Haha okay, I'm sorry, I got extremely distracted and only have like, 20 minutes to write...so again, ignore my spelling. but hello family and friends!!! :)
this week has been awesome! well, i take that back, this week has actually been pretty horrible haha but it ended great! thank you for the letters i received this week: mommy, mckay (I LOVE YOU!), sister florian (LOVE YOU HUNTER AND GRACEY GIRL!), Hermano Stoddard (haha hey, it's never too late!), the Relief Society of the YSA ward, and Brother Ambrose. We had mini missions this weekend which means the youth (and sometimes young single adults) can go out with the missionaries for a weekend! Stephen, the one we baptized, WENT ON ONE! When I found out he went on one from the other sisters, I started to cry haha ahhh I am so proud of him! I hope he enjoyed it!
so, i had a very hard week this past week. like, i haven't had this big of a low point on my mission since my first transfer. it all started on tuesday afternoon. we went to go visit a former investigator and when we knocked on the door, a lady opened it. we thought she was gene but turned out her husband was gene and he passed away. i immediately had sympathy for her and asked her if there was anything we could do for her. she started to tear up and told us that her sons are close and can help her. she then started to cry more and i felt awkward and so we shook hands and that was it. however, the second she closed the door and i turned around i felt sick to my stomach. WHY DIDN'T I TESTIFY THAT SHE COULD SEE HER HUSBAND AGAIN?! why didn't i testify of anything to her?! sure, i felt awkward and didn't want to make her cry or get mad at me but...i felt like a huge failure. i've been out on my mission for almost a year and i couldn't even testify to her that families can be together forever. sister set had no idea what was going on and so she tried her best to cheer me up. when we started walking back to the car to get back to the VC, i told her that we are going to make cookies for her this week, write our testimonies on a card, and drop them off for her.
the rest of that day was miserable and i just felt so bad that i didn't share my testimony to gene's wife. i then became really angry for the next 2 days. some of the sisters were bothering me (when really they weren't lol i was just mad), i felt like i wasn't achieving my goals i had set out for the week, and then to top it off, we were going to have a mini missionary for the weekend. i loved my last one but they are so stressful! you want them to have an amazing experience and i was just hoping that we would have great plans that would actually work for the weekend. i kept praying and praying and repenting, asking for forgiveness and that i would get these negative feelings out of me but all day tuesday, wednesday and thursday i was just a hot mess. i was literally mad at everyone but my companion, sister davis, sister jones, and sister cole. it was thursday night while i was praying that i really figured out the reason why i was freaking out...and it was because realization was setting in that i really only have 6 months left. i know i may talk about it a lot in my emails, but it's hard when haha every sister here asks you how much time you have left and then they just always tell you how you're almost done. I don't want to be almost done! I want more time! so once i realized that that was the core reason to my random anger during the week...i got better. we had our mini missionary and she was literally an answer to prayer. she was baptized a month ago and is so awesome. she has a powerful testimony and taught me a lot this weekend. we knocked on a door of an old potential i had found with sister merciales and he was not interested. i asked him if we could at least give him something before we left and he accepted. i gave him a book of mormon, testified of it, and invited him to read it and to pray to god to know that it's true. when we walked away, i mumbled "ugh...rejection!". she then stopped me and told me that it wasn't rejection. he accepted the book of mormon so really, he didn't reject us. that book will be sitting in his home and one day, he will find it and have that desire to read it. or his children will find it and read it. i know that god knows me because he sent me the most perfect mini missionary ever. i needed her this week and i'm grateful that despite of my anger, frustrations, and not so grateful moments...she still placed her in my life to heal me.
i gave a tour to this mother and daughter yesterday. they were sitting in the christus alone and i felt like they hadn't been talked to. i approached them, played the christus for them, and when i came back they both had tears in their eyes. i sat on the bench in front of them and asked what they liked about it. the mom said that she liked the part at the end where the savior says, "i my fathers house are many mansions, i go to prepare a place for you." i then knew that there was something going on and that someone had to of been ill. chapter one verse 27 in the book of enos came to my mind. i have never shared that verse in the christus room but, decided to share it. it says, "And I soon go to the place of my rest, which is with my Redeemer; for I know that in him I shall rest. And i rejoice in the day when my mortal shall put on immortality, and shall stand before him; then shall i see his face with pleasure, and he will say unto me: Come unto me, ye blessed, there is a place prepared for you in the mansions of my Father. Amen." i testified to them that Enos understood God's plan. he understood that death is a part of life, that there is a resurrection because of the atonement of jesus christ and that we will be able to be with the Lord, face to face, one day. they later thanked me for sharing that scripture to them. i asked the daughter, who was a return missionary, any advice to give me. she reminded me of what an elder said in the District 2 DVD that missionaries watch. she told me that a missionary's last 6 months of their mission is the time the shine. they are seasoned missionaries and they know what to do. they know good from bad and they know how to do the work. her advice prompted me to make goals this morning of what i hope to achieve in these next 6 months. it's true, this IS my time to shine! this IS my time to work hard and to be an example and even though i had a horrible week, i worked so hard in my VC goals! i was able to at least 1 referral 6 out of the 7 days this week! i have to give it my all....i just have to.
i was able to quickly talk to a general authority that visited the VC this week because he was here for stake conference. Elder Donald Clarke i think? anywho, this is something that he had said in a devotional he gave a few weeks ago at the MTC, "re-activation counts as much as a baptism." it is so true! that doesn't mean that i focus all of my work on less active members and not go out and find people to baptize but, when we help less active members come back to church...that his a huge deal! i thought of my parents and chris and how it was on my mission that they have become fully active in the church again. i am so grateful for the missionaries and the members who helped them. i love this work. so much! it is my life and i can't even take a legitimate nap during lunch or pday because my mind just starts racing on the millions of things i have to do. i hope you all have a wonderful week! i hope you were able to make a mormon.org profile. now, share it to others! this work is so great and i'm grateful to be a part of it. i love you all!
Love,
Sister Baeza
2. he leaves on his mission next week! he was the one who served with us for a transfer
3. our mini missionary
4. i love her
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