This past week I'll admit that not a whole lot happened.
Last Tuesday was exciting. We got 2 meeting on a day that was not Sunday! It was pretty great although there was a lot of running around because we have district meeting on that day as well. Our last lesson for the night is that it was with an inactive member and her investigator husband. I'll admit we did not have a lot of time to plan so the lesson went all over the place. But a good thing came from it. We ended up gearing the lesson more towards the inactive wife and talked about the blessing of going to church. As we talked I told our families inexperience in Hong Kong and how long it took to get to churchand what an influence that had on my wife. At the end we asked if she would come to church, expecting that she would refuse. Instead she said, "Probably." And she said after listening to my story the 40 minutes on the train didn't seem so bad. In the end she did not end up coming to church yesterday but for that brief moment the Holy Ghost touched her and made her consider how important coming to church and taking the sacrament really is.
The rest of the week I was sick. Despite being sick we still tried to find inactive members and try to make contact with them. Friday was probably the day I felt the worse so I ended up sleeping a lot but on the plus side by Saturday I felt a whole lot better and had more energy to work. Being sick is the worst. You want to work harder because you are sick and don't want to waste time but at the same time you get tired a lot easier. One night in particular I felt weak and then all these negative thoughts popped into my mind. All my weaknesses hit me full force. Thankfully, I recalled a talk from General Conference that I read that day and I analyzed those thoughts and to discover their source. Had I dwelled on them I would have felt discouragement so I tried my best to cast them out and come up with a plan to be better.
The week had a lot of potential but a lot of the people we planned to meet with got sick as well so we continued to try to find and contact inactives. On Saturday I had the opportunity to help someone with their French. A member from Perovo is taking a French class and asked if I could help her. She did really well but I forgot how hard French pronounciation is at first. She would say a word and then she would have me say it. After she heard me she would look at the word and asked, "How do all those letters make that sound?!" She began to get frustrated so I told her about my experiences with French and helped her feel hope. I'll admit helping her gave me flashbacks to the MTC and my first year French class.
Church yesterday was pretty exciting! We went to International in the morning and had a great fast and testimony meeting. During the meeting I looked at our investigator, Maria and she looked a little restless. When there was a break between testimonies she stood up and bore her testimony! She bore testimony about the power of prayer, the Book of Mormon, Jospesh Smith, and President Monson. I was so impressed and so happy because she was glowing. Afterwards we met with her briefly to plan her baptism. Everything is ready to go and she can't wait. I count myself as lucky to have been able to see and be a small part of her conversion process. She is someone I admire because her faith has led her to action. When her friends told her about the Word of Wisdom she gave up coffee and tried the commandment and the Lord has blessed her. Our district leader told us that when he was interviewing her he felt like he was interviewing the Brother of Jared.
Sadly, our other investigator is sick so we could not meet with her yesterday. We are trying to get her all ready for baptism on the 24th (which might end up being the busiest day of my life) of December and we are getting a little bit stressed because there are some things we still need to teach her and she still needs her interview. But this is the time to exercise our faith and continue to pray and do our best to do all we can.
This next week will be a little crazy. We find out about transfers, we have a training on Wednesday, visa trip to Kiev, and culture night. Oh, and our baptism on Sunday! But I have a lot of high hopes for this next week.
I'll admit it is now December but it does not yet feel like winter. It is warmer today so most of the snow has melted. There will be snow on the grass but only on Tuesday did we trudge through slush. It gets cold at night but so far my fall jacket is still carrying me through. I imagine in a month's time I will look back on today as a happy dream of warmth.
Well, that was my week. I am better now and determined to serve the Lord with all my might, mind, and strength. And don't worry, I love the mission but the mission has made me more excited for real life and to see what else the Lord has in store for me. He has a much greater image of what I can become. I know that it is better to look up and to look to the Lord. He really does want to help us and most times all we need to do is ask in prayer. I love you all and am so grateful that you are in my life and I am so happy to know that the Lord is taking care of you. I love you all.
-Sister Daniel
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