This
week has been a lot of the same-old-same-old on my end, or so it feels
like. Days come and go, and sometimes I wonder, 'can nobody hear
me??????' and it bugs the HECK outta me cuz I'm here all like 'I'VE GOT
THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS YOU EVER NEED LISTEN TO ME', but I guess this
week, I've started to realize, it really isn't all that important
whether people hear ME or not, but whether they hear the Spirit talking
to them. In walking around my area, I'm able every day to find people to
teach, but them thing that's been bugging me is that there is quite
little progression in my investigators, and my role is just 'the nice
Elder that has a good message and of course we'll listen to the word but
I'm too busy to go to church', and so, in all honesty, I'm getting a
little bit frustrated sometimes, cuz I question whether or not what I'M
doing is good enough, but, in reality, it doesn't matter whether they
hear me, cuz if they don't hear the Spirit, they won't hear ANYTHING.
One
day this week, I was quite frustrated, and waking up, I really did NOT
want to do anything. My desire was so low, and I was pretty bummed out.
That morning, I said to Heavenly Father, pretty honestly, 'Heavenly
Father, I have no clue what I'm doing here, but I know you need me. I'm
willing to do whatever you want, just give me the strength to do it',
and for me, I've begun to realize often to solution for this is just to
put one foot in front of the other, no matter how tough or tiring or
useless it might seem. That day, I just walked forward, hoping for the
best, and as my day went on, I was able to feel a TOTAL change in how I
felt, going from exhausted and disheartened, to being excited and FULL
of energy. That day, we had walked out to the zone a bit further away,
Tinteira, and on the walk back, I was so happy I was singing and maybe
dancing like a bit of a white idiot. Thankfully nobody really lives on
the road to Tinteira, so nobody really saw or heard :) I guess if I
learned anything from that day, it was that when we've got nothing left
to give, or 'nothing left to say', as is titled another Imagine Dragons
song, the Lord will give us that which we need to get through those days
that we just don't wanna do anything. It was definitely a humbler for
me, and a day I was very grateful for.
To get
back to my main point I wanna make, this past week I've really started
on focusing in on my investigators really looking for an answer about
our message. We are so confident that our message is true, that we get
our investigators to legitimately ASK God if they are true or not.
Sometimes, it's absolutely incredible to see what people receive, and
other times, terribly sad to see how little people are really willing to
give to God. One lesson we taught this week, we were teaching a 19 year
old girl, and I was trying so hard to help her understand how important
it was for her to ask for an answer, but I could tell she was apathetic
towards it, so I felt the need at the end to ask her, 'Do you honestly
want an answer about these things?', to which she responded, 'well,
yeah', and I asked her, 'then do you honestly believe God can give that
to you?', after which the answer was a bit of a shoulder shrug, a bit of
a 'hmm' and a final, 'more-or-less', which in Cape Verdean talk,
basically means 'yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, not really'. I could teach this
girl EVERYTHING about the gospel, perfectly, and with the Spirit, but
if she doesn't believe God can actually tell her it's true, then I've
got nothing for ya.
I really hope my email
this week hasn't come across as depressing, I apologize for as such. I'm
gunna be sticking with my companion likely til the end of the transfer,
which is another two weeks. Won't be the worst thing ever, but I'm just
dang tired . On the upside, though, my harmonica skills are
becoming INCREDIBLE.
(And he has been asked to teach a ward member how to play the piano...that should be interesting!)
Love y'all, and thanks for the support!
Elder Massey
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