Monday, July 29, 2013

Holy cow. Do I have updates for you.... 
1) send your next letters for me to the mission office in Santa Clarita. The Saturday night before transfers is when transfers calls come and I didn't think anything of it because I was assuming that I'd be with Hermanas to finish off the training period with them. So we got the calls and I assumed that they'd just tell us that we're staying. But then in the call this is what we heard... all three of us are being transferred out of the area and all three of us are going to a car area. WHAT?! whoa that was unexpected. We didn't know if we were going to be together. What was going to happen with the little rama (branch) that we've been working so hard on? What about all of our new investigators. Our minds were blown. We were so sad going to church telling everyone that we're all being transferred and not even being able to tell them for sure if they're even going to get missionaries again. They had prayed so long and hard about getting us in the first place that it was heartbreaking to tell them that we're all gone and that is literally all we knew. 
2) I just received a call from President Hall a little less than an hour ago that because of the huge influx of missionaries it just ended up working out that the rama will be under the care of missionaries who will also be over a normal area as well. And hopefully within a few transfers the rama will gets its own missionaries again. 
3) In that call with President Hall I also got a leadership call. Evidently this coming transfer I will be serving as an Hermana Training Leader. Holy cow. I don't even know what to think. He is so great. He said that he prayed long and hard and he knows that is where I need to be. He said that he appreciates how open I have been in my weekly e-mails to him etc and that he knows I have been going through really good and really tough times. But he wanted me to know that I am a very good missionary and my dedication is phenominal. He said that he knows that I will be very sensitive to the needs of others especially because I had that one very bad exchange. He asked me if I would 1) Be exactly obedient 2) Help the hermanas become exceptional missionaries. Obviously I said yes! But he also talked to me very personally about how he knows how I have the tendencies of being a perfectionist especially when I am stressed et cetera and he said that he doesn't want a perfect Hermana Whetten. He just wants me to be me. 
It made me go back and think about when I was first set apart by President Rounsville he told me that I would be a trainer of new missionaries and that mom in the car afterward said that it sounded like I'd be training for my whole mission. Getting this assignment makes me think back to that and how the Lord fulfills everything but not in ways you'd expect. Not only did he have me play a role in being a trainer for 3 new missionaries, but he also he created the role of an hermana training leader since then and is putting me in that position. And the thing is that being a training leader means indirectly that I'll be training new missionaries since almost all the missionaries are new missionaries nowadays (it is super weird to think that only Hermana Vila and Hermana Mulliner are "older" than me in the mission). How crazy. I feel a bit nervous. Once again I am being put outside of my comfort zone. But I know that there is no growth inside of your comfort zone. And I am going to do my best to do what President asked and just let me be me. Just have fun and show the hermanas how amazing it is to be a missionary!!! 
One huge thing I learned about myself from my two hermanitas this week is that I am insecure in a way. I had never had anyone tell me that before but looking back on my life and parts of my mission that is why certain things have played out the way they did. I am very good at creating a vision for who I want to be or what I want to do. But I do not at all want to control others, so when they come along and have a different vision, I will usually just go along with theirs to help them feel good or to not offend them. I am very independent, so when I can still achieve my vision independently I will do it, but I don't want to impede on others about my dreams and goals et cetera. It isn't a certain things and I am more or less insecure in some aspects than others. But I had never really realized that about myself. I was in a way diagnosing the symptoms or the things that resulted from insecurity and trying to treat/fix that about myself. But I realized the root of it all is actually my insecurity in a way and so now that I know that, I can work on fixing the actual problem and that will definitely help me to become the instrument God needs me to be. It comes from remembering, realizing, and accepting who I am. I am a daughter of God. I am beautiful in his eyes. God doesn't make mistakes. I am perfect in his eyes when I fill the measure of my own creation--what I was made to be. I shouldn't hide. I shouldn't think worse of myself. I want to reach my full potential and help others reach theirs, but I have to love myself for either of those to come about. Heavenly Father is proud of me. Absolutely. And His love is real. 
In a real way, I think I'm like the ugly duckling. I really all along have been a majestic swan, it's just that I'm different from those around me, so I haven't always seen or believed it. 
The last thing before I send this is that I really feel like one of the greatest successes of being in the Rama is helping so many youth decide to go on missions. I think there are so many youth in the valley who are sitting on a fence about that decision to go. But they just needed a friend to help show them what their actual full potential is. A missionary to focus on them and not on their family. Daisy is almost done with her paperwork now. Vickie has started her paperwork. Jennifer said that she has made the decision to go on a mission. Emmanel said that he wants to go. These are all people that I literally think wouldn't have gone on missions anytime soon if it weren't for us three specifically being called to serve here and work with them in the young single adults branch. That is one of the successes that the "key indicators" don't account for but which really show me that I am doing good in this valley in a very real way. 
I think it is interesting how much you learn about yourself while you're on the mission. You come to very deeply realize your strengths and intimately come to know your weaknesses. You have never had such joy and yet at times have to live under such stress. I am so grateful for this mission. I know I needed it. And I can feel it changing me little by little. 
Tenga el espiritu consigo siempre! 
~Hermana Whetten