July 28, 2014
Well, guys, this past week marked one year in Europe. Two days in the Netherlands to almost three months in Belgium to over nine months in the Netherlands later... It's strange that I have less than ten months left on my mission. But enough about that.
This past week has been a good one. It has been a TIRING week, for sure. Mentally tiring. Between exchanges and a funeral and giving a zone training and taking care of our investigators and eating delicious food with members (gotta love those Eindhoven saints!) and writing end-of-transfer reports about the zone, I don't know what to write about...
I'll start with the funeral. On Wednesday, all four of us Eindhoven elders had to attend and help run a funeral in the Eindhoven chapel. You need to understand -- this was a big moment for me. My first funeral! I should have taken selfies to put in a scrapbook with all my other firsts, but somehow, amongst all the sorrow in the building, I couldn't bring myself to do it... An older woman in the ward had passed away a few days before. I had actually never met her -- she'd been in the hospital pretty much all the time. She's in a better place now. As great as the hospital is... There were SO MANY VISITORS. I've never seen the church building so filled. She'd had like seven children, and she was old enough to have great-grandkids, so you can imagine.
A few great talks were given by members at her funeral. For me, it was actually kind of an uplifting experience (is that bad to say?). I mean, it's not like I'm happy that someone died, but during the talks, I could feel the Spirit pretty strongly. That woman lived her faith. She was a strong member of the church. She did what was right. Not all her children followed, but she stayed strong. And with that Spirit in the building, you just knew -- her belief wasn't for nothing. It was real.
Elder Alston and I had the chance to give a four-hour long training to the other missionaries in the zone on Thursday. Furthermore, we made the mistake of not doing as much preparation in the prior weeks as we should have -- we were distracted doing other things. This week came, and it was crunch time. I'd never given a zone training before, and Elder Alston had given only one. We ended up pulling through in the clutch, though. Our zone training was about serving with the right motivations. We talked a bit about what motivates us in life -- do you want the job you want because you're passionate about it, or because you pull in a paycheck that looks like a phone number? Do you want the wife you want because she's got the body of a goddess, or because she's actually got other great qualities too? It was pretty great. I did some serious self-reflection on that last question...just kidding. I like to think I'm not that shallow.
We shared many parts of a Dallin H. Oaks talk, "Why We Serve" (it's a good one). Many missionaries struggle with competing motivations. We're only human. But, the greatest and most important motivation is a love of God. At the end of the day, that's what matters. We really felt like this was a message the missionaries in our zone needed. Apparently the Lord thought so too, because on the day of the zone training, it was almost flawless. We taught together really smoothly. The sister training leader in the zone did great. The Spirit was there, and the missionaries were doing some serious self-reflection. I hope it changed some hearts. You know, that's true in life, too -- there are always competing motivations for what we do. Why do we do what we do? Always a good question to ask.
Our investigators are doing so well. The two we have who are seriously preparing for baptism were both at church yesterday. Genzeer, the investigator from Sudan, is doing so well. He should be baptized this Saturday. So many members came up yesterday to meet him once they found out about his baptismal service -- he's going to make a fine member himself. Looking back on the transfer so far, it's seriously been a transfer full of miracles. We started off with no investigators seriously progressing towards baptism, and now we have two that should be baptized within the next two weeks. And I wish I could say that it was because Elder Alston and I are rock stars (which is still true), but anyone can see that it's because the Lord's hand really is in this work. We be living the blessed life, homies
Yesterday, they were announcing home teaching things in the priesthood hour of church, and one of the speakers from the funeral jokingly asked if he could count speaking at his home..teachee's? student's? whatever... He home taught the lady who passed away, and he jokingly asked if speaking at her funeral counted as home teaching. Turns out, now that she is no longer living, she doesn't require home teaching. Go figure.
Have a great week. Just remember -- mess with the bull, you get the horns.
--Elder Bonney
No comments:
Post a Comment