I learned so much this week! And there have been so many miracles that
they're absolutely impossible to count.
First off, we met with Cristina this week! She's our investigator who had a
baptismal date, but who we weren't able to get ahold of last week. We learned
that she hardly ever answers her phone, but she answers texts! We had two
wonderful lessons with us this week. We didn't bring up her getting yelled at at
church the previous week, but she didn't seemed phased by it at all. In fact,
she said she wants to go again! So that was a miracle! And it took a lot of
stress off my back. We realized that we're really going to have to teach her a
lot simpler. One of the days we went over she had just found a "Stories from the
Book of Mormon" book and had started reading it a couple minutes earlier. She
absolutely loved it because it had pictures and she could understand what was
happening in the stories. I loved just talking to her really simply and helping
her apply it to her own life. You could see how touched she was by the story of
Lehi and his family and how much Lehi loved his family and how obedient he was
to the Lord. She didn't come to church yesterday, but we're going to visit her
tomorrow!
I got yelled at on the phone this week! It was the first time that has ever
happened to me. I was really really confused the whole time, because I wasn't
exactly sure what she was saying. Also, we had met her on the street a couple
days before and she was seriously the nicest lady ever. So I wasn't exaclt ysure
what had happened. I thought she might have thought we were just some punk
teenagers making prank calls or something, so we decided to go over there, just
to make sure she really knew who we were. So we did, and she was a lot nicer in
person, but she still didn't want to talk to us at all. Apparently her friend
that had walked by us had told her some negative things about us, or something.
We tried to explain kindly that perhaps not everything was true, but she
wouldn't really let us talk. So we just said goodbye and went back to the bus.
I was actually really kind of hurt from that experience. We hadn't done
anything wrong! Why was this lady yelling at us? I wasn't angry or anything,
just really hurt. After that I just wanted to go to internet (because we get an
hour and a half each week to go listen to talks and such on lds.org). I did not feel like talking to
anyone, I just didn't want to do anything! Plus, earlier this week I was just
struggling to get myself to talk to people. I kind of found myself at a wall of
discouragement and exhuastion where I was so tempted to just turn inward and
give in to my own desires. At this point I looked over to my companion sitting
across from me on the bus. She had her Cartea Lui Mormon open and was reading
it. At this point I was seriously about to cry because I was so tired. I was
trying to fight this entire week to just keep going, to fight my natural man of
just relaxing and going out but maybe not trying super hard to talk to people.
At this point I was really close to just giving in, to just allow myself a
little bit of time to just relax and think about myself (which is fine from time
to time, but probably wouldn't have been the best decision for me). But when I
saw Sora Huffaker reading her CLM, a scripture came to my mind in Alma
26:27--
"Now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back,
behold, the Lord comforted us, and said: Go amongst thy brethren, the Lamenites,
and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you
success."
Or in other words, as I read them in my mind:
"Now when my heart was depressed and I was about to go to internet, the
Lord comforted me, and said: Go amongst thy brethre, the Romanians, and bear
with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success."
As I read this, my heart was comforted! Yes, it did still hurt a little
that the lady still yelled at us, but I was also reminded of something I had
been reminding myself this entire week: that Heavenly Father has prepared hearts
here. He knows where they are, and they can only be found if we are out looking
for them.
So we decided to do what we had planned to do for our back-up: to go back
to some blocks we had "carded" the day before (or just left cards on the door
without knocking or anything and coming back at a later date). So we did, and no
one answered. Ok, a few people did, but none of them were interested. our second
to last door agreed to take our survey, but really wasn't interested at all.
while we were talking to him, the door behind us had opened, because some people
were leaving. I was really afraid to knock on it, because you know, it's kind of
awkward if the person had saw us, and then opened to us again...I don't know. I
was really nervous. But we did it anyways, and she let us in! We did the family
sondaj with her and she described to us how strong her family was. How her
daughters love each other so much and how they talk to each other every day. She
told us about how her husband had died three years ago. I could tell she really
didn't want to talk about him: she misses him so much. I simply bore testimony
to her that families are forever, and that we know this through a book: the Book
of Mormon, and through revelation to modern day prophets. I didn't even have to
ask if she would be interested in reading it. She asked if she could have a
copy! She said she would read it and call us when she has time to meet! We asked
for her number, but she said she is always really busy and doesn't like it when
people call her, especially if she's teaching (she's a Romanian language
professor). But she was really sincere and said she wanted to learn more. So I
really hope and pray that she will call us. But if not, it still showed me that
Heavenly Father is always preparing hearts and that it is so important for us to
keep trying, even when our hearts are depressed, and He will give unto us
success.
I saw this even more at the end of the week. There was one night where we
were only block knocking for an hour and a half and we got 3 potentials! It was
awesome! When we were counting up our numbers at the end of the week, we saw
that we recieved 9 potentials for this week! Ok, it really has nothing to do
with the numbers, but look how much the Lord has blessed us! We were also
looking at how many lessons we want to have this week, and we have so many
amazing potentials, some of them have already agreed to meet with us! We are
going to be so busy this week! I am so excited! My excitement for missionary
work that has been somewhat absent for the past week and a half or so has
returned! Sora Huffaker and I are working together better than ever. She is so
amazing! She is really helping me learn to teach more simply and be more in tune
with the Spirit. I am absolutely extatic about this week! And we have interviews
this week! (We didn't have them last week because I guess it snowed about a foot
in Buc and a lot of the roads were closed) and we have exchanges too! I love
exchanges! And I'm going to be with Sora Polatis, which I am so excited about
because I love her to death!
Anyways, I just love my mission. I love how much Heavenly Father is in this
work. I love it...I just love it!
so, that's probably about all I can write. Thanks for all your letters! I
still haven't gotten my birthday one's because President didn't come last week,
but I'll probably get them this week.
Also, Melanie and Adan, I love that talk so much! And we were thinking
about using it!
Va iubim!
Sora Merrill
