Hey everyone!
Wow...
this week has been an emotional roller coaster and honestly I'm pretty
glad it (and especially the last few days) are over. There has been a
ton of personal growth going on and so many, many lessons learned, but
man.... that was painful. :P It's been really interesting finding
myself as a psychology major in a country where nobody really
understands what that term means and most people assume that means I can
read their minds. :) How frustrating it's been to realize just how
very little I know about the culture and the people here and to try to
accept it rather than change it. I've never felt so Type A,
high-maintenance, emotional, stressed, and overall crazy before in my
life!
Phew! What an interesting, challenging, and amazing opportunity
this whole-mission-in-a-foreign-country-thing is. :) Two really
important lessons I've learned are 1) God truly is mindful of His
children and will give us the help we need, the tricky part is learning
to recognize and accept that help when it is different than the help we
wanted/thought we needed and 2) I can't read people's minds. :) Truly
this second lesson has been a hard thing for me to accept. I've
realized that I'm here serving the Lord in a different country, where
they speak a different language and have a different culture and I
really can't figure out how to speak to them both literally sa Tagalog
and emotionally/spiritually by myself. The Holy Ghost is essential for
carrying out the Lord's work in all aspects. So even though it's still
important to do our part, in the end it's more important to make sure we
have the Spirit with us and don't let pride get in the way of being
able to recognize and then act on those promptings we receive. :) I'm
so grateful for the tender mercies the Lord has given me despite all of
my weaknesses. :)
Right now our area is in an interesting stage where we are
finding new potential investigators regularly now (hurray, it's about
time) and are trying to climb what feels like a very steep hill of
helping them to become progressing investigators. It's been difficult.
Most of the people we've taught love religion and talking about God and
faith and all of that good stuff, but they're also very comfortable
with the religion they've grown up with and they're not very interested
in anything different. I'm praying really hard right now that God will
help us find people who are willing to open their hearts to His gospel
and that Sister Quinco and I will be able to do our part in inviting
them to not just come closer to Christ but to live the gospel of Jesus
Christ and receive the blessings that come from it.
Thanks for everyone's love and support! May God bless all of you and have an awesome week!
Til next week!
Sister Dickison
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