This week was really a great week!!
First of all, last Monday we decided to do something fun, so we went to this place called the Japanese Gardens which was super fun!! It was a little cold, but it was a blast. There was a bonsai tree garden, a Japanese house, and just a ton of trees and paths to walk around. It was really peaceful and serene. It was a blast and part of what was so fun was that we just took a ton of photos. I've been working on sending some of them to you but these computers today are a little slow, so I probably won't get through many. They also had fun stuff at the gift shop like this thing called a Buddha Board where you paint on it with water and it shows up then slowly goes away as it dries in a few minutes. So relaxing and fun. We were really considering getting one, but we got mini Bonsai tree kits instead haha! I can't wait.
Let's see... This week was a really great week. We kind of ended up exhausted because we are going around doing so much stuff all day long and juggling so many people. The last two weeks we've gotten 6 new investigators each week, so we're really working on trying to help them all a little. It's sad dropping people, but theoretically as many people as you add each week you need to be dropping that many people each week. It's sad, but if we're wasting time on people who won't progress, that is taking time away from people who live in this area who would progress if we were to find them. Finding the balance between everything is hard, but we're working at it and we really do feel like we're doing good in this area.
One thing we have been thinking about is goals and what we want to accomplish with the time we have on our mission and also what we want to accomplish during our lives. One really proactive investigator was telling us about how she has kept a little book of her goals that she's made throughout the years, so she likes to now go through and read back over them to see everything that she's accomplished. I love goals so much. I love making them because they help me know what I want to do with my life and so that helps me be able to make plans of what I need to be doing with my life in order to get to that point where I am living my goals rather than just living.
I also love the atonement so much. I definitely have a testimony that when we prepare for the sacrament, it becomes so much more meaningful. For instance, on Saturday because of the way the lessons were, we weren't able to finish language study, so we came home early in the night and (since it is hard to be motivated to study late at night) we watched The Lamb of God in Spanish for language study and it is so great!!!! It really helped me be able to keep my thoughts focused on the atonement so much more this week (compared to last week when we were just stressing about our investigators haha!). A few things that really hit me is like this one short clip where his hands were tied up and he let it happen. That is what made him the Lamb going off to slaughter. It had to happen. But I bet it was so hard. He was humiliated. His clothes were stripped from him and he had to stand there as the people he had just atoned for spit on him, whipped him, yelled at him as a crowd to be crucified, he had to walk in front of them carrying the beam, then hang. He was the Savior! I don't know why it had never hit me before, but before the Roman soldiers took him away, he performed a miracle right in front of them. He healed the ear that had been cut. He healed it, which was enough to show them that he is the Redeemer and right after viewing the miracle they took him away. I just love Jesus! He is so great and the more I learn about him the more grateful I am for him.
There weren't actually that many stories that happened this week, so I think I may just wrap up. Well, there was a funny story that right after church we found out that Martha, one of the members had dropped her phone down this little pipeline thing under the sink in the Mother's lounge. We were like, "out of all the counter space, how did you manage that?!" She told us that her phone screen is cracked, so she can't turn down the volume. She didn't want the phone to go off during church, so she put in in there under the counter and she happened to put it on the one section that when she closed the door under the sink it pushed it into the hole. We were just laughing at how that happened. Eventually one of the hermanos was able to get the cover off and they all tried to reach it but they couldn't. But unlike all the hispanics there (haha!) I have long skinny fingers, so I was able to reach it and do a little bit of unplanned service. fun fun haha!!!
This will be a fun and different week. We have companion exchanges tomorrow and I'll be going up to North Hollywood and on Thursday we have a zone conference all day.
Have a great week and keep up all the good you're doing!!!
~Hermana Whetten
No comments:
Post a Comment