This calling as “the companion of the mission nurse”
really is not the “typical” experience of what everyone said it would be or
even that which I expected. Supposedly,
I would have always been traveling in the mission (which this mission is very
extense) to accompany my companion to the doctor appointments of other
missionaries and then the days that I would be in the sector, we would not be
leaving until 6 if even that. Well, I
don’t really know how it all changed, but it definitely is NOT like that at all. I know an eensy part of it is that there
aren’t as many serious things happening in the mission, but even when there
have been surgeries, my companion just calls the doctor and talks to him in 10
minutes, instead of traveling the whole 6 hours to that hospital haha. Anyway, it’s been a great blessing because my
biggest and most set goal I put with myself when I got on that plane to go to
Mexico EXACTLY 10 MONTHS AGO was to not miss a single day of work even
if I was sick. And I had managed that in
my mission even when I was throwing up (which actually usually conveniently
fell on the P-days) and then I was changed to the companion of the nurse where
those responsibilities are higher than the work because it’s a calling for the
mission that my companion has. I was
nervous for the supposed possibility of missing a day of work, NEVERTHELESS (a
million words later) Heavenly Father really takes care of things when He sees
that you desire something. And well, so
we didn’t have hardly anything (double negative. . .sorry. Spanish does that to
you and I don’t want to put the effort in to grammatically correct that even
though I am writing an unreasonably long between-the-parenthesis explanation)
too serious happen in the last cambio and as the new cambio began on the 4th,
we forgot to knock on wood and BAM! We went to the mission home to give a
training of “health in the mission” to the new missionaries that arrived that
day and while we were there, a situation occurred with a missionary that showed
up from another part of the mission, and President asked us if she could be our
companion for the next 15 days and so we took her home. . .and ok to keep it
simple, lots of things happened in regards to her health and it all escalated
very quickly and we ended up being in the hospital for the entire day almost
and then the next day we were about to go to Peru but ended up just going to
Santiago and back and then when we got back the whole Chile Osorno Mission
world of missionaries were having problems and it felt as long as this run-on
sentence.
However, in some small miraculous way, we didn’t miss
a day in OUR sector—time? most definitely—but there wasn’t a day that we didn’t
put in any less than 3 hours and we tried our best to do the most we could with
the time we had. We got back from
Santiago with an hour to use before the Missionary Family Night with our
ward! So we went to Jonathan and Familia
Rivera and brought them to the church JUST in time to start (our super
fantastic ward mission leader prepared A LOT for this because thankfully we had
planned the family night the night before the week flew into craziness. Well, anyway, things have calmed down and I’m
back to being the companion to the mission nurse, practically normal
missionary.
Ok, so due to all of this, it has left a hole in my
letters home and I apologize for that and the hole wasn’t just in the letters,
but obviously affected Francke and there was a lot to pick up and bring back
together to make up for the lost time.
Apart from all THAT, other news you missed out on from
this last week, the mission did a fast on Nov 1 for the strike to end in the
Registro Civil and that week it ended!
That was pretty neat.
Ok, well, moving on to now. This mission is
amazing. The surroundings are
gorgeous. The people are great. I am speaking another language! The pastries are absolutely delicious. So many things remind me of my family and
magnify my gratitude. Everything is just
fantastic and on top of EVERYTHING, I am bringing souls to Christ! It’s so fantastic for me that I just want to
bask in it all, and it has been very overwhelming for me to take it all in.
On Tuesday, we went right up to the outskirt edge of
our sector to a less active sister named Leslie. She lives right next to the forest and a nice
gorgeous dirt trail that leads to her humble cabin. When she answered the door she was very
distant and said she didn’t want to accept us anymore because she has started
to be very involved in another church.
We talked a lot and she finally let us in. And we taught her and in some kind of
happenstance she listened to us, but I felt very unprepared to help her out and
felt completely unable to help her. I don’t know how, but she accepted another
visit from us and it’s for today. When I
left, I was very frustrated with myself and my lack of focus on her. I didn’t know what her need was. As I thought about it later that night, I
still hadn’t figured out what her need was because it was difficult and required
effort. Band I basically slapped myself
when I realized that I wasn’t putting in the extra effort to think about Leslie
and HER needs. I’m a missionary!! WHAT
ELSE WOULD I BE THINKING ABOUT?!
So with this in mind, we went to our zone meeting the
next morning to determine a focus and vision of the month. This time the zone leaders had prepared an
activity. They made us a soccer team,
gave us positions as companionships and sent us down to the court in the
cultural hall. (I thought we were going to really be playing and BOY was I
excited, being that it isn’t allowed in the mission.) Basically, we had no clue what was going on,
and we were all in our positions and the zone leaders were going around to
everyone explaining stuff. . .but they didn’t get to us! And all of a sudden three was a camera in our
face and 2 very excited elders asking us, “Hermanas! Who are you going to
attack on this field of missionary work?!”
. . .What came out of my mouth?
“DESIRES TO EAT!” And they said,
“Alright, sounds great!” and laughed and went on to the rest of the
missionaries, doing the same thing and they were all saying things like
“Pride,” “Lack of creativity,” “The natural man,” and all those profound real
enemies of missionary work. Apparently,
we were supposed to decide as a companionship what was our greatest enemy in
our work and commit ourselves to the camera to attack it this month.
And we said FOOD.
Yep, that’s our focus.
We felt pretty crummy. (Pun not intended. . . but it was. Hehe)
Yep, that’s our focus.
We felt pretty crummy. (Pun not intended. . . but it was. Hehe)
UNTIL WE DECIDED, “YAPO, LET’S DO THIS.” And we
eliminated our unreasonable desires to eat.
Swoosh! Everything changed! My
spirit is aligned with my body, and I’m more susceptible to the counsel of the
Spirit, who has plainly brought me to realize that I was NOT focused! First of
all, just by the fact alone of “the desires to eat” being the answer, it is
obvious the food occupied a lot of my focus. And secondly, I have realized that
my entire mission I was too flabbergasted with this false responsibility to
MULTI-BASK in all the basking-worthy aspects of the things in this
mission. THEREFORE, I was not focused on
the principle purpose of me being in this amazing mission—“Faith, hope,
charity, and love, with an eye SINGLE to the glory of God, qualify him for the
work.”
“Remember (in Spanish version it says “have present”)
faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness,
charity, humility, diligence” And after all of this there is the promise: “Ask
and ye shall receive. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”
(That’s the end of the photographed pages that
Annamarie sent, maybe not the end of the letter, but I didn’t get any
more.)
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