This week...

Jen's weekly entry:

One of the best things about a mission is that you get slapped in the face with humility almost on a daily basis. (Sarcasm) And it does almost feel like you've literally been slapped. But I am grateful for that because I am learning that sometimes, in certain situations, there really isn't a good or a bad; it just is something to give you experience. The good or bad comes in when we add emotion to it, and of course, how can we not add emotion to it; we are human. 

This past week was one of the more significant weeks of my time in this land thus far. I would like to write about my entire week, but since I'm only allotted a certain amount of time, I'll only share one of the stories with you.

In order to properly set the stage, I will give some background. It all started about 2 weeks or a week and a half ago. You see, one way we contact people is sharing with them pass-along cards; they have our number and the address of our church building on the back of it, along with the mormon.org website. 

99% percent of the time no one ever gives us a call (and we've talked to other missionaries about this and they said, during their whole mission, this has never happened). Well, about a week and a half ago, TWO people called us from the number on the back of our card and had wanted to set up a meeting with us to learn more. 

And as you can guess, of course we were ecstatic to set up an appointment and talk with them. Wednesday we had an appointment with the second caller, (now this second caller was very important to me because it was late at night and my companion wanted to go in because we had a lot of other stuff we needed to take care of but I had this prompting to go out and look for one more person - and it was him) and to say the least, it was nothing of what we had hoped for. 

He really came only to lecture us about studying the philosophy of the Bible. He asked us questions like what we thought about each particular aspect of Solomon's wives and things like that.  When he would ask us questions, before we even had time to answer, he would cut us off, and go to the next person and say, "since she has nothing to say, what do you think?" He would do that every time we tried to speak or at least answer one of the questions he asked.

Now, as any normal person would, I began to get frustrated BUT before I let myself become so, I had a revelation! "Do you know,"I thought to myself, "that he is a child of God and that you must love him?" (Again Sarcasm) But I really pondered about that statement during that meeting and so, I began to pray to God to help me love him and to know that God loved him and has a plan and a purpose for him. 

Love, in every sense of the word, is in no way easy for me to quickly possess. It is not a natural thing for me to do, especially if someone is attacking me without giving me a chance to explain or express my opinion. But I also know, that you can love someone without ever even liking them. As I prayed, in all earnestness, the anger and frustration completely left my heart. Mind you, the verbal attack did not leave me, in fact near the end it just seem to become more aggressive but comfort came to help me bear it with patience. 

After the appointment finished and we were walking back home, we (my companion, our joint-teach, and myself included) were all silent at first until I said, "Well, it's not a mission if we don't get people like that." Everyone laughed. As we discussed what just had happened I had another revelation (not sarcasm), God still wins. 

Whether or not that guy will ever want to know more or gain a testimony of God, his opinions do not determine the existence or reality of God and His love for us. "At the end of the day," our friend said, "I still have my testimony and I'm truly happy in my life."

After that experience, my companion and I were a bit worried about our appointment for the next day with the first caller. We had no reason to be because that appointment went great. He asked us really good questions and then actually let us speak to give him an answer. He's a super cool guy and I was truly grateful for both experiences because I couldn't have appreciated the second appointment as much as I did if I had not gone through the first. 

There's a quote that I like that says, "If you could see the size of the blessing coming, you would understanding the magnitude of the battle you are fighting." And since I don't think I could have said it any better, I will leave you at that. Hope you all have a great week! Transfers are next week which is crazy! I can't believe I'll be in my 3rd transfer already, we only get 12 and I'll be a quarter of the way done with my mission. My companion and I are pretty sure that I'll stay in Lelystad for at least one more. 

Love you all!