So I'm sure you're expecting a super spiritual moment to be the highlight of my second week as a missionary, but I must confess the most joyful moment I've recently experienced was getting a fist bump from 89 year old grandma in her nightgown. I feel like an unwritten bucket list item should get checked off. If I could choose any word to describe the glorious moment when knuckles collided on knuckles I think it would have to be.. geriatric. Yes, it was definitely a geriatric experience. Before I move on to the serious stuff, I need to share the grandma quote of the week:
Gma: (After announcing her upcoming 3 week trip to Arizona) "Just don't have any wild parties while I'm gone"
Sister H.: "You mean we can't have Peter, James, and John over?"
Gma:" Well, if it were Peter James and John you could... just no Tom, Dick, and Harry"
I love this grandma ALMOST as much as my blood-related ones:)
Shout out to Michelle and Brad who just had birthdays! I love you two, so much so that I won't reveal your ages on this public blog;) I can't believe how fast time goes by. I realized I forgot to mention how incredible the weather has been since I got here- yesterday topped all, it was 60 degrees in full sunshine. Sorry, Ohio if you're still in the negatives! It has been nice because though we have a car, with all this sunshine we have a good excuse to walk everywhere since the area we cover is only 1 mile by 1 mile. On Tuesday we were lucky to have Elder Ballard come speak to our mission, and unbeknownst to us all, he walked in with none other than Bill Marriott, the owner of Marriott Hotels and former area seventy (fancy word for a big leadership responsibility me can have in our church). At 83 he is still the chairman for his company board, and he is totally with it. Elder Ballard talked about how God only puts up with people completely rejecting Him and His Son for so long, and that if belief in Christ keeps getting pushed more and more out of the public square as is currently happening, there will be a consequence for the world. Kinda freaky, kinda cool.Both men emphasized the need to really know the doctrine of what we teach so that people don't have to wonder and we don't have to worry about answering obscure questions, if we just teach clear, true principles, people will more easily be able to understand and from there decide whether or not they accept our message, which is always always always focused on Christ. Each and every day I'm more amazed by the Savior's sacrifice for us, and as I've been reading the Infinite Atonement by Tad R. Callister, I'm just in awe of the things that Christ did on earth, and who he actually is.
This weekend I learned why Christ tells us to be like little children. We went to a dinner that ended up going wayyy too long and being really frustrating because when we tried to teach it was like we could barely get a word in and we were jumping from obscure doctrine to random question and none of us could reel things in. I would like to reiterate the wise words of my friend Hope Thomas who said something along the lines of you don't go into Intro to Bio 100 with an advanced Bio 576 book in hand, ready to ask questions from page 1000. People need to understand the basics of our religion before anything else will ever have a hope of making sense. Anyway, that analogy pretty much describes how our lesson went and needless to say, we left discouraged and found that we had missed 10 calls from the person we were supposed to see after dinner. Luckily we were still able to see sweet little 10 year old Redina who wants to be baptized more than anything in the world but isn't allowed to be. And this is where I learned why Christ wants us to be like children. Children have such a sweet, gentle way of loving and making life feel so much simpler. We were going to teach a lesson but then Redina asked if we could please read the story about when Christ came to the Americas in the children's picture version of the Book of Mormon. We all took turns reading paragraphs and I started tearing up as I thought "What 10 year old little girl would choose to sit down and read stories about Jesus with missionaries on a Saturday night?" Redina has such a pure spirit and I know that if she continues on the path of faith that she's on, she will be able to be obtain the desires of her heart when she is old enough to decide for herself.
My last thought for this week is that everyone has their own unique story. Something I love about being missionary is that having this tag over my heart day in and day out, I have the responsibility and privilege to go up and talk to everyone I see and invite them to come closer to Christ and learn about the gospel. It is sad to find out after talking to people that say they're just not interested that the real reason they don't want to go to church is that they have been offended at some point in their life. I'm not blaming them for letting that hold them back because we are human and we have emotions and that just makes life hard but the quote from Dad's office came to my head when talking to one particular person this week. "He who takes offense when none is intended is a fool. He who takes offense when it is intended is a greater fool." When it comes down to it, offense is a choice, and though we can't get over a lot of things on our own, we can get over ANYTHING with the Savior's help, because he's felt your offense and worse.I love the scripture 1 John 4:18 that talks about how perfect love casts out all fear. Already, I've talked to many people who are uninterested, quick to run, or just flat out rude. Every time that happens to me or to you or to anyone else we have a choice to either be offended or to have understanding and just love. It doesn't matter how many times I get put down or glared at or rejected because God loves all of His children and if there is even a slight chance of my words brightening someone's day, leading them to truth, or letting someone see that God loves them, it is worth the worst mockery they can offer. I like to think of what my wise sister-in-law Michelle told me before I came here: "What would you do if you knew you wouldn't fail?" I invite you all to think about that this week. I also invite you to think of one person who could use a little more love in their life and do something for them, no matter how small. I promise that as you do this, not only will you understand a little bit more about God's love for that person, but you will gain insight into his eternal and infinite love for you.
Love,
Sister Pearson
P.S. I am able to receive letters so if anyone wants to be pen pals, email my mom for my mission address:) kjpearson7@gmail.com I would LOVE to hear from some of you! (Once you write me then I'll let you know if you're one of those someones ;)
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