I've been feeling a lot of gratitude this week. I don't know where it came from (actually I do), but I've seen Heavenly Father's hand a lot more than usual. Not because He's suddenly more involved in my life, but I'm somehow better at recognizing it.
We were invited to Jurmala (an area about an hour away from Riga) to rake leaves for Valeri, a member in our branch. It's beautiful there, and his house is the most adorable thing. It's yellow with a white picket fence and it's actually the nicest/only house I've been in since coming here. We got there and Valeri told us sisters to get in the kitchen and sent the elders to rake...he's probably the most traditional Russian I've met. But it was funny because once we got inside, he told us that he told us we'd be doing service just to get us there. What we really did was take a tour of his house and conversed pleasantly with him. His house is full of antiques and sweet stuff that he's found on the street and just decided to hang up on the wall. Mom, I thought of how much you'd love it the whole time.
He fed us three courses of delicious food. I think Mike, Beau, and Jared would be especially jealous because it was amazing. I took videos, so you'll see it at some point.
I guess this week was pretty miraculous. In order to fully appreciate it, I'll backtrack to last week. Last Friday, I wrote down a list of my desires. It ranged from things that I want on my mission that are very important to me to unimportant things like wanting a new laptop for school. After looking at my list, I brought it to Heavenly Father and, in essence, said, "Here it is: all of my desires and wishes and, basically, my will. It's yours. In exchange, I want the desires and wishes and will that You want me to have." Looking back, it's kind of funny to me that I didn't expect to see any changes in the work here or anything tangible. I mostly just expected to stop feeling guilty for any distracting thoughts that I've had about plans for the future. But of course! Heavenly Father works by laws, and one of those is that if we are obedient, we recieve blessings. And beyond that, I wasn't just aiming to be obedient. I'm trying to become a true disciple instead of just a missionary.
We were invited to Jurmala (an area about an hour away from Riga) to rake leaves for Valeri, a member in our branch. It's beautiful there, and his house is the most adorable thing. It's yellow with a white picket fence and it's actually the nicest/only house I've been in since coming here. We got there and Valeri told us sisters to get in the kitchen and sent the elders to rake...he's probably the most traditional Russian I've met. But it was funny because once we got inside, he told us that he told us we'd be doing service just to get us there. What we really did was take a tour of his house and conversed pleasantly with him. His house is full of antiques and sweet stuff that he's found on the street and just decided to hang up on the wall. Mom, I thought of how much you'd love it the whole time.
He fed us three courses of delicious food. I think Mike, Beau, and Jared would be especially jealous because it was amazing. I took videos, so you'll see it at some point.
I guess this week was pretty miraculous. In order to fully appreciate it, I'll backtrack to last week. Last Friday, I wrote down a list of my desires. It ranged from things that I want on my mission that are very important to me to unimportant things like wanting a new laptop for school. After looking at my list, I brought it to Heavenly Father and, in essence, said, "Here it is: all of my desires and wishes and, basically, my will. It's yours. In exchange, I want the desires and wishes and will that You want me to have." Looking back, it's kind of funny to me that I didn't expect to see any changes in the work here or anything tangible. I mostly just expected to stop feeling guilty for any distracting thoughts that I've had about plans for the future. But of course! Heavenly Father works by laws, and one of those is that if we are obedient, we recieve blessings. And beyond that, I wasn't just aiming to be obedient. I'm trying to become a true disciple instead of just a missionary.
So, the branch and my area and my companion and the things that I'm studying and the Baltics have been on my mind pretty much 24/7. I don't mean to sound like I've turned into a robot because that's definitely not what thinking about others has turned me into. Weirdly, it's given me a lot more freedom to think about things that matter. And so it's safe to say that I've learned more this week on my mission than any other week. Cool, huh?
Last zone conference, President Harding told us of a time when he was at the airport. He had a bag of his favorite cookies and a newspaper and had decided to sit down and wait for his flight in London. A British woman sat at the same table and, after a few minutes, he heard the crinkling of his cookie bag. Looking over his newspaper, he saw that she had opened his cookies and was eating them unashamedly. He said his first thought was, "Well look at you!" He determined that he was going to take one and show her that it was his bag. So he took one, then she took one, then he took one, and so on until he came to the last cookie. He said that it came time to board his flight and he was thinking of how cheeky that woman was. When he sat down in his seat, he reached for his laptop and instead his hand met a bag of cookies. With a sinking feeling, he realized that he'd eaten the wrong bag of cookies and that he was the cheeky one. He wanted to find the woman and apologize, but it was too late.
He then told us that once we figure out how to do the Lord's work the Lord's way, we would have the same feeling of selfishness and pettiness that he had.
This week, my eyes have been opened and I've had that feeling. My own desires, good and logical though they generally are, have gotten in the way of the Lord's. I wish I had more time to elaborate on that, but it's something that has filled me with a lot of humility and wonder this week.
We were able to teach a girl named Ksenia that the elders found. She's seventeen and my gosh, it always surprises me how much I love the people that I have a chance to teach. I'll hopefully tell you more about her next week.
Sorry it's so short. I love where I'm at and who I'm with and who I am but I miss you and I love you a lot and hope that this week is great!
Love,
Sister Gooch
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