The Learning Curve (July 11, 2016)

This week has been interesting. Monday was really neat, although we didn't do much anything other than email and shop before proselyting, we got to see a lot of really awesome people. We stopped by an old potential and found a new investigator entirely! Her name is Lucy and is really sweet. We shared a bit of the Restoration and talked about the Book of Mormon. When she saw the book, she got this excited look and we could tell she really really wanted it. She works crazy hours and so she couldn't meet the rest of this week, but asked it we could find a ride for her to church. We ended up running into her again on Tuesday, again looking for the old potential (they live in the same house) and we had an incredibly touching lesson. She has been through so much. She has lost everything she has but has always been drawn to the LDS church. My heart hurt for her and we felt so much love for her. We stopped by her house on Saturday night to see if she could make it and Celia answered the door. We asked for Lucy and she told us that she didn't know who that was, sorry but we could come back another day to have a lesson. We dropped by again on Sunday before coordination and told Daniel, our potential, to tell her someone will be by at 1:45. She called us at 2 to make sure that she could still get a ride and our awesome ward mission leader picked her up. I love Lucy. I have been able to feel the Savior's love for that dear, sweet woman and it pains me to see how much she has been suffering. At church she was silently weeping, especially as we talked about how families can be together forever. She brought her Book of Mormon and was reading the Gospel Doctrine manual intently in class. She's in a really hard spot right now and the second counselor asked what they could do to help. It was a humbling experience, to see how willing the members of the church were to do anything they could to help this woman who we had just barely found. She loved church and found a family there. I love our members so much and the unconditional love that they immediately surrounded her with. Late Sunday night we got a call from her. She asked us if there was any way that we could find her someplace to stay for the night, because Celia had kicked her out. We told her to call us in 10 minutes (she has a Mexico number and so we can't call her) and hurriedly called our ward mission leader. He was quiet for a moment and then told us he would make some calls. I felt horrible because earlier, when we were asked what the ward could do to help I had briefly mentioned that eventually she may need somewhere else to stay  because we didn't know what was going on where she was living now. And then it happened that very same night.

I understand now why missions are sometimes hard. Not because of physical things that occur, at least not for me in this point and time in my mission. But because of the spiritual and emotional pain that you go through, when you love the people with all of your heart and see them suffer. It is the best and the worst, to learn to love the people, to become their family and then be powerless. But that's the beauty of this gospel, to watch the Atonement of Christ heal the hearts and the souls of those whose souls have been trodden on by the world. This is the true church, this is the gospel of Jesus Christ that has been given to us for the welfare of not only us but our families and those that we come to love so dearly.

We've had some really awesome lessons with people that aren't necessarily our investigators but are wonderful nonetheless. At the museum, we have been talking to the director. He's been attempting to embark on a spiritual journey to find the truth, to understand the whole reason for it all. We had a really neat lesson in his office (doors open of course) where we gave him the Book of Mormon and told him about the spiritual journeys that we have been on. He was really touched by it and asked us to come back. We met with Carmen y Tomas this week as well, we had dinner with them even and got to meet her mom. We didn't get to have a lesson per se, but we shared our testimonies of Christ, how we have personally been changed by His Atonement. I tend to feel a little bit small next to Hna Dungan often because she is so much older and has so much life experience under her belt. But I learned that simple testimonies can be just as powerful because they are something that everyone can find.

Transfers were a little crazy, my new companion is Hermana Marble and she is about to go home! It's definitely a new experience for me to have gone from a missionary much older than me in years and young in the mission, to young in years and old in the mission. We've had a lot of fun though, with a healthy amount of stress but it's so worth it.

I'm so grateful to be a missionary. There are so many things that happen that are impossible to explain to anyone without every other participant. It is something so special and truly a treasure. During planning this week I had a little bit of a panicky moment. I have gotten out of training and am now supposed to take over the area. And we have no investigators. Which means it was a long time of going through the area book and finding every possible potential we could imagine to visit next week. I'm learning a lot about myself. At one point I started laughing/crying because who the heck thought I could do this. And my companion answered, "Heavenly Father." Of course that just made me worse because it is so humbling to be put in a situation that is a little bit bigger than you are and realize that it's because Heavenly Father trusts you with it.

I love this church and I love being a missionary.

Les quiero!

--
Sister Jaycie Baird
Washington Yakima Mission