Bonjour Bonjour.
So I thought I'd start this week off with story time. Our lovely zone leaders shared this nice little parable with us:
Once upon a time there was a man. And one night, the Lord came to this man in a vision. He instructed the man that there was a rock just outside his house. The man was to use all his might and strength to push against the rock. The man awoke from his vision with determination. From that day on, he woke up every morning and would go and push against the rock. He would push with all his might and strength for the entire day. He would come in at the end of the day exhausted and worn out. He did this...every day. Days turned into weeks, which turned into months. Satan saw this man's efforts to be obedient, and decided to enter the picture. He started to place thoughts into the man's mind such as "why are you doing this? You have been exhausting yourself for nothing. The rock has not moved one inch and you have been doing all you can. Why try?" The man fed into these thoughts. He started to create his own thoughts such as "maybe I could just put in half the effort...why does it matter. Even with all my strength the rock doesn't move. Maybe this is worthless. I'm not being a profitable servent to the Lord. I cannot move the rock". One night, overwhelmed by these thoughts, the man decided to make it a matter of prayer. He expressed his thoughts and doubts to the Lord. And the Lord responded " My dear servent, I did not command you to move the rock. I simply commanded you to push with all your might and strength. Look at how your muscles have grown from all your pushing. Your arms and back are strong and ready for greater tasks. I did not ask you to move the rock, I will move the rock. I simply asked you to have faith and be obedient. I simply asked you to push.I, the Lord, will move the moutains."
I can think about 100,000 ways this story applies to missionary work. But in discussing this story with Soeur McGhie, I decided to break my rule about not talking about the end of my mission with her. I couldn't help but bear testimony of how much my 'rock' or my mission, has helped me change. Throughout my mission, I've seen things happen for reasons I don't understand. You try and have such and faith and hope in people, to only have them turn away at the last minute from the gospel. You go out contacting with the faith that the Lord truly will put people in your path that are ready, only to return home at the end of the night with no success. You fix goals, only to fall short. At the beginning of my mission I had a list of things I wanted to have learned by the end of my mission, and I'm just starting to see that I had no idea what I needed to change and learn, but the Lord certainly does. He knows which of muscles need strengthening. And I most definately cannot see which mountains he will later ask me to move in my life, for now its all about the faith to push.
And push is mostly what this week has been. Our rendezvous with our Brik fell through. Other people we had high hopes for didn't turn out. Rositta is still in the hospital...and well this week she told us that she is sick of all this talk about baptism and will call us when she's ready to talk again. So we've done lots of finding. Which is really the focus in our zone right now. Finding, finding, finding. I feel very unified with our zone, and our district. Everyone is praying for one another to find. Yet, we haven't seen the success. Yet. And sometimes I feel anxiety because my time is limited...but in the end the Lord knows what we need. Right now, we must show our faith to go out and find and be obedient.
So that's the status in Lille: rain showers with intense rock pushing.
Love you all!
Soeur Smith
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