Maybe Too Serious In Missionary Work

Hello everybody! Bienvenida!

This week has been incredibly frustrating but it has been growing me more as a missionary and I can start to see why now how certain things happen.

We got followed again… We were on 25th and Monroe at around 7:30 which is around the time the sun went down and as we were on our way home, we heard a SNAP and we looked behind us and saw a man that was following us. We walked faster and eventually we lost his trail. Then we walked past a family that whispered "sister missionaries" and immediately after we passed him we stop dead in our tracks, and see a half dressed lady who was not walking straight, speaking profanities at everything. Not really knowing what to do, the family that we just passed asked us if we needed a ride. Boom! blessing!! 

At the last p-day, I got a back injury. Well, the back injury hasn't gotten any better and so we haven't been able to go and walk on the streets right now. We have to ask members for rides to our lessons which is surprisingly really difficult for me, because I hate asking people for help. At our Ward huddle this week, my companion thought that this was a good opportunity to send out lists in the ward to see who can give us rides and who can join us for lessons (also because she wanted more protection) and at first I was uncomfortable about it because we are taking their time, and I felt like she didn't trust us as a companionship. But then I realized, this is how we do missionary work with the members! We are giving the members a chance to be a part of missionary work! My prayers were being answered in a way that I hadn't expected it. 

I think being an athlete, I am so used to pushing through pain until injury. Well, even though laying on the floor for most of the day setting up lessons, doing an extended personal study, resting, I am really having to rely on the Savior and have enough faith that there might be someone out in this area that needs a little more time before we find them, and that this trial will give me experience. I want to be a missionary so bad, but I have to be a functioning one first.

We had a Stake meeting where we talk about how to increase missionary work at the stake level and there were a lot of problems and solutions. I had a lot of these points in my head and at the same time we had to submit our key indicators done on time, while we were at the tabernacle asking people how their experience was. I started to panic, and increasingly I started to feel a weight on my shoulders for the amout of things to do. Elder Jackson (an English elder at the tabernacle) came up to me and wrote something on the back of a Tabernacle card. It said: " On a scale of 1-10 how serious about you about the gospel?" And I looked at it and I started laughing. I replied "probably a little too serious". And he said "Exactly! Missionary work should be fun! You have to laugh through it! That's the only way". So, hopefully lesson learned for me and I hope you can also take his advice. Have fun with it!!

Saturday was *chefs kiss* a great way to end of the week. We had a Baptism for Eloisa set up at 6:30, and then she called us the day of and asked us if we can move it later or move it to Sunday. So the issue was, there was another baptism at the same time at 7:30! So we talked to the elders and we decided to go at the same time and we would start in different rooms and they would go first, and then we would use the font after. We'll, at 7:15 we get a call from Eloisa asking us to move it to Sunday or next week! We said nope, not happening. How much time do you need to get ready? She said 30 minutes, and we said we will wait for her. We'll share arrived at 8pm but she arrived and she had her baptism!! We knew that God needed her to make that covenant as soon as possible and no matter how many times it tried to get interrupted, it happened and she got to make those amazing covenants with the lord.

Stay safe everyone! Enjoy this AMAZING fall weather! Talk to you next week

Hermana Vestel