"Sometimes, I just want to look in the Lord's planner."‏

Written 9/7/14

Hello darlings.

My subject line is a sample of the daily wisdom I hear from my lovely companion. :)

It feels like I just wrote to you like 2 days ago. I mean, I'm not complaining. But time just goes too fast here. Happy 1 year to me this week on Thursday. Don't ask me how I feel about that one. My life is weird. I do the same things every day, but somehow I feel excited every day. I love jogging, I love studies, I love work, and I love eating. So it's like every part of the day is my favorite.

So. The work this week. We found out this week that V. (who we thought was a Less Active) was never, in fact, baptized! So we set a baptismal date for October 4th and he's successfully quit smoking. Atonement is real, guys. Another highlight this week was seeing B. pass the sacrament. We have V.J., B., and L. who all have the priesthood but have been too shy to wear their white shirts to church and pass the sacrament. It was a wonderful moment to arrive at church and see B., smiling and excited wearing his white shirt and waiting to pass the sacrament. It's so true that the Lord makes up the difference of our imperfections and weaknesses.

Almost all of our young men RC's we've been struggling with this week came to church, and J. is working towards his goal of baptizing our investigator N. on the 20th :) A., our completely awesome and prepared little 11 year old doesn't have permission yet to be baptized. Keep her in your prayers, if you will. I've never seen a child with such a huge desire to be baptized.

We had a really awesome Zone Training on Thursday where I got to talk to a sister that just transferred from Silay. She told me C., a 15 year old that Sister De Castro and I met and taught, got baptized! And a lady named M. we had contacted on the street once recently got baptized too, and is paying her tithing. Man, it's cool to see the effects of the work. You never know what role you might be playing in someone's conversion!

It's amazing how hard it can be sometimes to overcome natural man tendencies. Even as a missionary, there are always plenty of temptations (contrary to what I thought before my mission haha). For example, we were sitting in a lesson this week with F. and the idea came into my head to go follow up with the family next door to him that we'd given a pamphlet to last time we were in that area. I immediately thought of excuses not to go- I was tired, we had appointments, etc, but as I opened my scriptures it fell to Alma 60. I read verses 20-24, and if you liken it to missionary work...

20 Have ye forgotten the commandments of the Lord your God? ... Have ye forgotten the many times we have been delivered out of the hands of our enemies [or out of temptation]?
 21 Or do ye suppose that the Lord will still deliver us [or help us with the work], while we sit upon our thrones and do not make use of the means which the Lord has provided for us?
 22 Yea, will ye sit in idleness while ye are surrounded with thousands of those, yea, and tens of thousands,who do also sit in idleness, while there are thousands round about in the borders of the land who are falling by the sword[of sin], yea, wounded and bleeding?
 23 Do ye suppose that God will look upon you as guiltless while ye sit still and behold these things? Behold I say unto you, Nay. Now I would that ye should remember that God has said that the inward vessel shall be cleansed first, and then shall the outer vessel be cleansed also.
 24 And now, except ye do repent of that which ye have done [or procrastinated], and begin to be up and doing......behold it will be expedient that we contend no more with [Satan] until we have first cleansed our inward vessel....
 So, that. It was a good Spirit slap. Needless to say, we went back to the family. I'm grateful for a Father in Heaven who deals with my human weaknesses and reminds me often that He is in charge.

Sorry for this novel of an email. Well, sorry to everyone but Mom. I know she likes me even if my emails are nonsense :) Just a few funny things from this week:

1. On our way to an appointment it was pouring and as I stepped on the cement I didn't realize it was slick with mold. I pulled a classic pre-mission-Amy move and was grateful that somehow I didn't end up on my bum. A new understanding of the scriptures "Angels round about you to bear you up" :)

2. Filipinos don't seem to know the meaning of the colors on the stop light. While teaching two primary aged recent converts and an 8 year old member "Obey and honor the law" we reviewed what the lights on the stoplight meant.
"Red?" we asked.
"STOP!" they shouted back.
"Yellow?"
"The SUN!" the little 8 year old screamed.
"Green?"
"LEAVES!" she yelled.
Ahaha. I love kids.

3. You will all be glad to know that I have truly conquered some fears here on the mission. If you know me you know that I struggle with feet and with sponges. I have found from being on the mission almost a year now that there are far worse things. I am pleased to report that I've successfully overcome those fears. (And probably developed new ones.)

I miss the temple a lot. But at the same time, this work is the same redemptive work we find in the temple, and beneath all the stress and exhaustion of missionary work there is a thick layer of delight and lasting happiness. There's definitely a glow about this work.

Love you all so much and I know you had as great of a week as I did because you all got to hold little baby Macie (no, I'm NOT jealous...). Give her a little kiss for me and tell her I'll be home to spoil her in 6 months.

Love,
Sister Luke

 

1. Because I love my mother. 

 

2. B. in his white polo on Sunday :) Stop getting mad that I always wear the same clothes, because I know you all notice. 

3. I just can't stop myself from including these. Sister and I discovered a new part of our area with amazing hills and as we walked up one I had a nice Julie Andrews moment with "The hills are alive!" ringing through my head and the urge to fling my arms out and twirl aroud. Flashback to Sound of Music (over a year ago!) :) We attempted to take some jump shots which resulted in the following pictures and eventually gave up due to the lack of success. But as I glanced through the pictures later I couldn't stop giggling. I ended up with a lot of awkwardly awesome poses, like I'm dancing, needing to go to the bathroom, or rejoicing in the trees. Just sing the Sound of Music in your head as you look at these and I hope you can laugh as much as I did.