THIS WEEK, THOUGH. I thought last week was crazy bipolar and intense, but this week certainly gave it a run for it's money. Yipers! (Okay, I don't know where this has come from but the normal exclamation of 'yikes!' has been replaced by the alternate version of yipers and.. I'm sure the other missionaries loathe me, but it is what it is) Annnnnywaayyyyysss.. I'll start from the very beginning. Last Pday sure gave me a fright. I thought I had it together, and I definitely did not.. Wednesday was a joke of a day. Remember how they said I needed to survive day after first pday to be golden? Yeah, uh.. I survived, don't worry. Hahahah. But, yeah. Hermana Flitton and I struggle to prepare our lessons in a timely manner nearly every single time, and Wednesday's was no exception. We planned to teach Jorge about La Palabra de Sabiduria (Word of Wisdom), but we just went in WAY stressed and WAYY underprepared. Like, when you don't know Spanish, you basically have to translate everything you want to say into Spanish before you go in so it's just way hard. Lucky for us, Jorge decided to ask all the questions in the world and of course, couldn't answer them to save my life. I just kept going around in a circle, trying to use my limited vocab to ease his concerns.. no such luck. I couldn't even say Sabiduria to save my life, so yeah. Hahah, Jorge and I have a good relationship (He calls me Hermana Poof and I tell him to put his phone away and then we just laugh, haha), so he really just thought the whole thing was a huge joke. I left the lesson laughing my head off at the sheer terrifyingness of it, and smacked my head on an Elder in my district\s knee from the struggle. Hahahah. Not good. I dunno, it was bad. But then it just hit me how I wasn't the perfect missionary I want/expect myself to be, and I just got WAY down and it was bad news. Nice breakdown of the world. In my mess of a human state, after dinner I ran into none other than the cutest of all cutes EMMA BARTLOME. There she is, probably scared to death, first day, and I tell her i've been in near hysterics and i'm sure I didn't ease her burden. I felt real bad, but It brightened my day to see her and to get your cute things you sent, Momma Bear! #tearsfordaysforreal.
Anyways, that day was over and I was hoping and had faith that life would obviously take a turn for the better and remembered that the Lord was there for me and all that jazz and so we went to planning our next lesson. It was the last lesson we would plan for Jorge, and we wanted to make it good and to show him and the Lord that we really did want to help him be successful. We started planning and translating and we've been going for a while and I look down at my clock and literally 5 or 10 minutes tops have passed. WHAT. It was crazy. That's how our whole planning session went, the clock didn't seem to move. I even thought my watch might be broken, but WOW. We had so much time. Heavenly Father CARES, ladies and gents. Mucho mucho! Then, to top it all off, Jorge had been late for the other companionships in our district, so we had even more time before we had to teach him. It went well, and I felt the spirit there. It truly was an answer to our prayers.
In class, we've started studying El Libro de Mormon in Espanol and WHOA. I love it. I never knew that 1 Ne. 1 could apply to missionary work so perfectly but, WOW. If you read the scriptures like every verse pertains to you, every verse WILL!
Surprise, surprise.. the best human ever Jorge has become our new TEACHER! Woo! I couldn't even handle when he walked into class. We'd heard rumors that this would happen, but I never believed that it would happen to us. HE RULES. I just love him and Hermano Vargas soooo much! They are POLAR opposites, Hmo V is cool as a cucumber, has a pet bulldog, just got home from his mission and enjoys the music samplings of Norah Jones, all the Hermanas throughout the CCM are totes in love with him and Hermano Polo (Jorge) is a straight up party animal. He pretends like he doesn't understand english but totally does, annoys me mercilessly and brings lots of laughter to the class. Them together really make the days wonderful and joyous and they are SO strong. Like, honestly. Their testimonies inspire me. I know I will never be the type of missionaries they surely were, but I sure want to be!
I FOUND MY SCRIPTURE DEDICATED TO THIS MISSION TRANSFER. Yo, It was perfect. Like literally an answer to every prayer. I sometimes struggle being patient with the Elders in my district and DEFINITELY struggle being patient with myself. It's in Alma 17:11, and it reads:
" Go forth among the lamanites, thy bretheren, and establish my word, yet ye shall be patient in long-suffering and afflictions, that ye may show forth good examples unto them in me and I will make an instrument of thee in my hands unto the salvation of many souls."
HOLY PERFECT. It's been a real strength to me the past little bit and I'm super grateful. All I want is to be an instrument in the Lord's hands, and I can be through patience and long suffering!
Okay, now to the second breakdown of the week. Hahahah, honestly, any other missionary wouldn't tell their family these things ever but I know it's important because through it all the Lord is breaking me down to become who He wants me to be! It reminds me of the scripture that paints a picture of us as the clay and he is the potter. He's bending and twisting and rolling out the clay, but there really is no other way to get the pot he needs.
But, yeah. So we got a new investigator (Alejandro, AKA Hermano Vargas) and we were planning our first lesson for him. We had all prayed to know what he needs, and I really did feel as though we should teach him that God is there for him and about the plan of salvation (He struggled with his moms death and why God would give us hard times). So we went with that, and then found out that literally EVERYONE else was teaching restoration. Even Hma F had thought about restoration at first. And I know I shouldn't compare to other missionaries, but I was just really distraught why every single human would be told by the Spirit to teach restoration but me, and if I was listening to the spirit correctly or if I knew how to recognize promptings and why wasn't I like everyone else and why don't I fit the missionary mold and why do I care so much and why is the mission so emotional for me and why why why and, there you have it. Basically, after devotional (and after losing my lesson plan for the second time) I just broke down. We were going back to the casa and realized that all us girls had been thinking that we needed Priesthood blessings, but none of us really wanted to ask and so me and Hma F went back to the classroom while Hma M and Hma P went to find our Elders. While were standing outside, two guys walked up to us. They asked if we were okay and I just told them that we were waiting for our elders. They walked a great distance away, out of our sight, and then came back. They said they knew I needed a blessing and proceeded to give me a wonderful blessing of comfort. It was glorious. They were prompted by the spirit to come and help me and I was so grateful. The hermanas and elders eventually came back and I decided what the heck, I'll get another blessing. So cute Elder Geurts gave me a blessing and it was so magical. It really helped me a lot and my testimony of the priesthood grew ten fold!
The next day, yesterday, was wonderful. We taught Alejandro and I gave a great portion of the lesson from my heart and didn't even read and it was super wonderful and SUCH a blessing. The spirit was there and Heavenly Father was straight up answering all my prayers. And then every lesson we had that day was EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED. Hermano V showed us the video of the Elder Holland talk with the main point being that, how can we expect missionary work to be easy when it was NEVER easy for Jesucristo, our savior, the one we are representing and working hard to emulate. DUH BECCA. Then, later we talked about how we need to focus on the investigator and their needs. This was made so evident to me in the experience last night. Those random boys blessing was beautiful and helped me and I was so grateful that they had taken the time out of their night, but it didn't make me feel the way Elder Geurts did, because I knew he loved, cared about and knows me. It's the same way with our investigators! If they don't know this, the message certainly won't be as powerful and we won't be fulfilling our purpose as representatives of our ever loving, ever caring Savior.
A beautiful quote I loved.. 'teaching with the spirit is teaching with understanding', oh boy did I need that. Everyone has a different take on life and everyone sees things a little bit differently. I am me for a reason, and I am me on a mission for a reason. I could teach with more conviction on the atonement/plan of salvation than probably on anything else because I feel it so strong. Maybe that is why I felt like he needed that, because, from me, he did. I was just so so so so so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who KNOWS us and CARES. Honestly, I know he does. And I know that mi salvador, Jesucristo, KNOWS what it feels like to have struggles on a mission. He also knows my joys, and He understands and loves me perfectly. I love him! And am so grateful for this opportunity to be shoulder to shoulder with Him in this great work.
I LOVE THE GOSPEL AND MISSIONS AND THE CCM AND THE JOY THAT COMES FROM IT ALL. I am SO happy! I laugh more than ever! I can speak SPANISH! (some, haha) and I KNOW it is because the Lord cares about this work! And because of all the prayers from you guys and so many people throughout the world. I am SO blessed.
I love you all! Share the Love of God and Jesus Christ with someone today! It isn't hard to share the gospel, just show forth that example. Help them to get a taste of how the Lord loves them and cares about them. It really is wonderful!
Love love love love loves to all! Adios, carrita de arroz! (We just learned that this means goodbye little rice face and is similar to See ya later, alligator and that is all.. hahahah)
Love, Hermana Yost <3
PS, you can choose to include this story on the blog but it was absolutely hysterical! So Hermano Polo (Old investigator Jorge) was showing us a photo with him with a hat on.. I was trying to ask him how to say hat in Espanol so I could say that I liked his hat, but uhh.. he thought I said hot and then I guess that means.. horny.. in Mexico, so it was just this huge misunderstanding and he was so confused and I was confused and then the entire class just busted up when he found out I was trying to say HAT not HOT.. yikes bikes, it's a constant struggle down here and I'm sure i'll never live it down, but.. yeah. Haha. That's that.
 |
| The roomies--love them, love this place! VIVA EL CCM! |
 |
| These three girls were all in the same institute class at Snow and one is her roommate at the CCM. She said that the cute random latino males enjoy jumping in photos with cool white girls like them. :) |
 |
| Becca said "All hail Prince Dallin Fuell..All I wanted to do was hug him. I'm so grateful that she sees some familiar faces down there. :) |
No comments:
Post a Comment