that we were
together, we would go to bed at 10:30 and then lay in bed and pillow
talk until we fell asleep. haha! It already feels like we have been
through so much together. We're on the same page- we're both committed
to talk to everyone and we help each other with our weaknesses.
Saturday was an interesting day. I started the day off by studying out
of the April 2014 conference Ensign. I read "Be Strong and of a Good
Courage" from the priesthood session by President Monson. Usually I
read a conference talk for about 30 minutes of my personal study time
and then move on to Preach My Gospel or the Book of Mormon. But this
time, I felt like I needed to take the entire time focusing on this
talk. It's all about being courageous and taking a stand by living
what you believe. I really felt the spirit and learned a lot. When I
read it that morning, little did I know that I would be applying all
the principles of courage throughout my day.
We started our day going to a service project. The Gainesville sisters
had gone contacting in a neighborhood and found a woman who needed
help moving and cleaning her house before Sunday. They found out she
was moving into the Haymarket ward boundaries, so they invited us to
come along so that we could meet her and possibly teach her once we
helped her settle into her new home. Sister Lamborn and I had a few
things come up, so we showed up an hour late. When we got there,
Sisters Smith and Lindmeir were the only ones home (i don't know why)
and had been cleaning for an hour. I remembered a rule that
missionaries aren't allowed to be in someone's home alone, and I
wouldn't go inside. I stood on the porch and told the other sisters
that we needed to leave. Sister Lindmeir remembered that that really
was a rule so they called the woman who lived there to apologize and
reschedule.
Since we were already in our service clothes, we decided to call the
Relief Society president to see if there was anyone in the ward that
needed our help. There was! She told us to go to a less active single
woman's home to help her clean her house to get ready to move. We show
up, and the moment this woman, Sister Taylor, sees us, she starts
bawling. She was so grateful! I knew that God needed us to be there
for her. We showed up around 1:30 and she said that the elders had
just texted her and would be over around 2. I thought to myself, "I
really hope they bring a man with them so they will be obedient." But
they didn't. It really really really hurts my heart to see disobedient
elders. I think it's because my friends- Spencer, David, Jacob, Ben,
Tanner, everyone else on a mission right now- set the standard in my
mind of how elders are. I know my friends, and I KNOW that they are
obedient missionaries. I guess I just assumed all elders were like
them. But in that moment I was disappointed. They also did not stay
within sight and sound of each other. Don't get me wrong, I still
think the elders we work with are great!!!! But I was sad that they
decided to compromise because it was easier that way. There was a
window of opportunity where I should have piped up and said, "Hey
elders! which ward missionary did you invite to come help out?" but I
hesitated and missed it. I felt bad that I didn't do all that I could
to help them be obedient.
There was another moment while we were helping Sister Taylor clean her
house where she turned on her music. And it was pretty wordly music.
Not bad, but not the kind of music missionaries aren't allowed to
listen to. I think all four of us missionaries were waiting for
someone else to speak up about it. After a few minutes, I spoke up
asked if we could bring in Sister Lamborn's iPad and Sister Taylor was
totally fine with that!! It was just a weird situation. We felt like
we really needed to be there to help this sister clean her house, and
we were being obedient, but it was uncomfortable because the elders
didn't choose to be exactly obedient. UGH. For some reason I really
took it upon myself that I needed to help them be obedient.
I talked to our Sister Training Leaders about it. I had to relearn
that everyone has their own agency and sometimes there's only so much
we can do. Sister Smith committed me to study a talk from this month's
Ensign called "Becoming Perfect in Christ". I read it this morning.
It's my FAVORITE talk. It's so good. Before I read it this morning, I
realized that I have perfectionist tendencies. I always thought I
wasn't a perfectionist... haha. I learned that perfectionists are
impatient people who have unrealistic expectations. Please please
please please read that talk. I know I've already given you a lot to
read from this email alone, but it is such a good talk about how we
have righteous desires to be sooo good that we sometimes take those
desires to an unrighteous level by putting ourselves down when we fail
to live up to our expectations. I think everyone should read it!!! :)
Anyway. Something that's been bothering me is how I'm half way done
with my mission and haven't helped a single person come unto christ
through baptism. I just get down on myself because all my friends are
serving in countries and places in the world where the church is
rapidly growing and I'm in a place where everyone's already saved
because they have Christ, or they don't care about it, or they already
think they know everything we have to tell them. BUT everything that
I've learned this week and through the talks I've read has really
helped me. Everyone has their agency, I can't control everything, the
only way I'm going to be perfect is after I'm resurrected, it's more
important to worry about being perfect through Christ, my personal
happiness comes from gratitude, courage is standing up for every
commandment and silly missionary rule even when other good
missionaries don't, and baptisms don't define my success. Obedience
defines my success. My commitment to serve defines my success. I know
I can always improve, but after this week, I feel
successful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I feel successful because I understand the
atonement of Jesus Christ a little more, and I'm so grateful that I
do.
Thanks for sending me that quote from Mike Bates' farewell talk.
Obedience brings blessings.
Exact obedience brings miracles..... even if the miracle is a mighty
change in your own heart.
Have a great week! I love you all so much!
Love,
Sister Anderson
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