Which brings me to my next piece of news--transfers happened and Sister Clark and I got a third companion. It's Kcenia Kuznetsova from Narva! She's here on a mini-mission for four weeks. We went to Riga to pick her up and because Sister Clark had a visa appointment. As always, it was an adventure getting back to Daugavpils. Sister Kuznetsova's camera was stolen and we missed our bus so we took a train instead.
It's been so fun to get an update on all of the people that I love in Narva. It's also been awesome to speak Russian all day, everyday, and to see that I'm actually capable of it. I told Sister Kuznetsova to correct every single mistake I make and she's already pointed out a bunch of little ones that I've been making my whole mission. Sheesh, that's embarrassing.
It's been great though. Sister Kuznetsova cracks me up every time she does her Estonian accent in Russian. I laugh for dayyyyss. They really do speak Russian so oddly.
We had two Member-Missionary Night Outs: one with Valentina and another with Lidija. We basically just went visiting teaching with Valentina and discussed/planned how to make this testimony book. Both were great and the plus side to going with Valentina was that she gave us a fresh jar of honey! Score.
As for Inna, she's stopped progressing and she's clinging to any excuse she can to not change. But I still have hope! I was quite blunt in our lesson with her the other day. After telling her that what she is doing every day (praying for forgiveness for doing the same thing over and over again without any intent to change) is not repentance at all, she said, "I have worldly sorrow, don't I?" We said yes, but emphasized that God can change the desires of our hearts if that's what we really want.
I asked her if she's ready to stop feeling sorry for herself and start making the small daily changes to repent.
She said no.
That basic lack of desire to change worries me a little (a lot), but I just don't feel like I've done everything in my power yet. So the fight's not over until the fat lady sings...or something like that. I don't have the brain power to remember what we say in English because it is so hot here.
Anyways, I received some really cool revelation for our next lesson with her. I'm studying the Book of Mormon and looking for the gospel of Jesus Christ, and something that I'd never thought of came to mind as I was practice teaching with Sister Clark. After reading the first two chapters of the Book of Mormon, I was thinking how Nephi knew what God wanted him to do. He knew that he needed to leave Jerusalem and he knew that keeping the commandments was important. Laman and Lemuel also knew the difference between right and wrong. I mean, their dad was a prophet. They were probably taught the gospel pretty thoroughly, if not side by side with Nephi. But what was the difference between Nephi and his two older brothers? It surprised me to realize that it was the simple act of prayer that made all the difference. Nephi poured his heart out to God and asked for Him to give him understanding and direction. He didn't just want to know about the commandments or why they were given; he wanted the ability to follow them and to do it for the right reasons. Laman and Lemuel knew the facts in their head but they didn't let it hit their hearts. They went through all of the same crap (even less) that Nephi did but were more put out and inconvenienced by it.
It's the same thing with us. If a commandment really annoys us or if we feel like it's more of a burden than a blessing, then it's up to us to pull on our grown-up pants and pray like Nephi did for God to help us make the connection between an understanding of the mind and an understanding of the heart.
We can all be so spiritually lazy and spend years being vaguely discontent with a certain commandment or principle without putting in the work to pray and ask to be at peace with it.
I stress that we don't need to knit-pick our testimonies with a magnifying glass of criticism, but that we take a faithful approach and give the Lord and His church the benefit of the doubt. If you don't get why the Lord has certain opinions or asks certain things of us, then that's more than understandable. He thinks on a totally different dimension than we're capable of right now. What's important to know is that He can give us the understanding in our mind and hearts that we need in this life to live with peace of conscience and true happiness.
Anyways, I've been trying to stop being lazy myself and to root out the parts of my character or principles about the gospel that I don't understand and that have always vaguely bothered me. It's been humbling and, well, I'm still in the process. Probably will be for the rest of my life. But the point is that I'm not planning on settling for anything less than absolute peace with how I understand the gospel and how I live it.
I love you all and hope that you're enjoying your swimming pools, drinks with ice, and air conditioning, ya filthies...
С любовью,
Сестра Гучка
P.S. Learning so much Russian slang! But don't worry, it's not to be used until after the mission :)
No comments:
Post a Comment