We Cool

Aside from trying to grow out my bangs and having many awkward hair days as you will see in the pictures below we had a greeeeaaaat week! 

Two of our sweetest friends got baptized on Sunday 

It got warm enough to do weekly planning outside in the sun

And I ate some senbei.

But best of all, I learned so much from the scriptures. I couldn't write everything that I learned, but one of my favorites is about this one lady missionary in John. When Jesus travels through Samaria, a woman filling up her water pot meets Jesus and learns that He is the Messiah that was prophesied about. Once she learns this, she goes and tells all the men in the city. 

"And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman, which testifies, He told me all that ever I did.

"And many more believed because of his own word; And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world" (John 4:39,41-42)

The woman converted many to come unto Christ, but more importantly, she let the Spirit of God do the converting. It reminded me of the worldwide missionary devotional we had a few months ago, when Elder Bednar taught that the missionary brings the message unto the investigator, but the spirit brings into the heart. The church sends out scraggly, stinky, clueless 18 year old missionaries around the world, but the only reason it works is because this is God's work, and if we work just hard enough to be worthy of the Spirit of God to be with us, miracles can happen! 

Another scripture that I really liked:

"And for the space of three hours did the Lord talk with the brother of Jared, and chastened him because he remembered not to call upon the name of the Lord" (Ether 2:14)

Most times we don't hasten people unless we know them really really well, like a family member, or a close friend. If we do that in any other situation, we can alienate them. No one likes being yelled at by strangers, but when it's someone we love, we listen. Most of the time. The next verse says,

"And the brother of Jared repented of the evil which he had done, and did call upon the name of the Lord for his brethren who were with him." 

And so I've set a new goal for myself. I want to be so cool with God that he can chasten me for three hours and I won't feel offended, because I definitely am not at that point yet. It's definitely made me to some introspection and check my pride. Am I humble enough that God would feel okay telling me what to fix? God wants us to be the best we can be, and if we let him fix us, we' would be so much better off! 

And here is a picture of the most confusing and awkward district in the mission:

English Elders (1 stake), Chinese Sisters (3 wards in 2 stakes), Korean Elders (I dont know what they cover), and the APs(not pictured) (116 wards in 7 stakes)