Wow I can't believe that it is December! Am I alone in this? Sometimes as we walk along the cobble streets of Germany I catch myself thinking about were I was this time last year. I was in Idaho, studying for Finals and figuring out how I was going to spend my remaining days in Rexburg before I went home for the holidays. I will then blink and realize that I am now in Germany. Woah! what a journey I have taken. And Oh! the places that I have been!
Last week we went to Wiesbaden and had interviews with President. As we were talking, he asked me many inspired questions. He asked me where I thought I was as a missionary. I bit my tongue. I was afraid of this question. I have been asking it to myself for the past two transfers. And frankly I have been scared of the answer that I have concluded myself to be at. I never seemed to be able to measure up, to follow every rule, to get out of bed on time, or worse go to bed on time, I have never left a teaching appointment and felt like I totally rocked it and that I had no regrets walking away from my lessons. I forget essential details as I talk to people, or completely forget to call people up all together. I fall asleep during study. I fall asleep during my prayers. I am not energetic enough in the morning, and too crazy at night. I will be talking to much or too little and never quite in unity. I have my p-day and then I realize that I haven't written people enough, or I send too many emails with photos. People get frustrated that I never write them and then and more guilt to my already guilt saturated soul about how I really do have enough time to do it all. I never feel like the time I have on P-day or during the week is used quite to the efficiency level that I could reach if I only had more focus, more drive, more will. But though I was running through all of these thoughts during the interview I just bit my tongue. If I hadn't I would have just fallen apart, and then that would have been one more thing to add to my list of failures and weaknesses. As I felt my eyes begin to heat up from the restraint of tears, President Schwartz asked me if I knew what a successful missionary was. I tried to tell him the "right answer" that a successful missionary was one that the spirit could work with and through. He said that was right and invited me to read and study chapter 1 ofPreach my Gospel. I thought to myself "yep that's where I need to start square one." His very next question to me was, "what do you do before you go to bed at night?" I thought about it, "well I pray.." "Yes yes, but what do you do besides pray and sleep." .. "Uh I brush my teeth??" He just laughed a good nurtured chuckle and told me that he had been reading in Alma about the Anti-Nephi-Lehites and how they laid down and buried their weapons of rebellion. He rhetorically asked me what my weapons of rebellion were. The Spirit brought the answer very readily to my mind, that my rebellion was comparing my success as a missionary to others, To not accept Gods acceptance of me and my sacrifice. President continued after a moment of silence from me as I continued to wrestle inside myself. He then asked me to bury my weapons of rebellion that night as I prayed. To dig them deep and not to dig them up ever again. He then talked about my nightly routine again. I can't remember exactly how it was brought up but he invited me to take just a few minutes each night and write down the miracles that I have seen, to write down the times I recognized the Spirit and God's hand in my life. He then soothed over other concerns I had and gave me good "action-points" to do. He closed telling me the very words that received in a blessing of comfort that I had received a month prior from Elder Jackson, and words that I needed to be reminded of, "Sister Wadsworth, Heavenly Father is proud of your service. He accepts the sacrifice that you given Him. Continue, and Press forward in Faith."
I, after having received such direct counsel, saw no other logical option but to do this small and simple task that I was invited to do by president. So I wrote in the cute pink journal that Sis. Weber gave me, the Tender Mercies that I saw that day. The first few entries were pretty generic, but each day I was able to see more and more of the guiding hand of the Lord in the detail of our work. Here are just a few of the highlights of the last two weeks:
97. Jazz, Elder Jackson's new member, gave the DDM thought about Pharisees. But gave the exact answers to my prayers after Speaking with president 11/27
99. God answered my prayers on how I can help Sis Prince be less stressed about life, by inspiring us to braid her hair in a ton of braids and laugh ridiculously about it 11/27
100. I have truly been able to recognize the answers to my prayers and really honestly feel Gods love through it 11/27
105. Sis. Prince and I were blessed with the timing of our day and didn't get stuck on broken trains like the poor Elders did 11/28
107. Read a great talk on gratitude by President Thomas S. Monson, while the Zone leaders and Sis. Prince planned Zone Training, This talk helped me change the way I view this up coming transfer 11/29
109. We made our train with perfect timing back to k-town. Such timing that you know God loves you 11/29
111. Our impossible schedule all worked out.
a. Jessica cancelled at 8:30 but moved it to 11:30
b. Sis. Jacobs was okay with moving it too.
c. we had full study - well at least personal study
d. met with Lovells and when they gave us hot peppermint tea God answered my prayers and inspired Sis. Prince to think of adding her water bottle water to it to cool it down, when they weren't looking
e. we were blessed, our prayers answered and we made the bus to show them how to get to church.
f. Gave them the tour
g. Izzy read Alma 32 within the two days between seeing her.
h. Jessica was just late enough that we were able to hear about Sis. Jacobs adoption
i. After our lesson on tithing. We had 10 mins to get to the train station. Bro. Jacobs was the perfect urgent driver and the spirit blessed us by letting us not give a single bad direction.
j. caught the train to get to Merrill's for service, was the perfect timing we arrived only missing the chit chat of lunch.
k. left at the perfect timing to have Sis. Merrill drop us off to Sis. Williams and signed us on base
i. Sis.Williams was so sweet, and gave us pieces of normalcy. like sis. prince a b-day cake, and nail polish to borrow and aveno lotion that she used daily.
m. She drops us off at the bus with 2 mins to spare.
n. came back in enough time to plan for both Mon and Sunday 11/30
112. I totally didn't want to do missionary work, or anything really but on the way to Landstuhl I was blessed with an answer to my prayers for motivation when a random wave of excitement about life came over me. 11/30
113. Testimony of prayer and Gods love for me grew, as I could see and recognize answers to all the prayers I was saying through out the day over all the little details like hot tea. 11/30
132. Elder Bennett said a prayer for us to have 3 members answer so that we could make plans for this week and
a. we made 7 other calls nothing. Bro sessions randomly calls us as a wrong number but they were the ones that we wanted to meet with on Sunday. They were totally down. as we were saying our goodbyes
b. Sis. Gage called us. She took us up for dinner on Saturday. With Harriet and She was willing to teach about the third lesson for her new member lessons.
c. Bro Carr called twice to return our call. that never happens. and we were able to set up the new Elders with an eating appointment. for Sunday. post church 12/3
145. Told Sis. Kropushek 18:00 for dinner but she thought it was at 17:00. It all worked out for the best, as always :) 12/4
154. I received rando mail from the YSA James Hill ward today. That was a nice surprise. 12/5
159. Zone training was great! I could really feel that God had been preparing me these past two weeks to be receptive to what they taught today 12/6
162. The Elders helped us out a ton! We are really starting to bond. Elder Fowler helped clean the chapel. Elder Larsen was trying to stay alive during his trial of food sickness 12/6
163. I was able to play piano a ton today. practically all day :) 12/6
168. I received a very kind package for the Lake Meridian Young women that lifted my tired spirit 12/8
171. We were able to help address Jessica's real concerns in our lesson after heading the prompting of the Spirit. I left the lesson feeling like we had a great lesson 128
172.In gospel Principles Br. Nelson explained moments of gratitude as moments that we are being influenced by the Holy Ghost, which is an ah-ha moment for me as to why I have felt so much better this week keeping this journal than ever before on my mission 12/8
173. Found a great quote in the Gospel Principles manual that I love, “When a man has the manifestation from the Holy Ghost, it leaves an indelible impression on his soul, one that is not easily erased. It is Spirit speaking to spirit, and it comes with convincing force. A manifestation of an angel, or even of the Son of God himself, would impress the eye and mind, and eventually become dimmed, but the impressions of the Holy Ghost sink deeper into the souland are more difficult to erase” Joseph Fielding Smith Jr.
I have never understood the power of prayer before, quite like I do now. God listens. He cares about our needs and wants and our comforts. I know that I am only ever a quick sincere prayer away from receiving peace and miracles. I have never been so consistently happy on my mission or in my life. When upsets in our schedule or dorky mistakes are made I can see that there will be a tender mercy to follow. I have no doubt that President was inspired as he invited me to let down my weapons of rebellion, of my past ways of thinking. That he was inspired as he invited me to write down the moments that I have seen the spirit work with me, through me, and for me. I think of the definition of a successful missionary. I have been too hard on myself. Asking more from myself than God asks from me. "When you have done your very best, you may still experience disappointments, but you will not be disappointed in yourself. You can feel certain that the Lord is pleased when you feel the Spirit working through you." (PMG Ch.1) The gospel is simple. If you can work with the spirit, and feel the spirit, maintain course, listen and be meek and humble enough to follow the spirits promptings. If you can't feel the constant companionship of the Holy Spirit, stop what you are doing and pray, lay down the weapons of rebellion that you have. Reflect on Christs teachings. Remember Him always and you will have the Spirit with you because that is the promise that we have been given and the Lord is bound to bless.
(I may or may not have found the way to hyperlink emails, teehee. Sorry if its obnoxious but its way fun on my side of things)
This week in more detail:
Last monday, Sis Prince and I found this store in Landstuhl that had some of the cutest boots that we have ever seen and they were all reasonably priced. We decieded that for our MWR we were going to go to the christmas market there and then go see if we see any boots that are would work for our freezing feet. So, When the Elders called us to figure out something that we could all do together we told them that Landstuhl had a really great Christmas market that we had seen just that saturday previous and that they could come with us to Landstuhl to check it out. We might have left out the detail about the shoe shopping. Well as we got off the train and were walking up to town square with the five Elders alongside us. We came to the realization that the Christmas market had already packed up and moved on. ooops! it was only a temporary one. hehe so the elders came with us to go shoe shopping. all five sat on the chairs in the store as sis. prince and I came to them asking which boot they liked better, which ones would go with more outfits, etc. It was quite the site haha! they were troopers with us and I am so grateful for them being such good sports with us. We all joked that they were just in training for when they will be married.
This whole week we have had a member dinner appointment with Jessica to review the restoration, plan of salvation, and the gospel of Jesus Christ Lessons with her in preparation for her baptism on Friday. It has been so fun to watch the member teach the lessons that we as missionaries teach everyday. Members teach the lessons with the emphasis on how the gospel applies to them and their life. We went to the Reckiek home on Monday, The Baguley home on Tuesday and the Kropusheks on Wednesday. Each very different styles, but each testifying of the truth of the gospel.
On Dienstag we sat with our new Elders in the gym and caught them up to speed with our large, 140 household ward. We set transfer goals with them and the baby steps that we were going to take that week to accomplish our goals. I like our new Elders a lot. Elder Larsen is a very tall 6'4" kind and soft giant. He is our new District leader as well. He is a very collected missionary even though he stresses about everything, a weird paradox I know. Elder Fowler is an equally matched sidekick to Elder Larsen, in the way that they complete each others personality. Elder Fowler is a little piece of sassy home. He is really funny and has a great laugh to go with his humor. He is a ball of sass and fun too. He is really sweet and is so willing to step in and help anyone that needs it. He is reliable like that.
On Wednesday Sister Prince had MLC in Frankfurt, so we had a day split with the German Sisters. Sis. Hasara and I hit up Kaiserslautern with stop bys on less actives. That night we had our dinner appointment with Sis. Kropushek. There may have been some minor miscommunication here she thought the dinner started at 5 we thought it started at 6. but naja was kann mann tun? gar nicht! haha it all worked out because she is such a sweet heart. I love her!
Donnerstag was planning for the Zone Leaders and Sis. Prince all day long. Like really all day long. They planned while I tried to do something productive with my time from 10:30am to 4:30pm. So not a whole lot to talk about there. After they were done. We went about doing any last minute details for the baptism. One of those being cleaning the baptismal font. It took over an hour to wipe down the filth from the walls (please insert cheesy joke about sins being washed away and filth here). But honestly it really was disgusting. All the walls had that humid dust clinging to them. So we wiped everything down. the walls, the ceiling, the mirror, the floor, the glass, the window sill (please see the picture below of me risking my life for the sake of cleanliness, my mama would be so proud.)
Freitag, wir haben Zone Training gehabt. It was so amazing to watch Zone training be on everything that I had been learning about and improving on since my interview with president. The workings of the spirit without doubt. Jessica came to the church just before 5 so that her and Zigan could eat dinner. She was in a little bit of a frazzled state so I was charged with the responsibility to play some piano music for her while she ate to help her be a little less frazzled from the hassle of life. While I played, the Elders and Sis. Prince went about cleaning the rest of the church, such as vacuuming the chapel and sweeping the halls.
We had time to before the baptism started and after we had her all dressed in white to have a lesson with her. We were in the mothers lounge, Sis. Prince was french braiding her hair while I shared with her the baptismal covenents and scriptures about why it is so important to enter into this next step of progression in her life and how it will allow Heavenly Father to bless her more abundantly and help her in her life. It was so sweet to hear her testify over and over to us about the doctrine that the scriptures were teaching. I felt more like she was teaching me what it means to be a follower of Christ, to be humble and submissive to the will of Heavenly Father. We went into the chapel where there was around 20 families there to support her. Another tender mercy. We had only two minor hiccups, I gave the opening prayer and said, "we are so thankful for Jesus Christ, and..." apparently my mumbling was bad enough, because all the little kids heard "Jesus Christ, Amen" so half way in the prayer half the congregation said amen. It was a little awkward, but it helped break the ice. The other hiccup was that Sis. Prince was distracting Zigan with coloring so she missed her cues to go up and lead the music. Totally minor.
Everything was so beautiful, and perfect. It was more touching than words could be used to describe seeing her walk down the steps into the baptismal font and come out back into our arms. When we asked her how she felt she said, "You know when you get cold chills, I feel like that all over my body, but they arn't cold." After we had the rest of the talks she went up to bear her testimony and she spoke so powerfully and clearly what she knew. "I have always believed in God, I have always known that He was there watching over me and listening to my prayers. But now.. Now I feel like I am home." When she returned back to the seat next to me, she turns to me and says that she had no idea what she was going to say. but "I just got up there and knew what to say. I just felt it".
On Sunday she was confirmed with the Gift of the Holy Ghost. She just radiated a glow of happiness. "I feel like I just can't quit smiling" were her words when she came back from the blessing.
I have never seen a more perfect example of a changed heart than Jessica. Her very countenance radiates with the spirit of Christ. It reminds me of third Nephi, when Christ came to the people of America and blessed the people: And it came to pass that Jesus blessed them as they did pray unto him; and his countenance did smile upon them, and the light of his countenance did shine upon them, and behold they were as white as the countenance and also the garments of Jesus; and behold the whiteness thereof did exceed all the whiteness, yea, even there could be nothing upon earth so white as the whiteness thereof." The scriptures describe it best, better than I ever could.
His Image in Our Countenances
In the fifth chapter of his book, Alma asks Church members of his day a series of penetrating questions. “Have ye spiritually been born of God? … Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?” he asks in verse 14. [Alma 5:14] “Do ye exercise faith in the redemption of him who created you?” (Alma 5:15). “Can ye look up to God … with a pure heart and clean hands … , having the image of God engraven upon your countenances?” (Alma 5:19).
These are all good questions we need to ask ourselves today.
Experience the Mighty Change
The process by which we become “born of God” and have his image “engraven upon [our] countenances” begins with faith in Jesus Christ. Our faith motivates us to repent and make covenants with the Savior through the ordinances of the gospel. As we keep our covenants, the Lord blesses us with his Holy Spirit, which purifies and changes our hearts.
A great many members of the Church have experienced this mighty change of heart and can truthfully and humbly answer yes to Alma’s questions. Others may not as yet have made the personal commitment necessary for that change to happen. Still others may have experienced the change, but, with the press of daily problems, may sometimes wonder if they really do reflect the Lord’s love in their lives.
Recognize God’s Image in Your Countenance
No matter what our spiritual condition, time spent alone with our Heavenly Father in prayer and meditation can lead to insight and personal growth. Through this process, which can be like looking at ourselves in a mirror, we may discover things about ourselves that need changing. At other times, we may find that the reflection we see does indeed mirror the Lord’s image. One sister recently described such a personal experience:
“One evening, during fervent prayer about some serious difficulties in my life, I felt the comforting warmth of Heavenly Father’s love radiating through my body. As I gratefully closed my prayer and arose to dry my tears, I glanced into the mirror. At that moment there was no doubt that the Spirit had, at least briefly, touched and refined my physical features, as well as my heart. Its visible effects faded within seconds, but the feeling of absolute love remained with me for a time. This experience has deepened my desire to be more worthy of the Spirit’s companionship.”
As members of the Lord’s true church, we are encouraged to measure ourselves against “the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). Like this sister, we can take our measure through prayer and meditation. Scripture study and partaking of the emblems of the sacrament also invite the Holy Ghost into our lives. Such moments can be sacred. Under the influence of the Spirit, we may learn what it is we lack to become more Christlike. At other times, we may receive the comforting assurance that our efforts are accepted. In either case, we will leave the experience more centered in mind and spirit on Jesus Christ.
As we thus center our lives on Jesus Christ, we can experience the mighty change Alma spoke of and reflect more clearly the image of God in our countenances.
There it is folks. The most intense email home that you will most likely ever get, so know that it is all down hill from here. ;) I love you guys. I truly am grateful for each one of you and all the prayers and support you give me. Without you I am not sure if I would be here witnessing the miracles that God has placed in my life and in the lives of those around me.
May you forever allow God into your hearts,
Sister Wadsworth
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| Sis. Hasara making us lunch on our German split |
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| Cleaning the Font is no small feat |
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| Cleaning the Font is no small feat |
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| Cleaning the Font is no small feat |
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| Cleaning the Font is no small feat |
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| Cleaning the Font is no small feat |
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| Cleaning the Font is no small feat |
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| Cleaning the Font is no small feat |
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| this is the Kaiserslautern Fountain and sometimes as missionaries we go a little kookoo haha |
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| this is the Kaiserslautern Fountain and sometimes as missionaries we go a little kookoo haha |
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| this is the Kaiserslautern Fountain and sometimes as missionaries we go a little kookoo haha |
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| this is the Kaiserslautern Fountain and sometimes as missionaries we go a little kookoo haha |
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| Me totally happy about the package the YW sent me =D |
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