Monday, April 25, 2011

(no subject)

The end of one more transfer... how is it already over?

Today is transfer day, and we had a big change in our neck of the
woods. Remember how this past transfer I trained? OK well we have been
living in our house with us four sisters. When my Irma Perkins came
half way through the last transfer we split up our area and Irma Lima
and Irma Perez traveled pretty far to work in their area everyday and
we stayed in Quinta do Conde. Irma Perez trained Irma Lima this past
transfer too.

Well we got the call last night that Irmã Perez would be leaving and
instead of another Irma coming to take her place and be with Irma
Lima, we would just become a triple companionship. So that means that I
have two comps who both have 1 transfer in the mission...... WHAT!?!?!?

And if that's not crazy enough, we will re-absorb that area that we
just split last transfer. So we will have to figure out how to work in
quinta do conde and in the other part of our area that is about 1 hour
away on bus and train....

Heavenly Father must have a plan but I have not yet received the memo
on this one.

I am excited for this new challenge. I have not quite figured out how
it will all work out, but I´m learning that worrying too much just is
not as effective as I used to think. When I worry I get distracted by
the little things. When I have faith I have the capacity to catch
Heavenly Father´s vision and become an instrument in His hands.

This past week we met William and Sonia. They are incredible. We have
met with them every single night since last Monday night. They went to
church and LOVED it. It just so happens that they were married just
two weeks ago. They have a beautiful 7 month old baby named Raim.

Since we gave them the Book of Mormon to read and pray about last
Monday, William has read almost the entire Book of Mormon. As of last
night he was in Words of Mormon, which means he has probably completed
the Book of Mormon by our appointment tonight. He took a binder full
of Liahona magazines from the Chapel to borrow and read, and when we
showed up last night he had lots of commentary about Brigham Young
University, and Joseph Smith, John Taylor, Temples, the organization
of the church and so on. He had already read several magazines since
church earlier in the day.

Turns out he has a photographic memory and remembers almost perfectly
what he reads. So as he explained to me what was going on in the Book
of Mormon, and remember every name and each part of the storyline, I
was blown away.

He prayed about the Book of Mormon and knows that it is true. Sonia is
reading and has such a humble heart. She says that she reads and then
she just can´t put it down, she says she just has the desire to keep
reading. She has also prayed and felt that the Book of Mormon is true.

We have invited them to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be
baptized by someone who holds the Holy Priesthood. We have a lesson
with them tonight and will find out what the response to their prayer
was.

There are people that have been prepared to receive the Gospel. They
just know not where to find the truth.

We taught about the word of wisdom and after a long and spiritually
intense lesson we invited William to pour out any and all alcohol that
he had in the house. Words can not sufficiently describe the feelings
I felt as I watched William and Sonia (with Raim in her arms) stand
beside their bathtub and pour out the last remaining bottle of beer in
the house. Sonia giggling with joy, William shaking his head with a
smile, knowing full well that THIS was the will of the Lord. As he
frees himself of these bonds of addiction (no matter how small they
seem) I know that Heavenly Father will pour out blessings that they
won´t even be able to count them all.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ allows us to make changes in our life, be
they big or small. I am grateful to know these people and to see them
turn their hearts and follow the Savior´s example.

I hope I can do the same everyday.

There are bound to be some rough patches with our companionship
switcharoo, with one companion that doesn´t speak English and one
companion that doesn´t yet speak Portuguese...I know that we will have
our patience tested and our our faith tried, but the Lord trusts us
with His children here, so we will work hard and His miracles will
come.

Thank you for all of your love and support. I miss you all and think
of you often.

-Sister Liz

Monday, April 11, 2011

A Week

Dear loved ones,

What a week. I am here now working with my companion Irma Perkins. We get along really really well. We are having a good time learning how to be missionaries together. Turns out that training a new missionary is incredible (so far). I can with full confidence say that I have never worked harder in one week of my mission than this past week. 
 
        We received a call from our leaders at the beginning of the week with a challenge from our mission president. He prayed and felt that each companionship in our mission could find 29 new investigators. (side note explanation: new investigators are people with whom we have a lesson or at least pray with them and they accept to receive us and make an appointment with us to meet again.) This challenge was big. I don´t need to tell you that NOT every week are we just running into 29 people that become interested enough to become ´´new investigators´´.
 
        So Irma Perkins and I gladly accepted the challenge with the sure knowledge that there were 29 of Heavenly Father´s children that we were meant to find and help introduce to the Gospel.....
 
       We got to work, we stepped out of our apartment complex and the first person we saw we talked to, no waiting around to get the courage up, no sir... 29 people that want to hear the Gospel are waiting, what if we miss them!!??!?! So we talked to everyone, really I would say talked to almost everyone in the street this week. We prayed to know where we should search, we prayed during the day to keep up our energy. We introduced ourselves, we shared he message of the Gospel, we got rejected, we kept going. Then, someone would accept. We would try to help them feel the spirit, and make an appointment to share more. We followed this pattern through out the week. Every moment was filled with a true desire to talk to the people that were ready and waiting. 
 
        Irmã Perkins understands Portuguese extremely well. She understands what is going on when we talk to people on the street and almost everything that happens in our lessons. She is positive and easy going. She has a really upbeat way of just being herself. She has only been in the country a week and I was already making her start the street contacts and say the prayers with people during our lessons. She happily and willingly accepts every new challenge. Each day I have been trying to give her more and more responsibility, and she is getting along just fine. Her mere presence has open my vision and helped me see the miracles again. The Lord has blessed me with this chance to serve with her and to have her teach me what it means to be a missionary, and what it means to be Christlike. 
 
        Our week was tiring, but ever so sweet. As we reached the final hours of our night yesterday we were closing in on our goal of finding those 29 new investigators that the Lord had prepared. We were still hopeful and worked diligently to find them. We had a terrible lesson with an old investigator, and we had only 20 minutes left to find 8 more investigators ...we didn´t stop. We walked through the park by our house and contacted everyone---- that old man over there, that grumpy looking lady with the dog, and even that group of rambunctious teenagers. Turns out that old man really does believe in God and would love to hear more, and that grumpy lady with the dog wasn´t grumpy at all she was just tired and in need of something more in her life, and that group of teenagers laughed in our faces, all but one of them whose eyes told us that indeed she was searching for the truth. So we found 3 more of God´s children who wanted to hear more. 
 
       As we walked up to our doorstep we knew that we had worked hard to find and help God´s children this week, but that if we had done the math right in our heads...we were short a few to reach our goal. As went sat down to plan and add up the weekly goals and numbers, we found that indeed we had come up short by 5. We found 24 new investigators. We felt that little drop of disappointment, but within moments a feeling of comfort. We realized that although we did not reach our goal, we really worked hard and I told Irma Perkins that I had never been so exhausted in my mission. We realized how many people we had met and talked to during the week, how many lessons and prayers we had with people. By the end of the week we had taught 45 lessons....more than any other week in my mission. We had filled every moment with dedicated service to the Lord. It blew my mind. 
 
      The thing is, numbers don´t mean much. As my mission president says ´´We are not saviors of numbers, we are saviors of men´´. We are here to do the work of the Lord, which is ´´to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of men´´(Moses 1:39) But as we prayerfully set goals and achieve them, we find greater joy in knowing that we are doing the Lord´s will. Oh how sweet is the peace that comes from doing the will of our Heavenly Father. He knows everything. He understands exactly how things should go.
 
 
          I love all of you, my friends and my family. I think of you everyday. I pray for you.

Love,
Lizzie

Monday, April 4, 2011

Thank You for Loving Me Enough to Cut Me Down

Dear Stepper and everyone,

Thank you for your words of encouragement Stepper, I sure do love you. Conference really was something special. We weren´t able to see the first Saturday session, so that's kind of sad, but I think I will print it out after this email. 

Well you´ll never guessed who arrived on Saturday..... Irma Perkins!!! My greenie!!!! She finally came! Woo hoo! OK so do you want to know all about her? Her name is Irma Perkins and she is 20 years old. that's right 20 not 21..why you might ask? Because her Dad is a member of the quorum of the seventy... Yup he was sitting in those red chairs yesterday. When you have a Dad that is a mission president or a member of the seventy you are allowed to go on missions earlier than 21 (for girls) and earlier than 19(for boys). So she is here. She is 20, and she grew up in China. She is blonde with Blue eyes and speaks Chinese. She is super sweet and funny, and while she waited for her visa she served an exciting two weeks in Montana, she has some funny experiences from that. Basically she is kinda of awesome. She already understands Portuguese really well. I´m impressed. I try my best to speak only Portuguese with her so that she can learn fast. Basically I´m super excited to work with her. 

I´m still feeling super inadequate, but at the same time when our mission president gave us trainers a training( a meeting about how to be trainers) he reminded us that the Lord has called us to be trainers of these greenies. He knows what He is doing. President Torgan explained that being a trainer is THE most important position in the mission, more than assistant, more than a mission president, because we are not just training these missionaries how to be missionaries, but we are training them for life........ OK NO PRESSURE! 

As I listened to conference yesterday, I felt the spirit so strong. Do you know that story in the bible of that rich man? Mark 10:17-22 (link?) Well I read that story the other day, and thought ´´what is it that I am lacking? What is the Lord asking me to sacrifice to take up the cross and follow Him? I kept that question in my mind during the week in preparation for conference. Each and every talk came alive to me. Spoke to my heart. I was taught through the Spirit, each hymn caught me up into tears and my faith was fortified and my concern was answered in many talks. 

One talk that really touched my heart was D. Todd Christofferson, he spoke about divine correction. His inspired words pierced my heart and the message was received. He told a story about a current bush and the gardener.(get ready for a really terrible summary)

 When the gardener went to prune the current bush he cut off all the branches, the bush was sad because he didn´t want to be smaller than the other trees and bushes in the garden. He was mad at the gardener, but the gardener knew better. The Gardener didn´t want the bush to be like the big trees or other bushes in the garden, he knew that he wanted a current bush. When the current bush later grew and flourished, the current bush thanked the gardener for loving him enough to cut him down.

What a true principle. Sometimes we do not understand what the Lord has in store for us, and when we he asks us to do something hard or when we are disciplined by the Lord, we can become frustrated, and sometimes overwhelmed with the thought. Here in the mission I feel like I´m in over my head most of the time. I know that my Heavenly Father loves me enough to cut me down. He shows me my weakness in a variety of ways...and therefore gives me the option to either, trust in the Atonement and change and become who He needs me to be, or get frustrated, scared, and reject His help and rely solely on my own weak little efforts. Sometimes I think I would rather just grow without being pruned, try and then everything will be fine. But the Lord knows what he needs me to be, he knows when I need to be cut down, proved and tried, so that I can truly blossom. I am grateful that He really loves me enough to cut me down. 

So here I am sitting next to Irma Perkins, 3 weeks ago I was comfortably serving with my senior companion, finally getting the hang of this whole mission thing, and then I got the call that I would train a new companion, whitewash(all new missionaries in the area), and be partly responsible for helping to open a branch in my future area. 

I know that Elder Christofferson´s talk was more about being divinely corrected, than having heaps of responsibility loaded on your back..but to me this call has been a divine wake up call, to be better, work harder, pray more, do my best, be the trainer that Irma Perkin´s deserves and trust that the Lord knows who he needs me to be. 

Out of time. Love you all.

Irma McCrery