Ah wow, we are up at the church right now. We woke up and went on a run through Leuven, through the snow, to come up the the church and email. It felt so good and it was really cool to run through some classic European streets in the winter.
This week has been stressful, with almost nothing going according to plan, and yet we have been successfull and seen plenty of miracles. Part of the stress I guess is that this far into my mission I am still trying to put to much of this work on my shoulders and not doing a good enough job of making sure this is the Lord's work and not mine, following the spirit and trusting the path He sets before me.
Some of the miracles we have seen though have to do with looking up referrals and meeting our goals. We had set a goal of giving away a Book of Mormon every day this transfer and have had success in doing so, meeting people on the street who are willing to hear us out and accept a copy and an appointment every day so far. We also saw a miracle happen in getting to look up a referral this week. That day was one of the days when nothing went right, but it all turned out in the end. Missing a train, a bus, and finally having to wait for a bus, we found ourselves on the door of the referral hours after we had planned. Yet had the great suprise of finding him home. Which was no coincidence because apparently he is only home a couple times a month for a couple hours and we just happened to find him home. After the many little and large miracles we've seen this week we've picked up an new motto and that is: "toeval bestad niet" which translated roughly means that coincidences don't exist.
We also had zone training this week which was really good and I needed to hear a lot of the things said. In that training there was a quote that was brought up that I think is very good for missionaries and actually members as well. This quote is from a talk by Elder Holland in the MTC back in 2001 I think and it reads: "I am convinced that missionary work is not easy because salvation in not a cheap experience. Salvation never was easy. We are the church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, and He is our Great Eternal Head. How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for him?"
 |
| Talk by Elder Holland Provo MTC, 20 June 2000 Missionary Work and the Atonement |
This quote is very direct and was a wake up call to me when I had been getting down this week on some of the challenges that I had faced and the stress I had gone through. It also made me think though that this does not apply simply to missionary work. We are all members of this church, the Church of Jesus Christ. As his second coming nears, things will only get harder for us to stay true, and we should expect no different. But, at the same time we do have hope. A hope greater than any other. On the flip side of these challenges is also the fact that once again that He is our eternal head, which also means that we have Him behind us, to strengthen us, to guide us. Through Him our yoke may be made easy, and our burden light. Of this I would like to bear my testimony, that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God. He lead a perfect life, and yet he did more. He took upon himself the price of the sins and shortcomings of the world, that through him we might become clean and return unto him and our Heavenly Father with our families and dwell with them forever.
With this I would like to add a quote I've picked up from my last area, and that is "You are what you consistently do. Therefore, excellence is not an act, but a habit." -Aristotle
As we consistently follow Christ, through him we may someday achieve excellence.
I leave this testimony in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Love You all!
-Elder Hayden L. Lott
ps that's super cool that Jameson Thornock is coming out here! He's such a cool kid, it'll be great to have him out here. Maybe I'll train him ;) that'd be cool.
Question of the Week: It is common for families there to have a pet? Do you see anything wild besides birds?
Answer: Not really anybody has pets, but if they do it's something small like fish or birds. Also we see really no wild life, everywhere is populated here, or at least used by people so there is almost no wildlife to speak of here or in the Netherlands.
No comments:
Post a Comment