She is such a blessing and a joy! Only 3 months, 4 weeks and 2 days until she comes home...but, who's counting!!
Sister Fonua and Ally (aka Sister Schlauder)
6/6/11
"Wow. This week was another full of great blessings and miracles. I am in awe every week at the way the Lord's hand is made so apparent to me in this work and in my family at home. The Lord is at work in each one of our lives and oh how He loves us so much."
6/13/11
Family!
"This week was a good one. I had what I like to think of as a classic missionary experience. We were knocking doors, which can become pretty routine after a while. You walk to the next house, up on the porch, ring the doorbell, wait, knock, wait... and then what happens from there varies. So, we had gotten like 3 no answers in a row and were just in the routine of things. I noticed the darker shade of the porch step up to the door and even admired it. Sister Fonua got both feet up and I got one. We sunk into the freshly laid cement square. It took longer than you'd think for us to realize what had just occurred. I blame the Houston Heat and Humidity. But what ever the reason, we left three deep footprints in someone's front step. We wanted to laugh and then wanted to cry and then wanted to just fix it somehow, but we knew we couldn't and we used a Book of Mormon and a pamphlet to reach across the wet cement to the doorbell and we rang and nervously waited. The woman opened the door. To make a long story short, I'll just say that she wasn't too happy. We tried to apologize and asked if we could replace it or pay for it. We tried to give her our number so she could call us when she calmed down to have us repair the damage somehow. But all she could say was 'are you blind?' And 'go away.' We walked away and she got one of the workers who was laying cement in her back yard to come look at it. He fixed it in about 3 minutes. It got me thinking a lot about our reactions to trials and problems. It got me thinking about how well my Dad responds to unexpected trouble or problems, like the famous story of Jennie and the truck through that man's house. Thank you for your incredible example, Dad. It also got me thinking about how we have total choice and agency over the way we choose to react to any and every situation. We have a choice and I am so thankful for that precious gift of agency we have to choose to be happy regardless of what situation we are faced with. And when it's hard to exercise that agency to be happy when someone steps in our cement, we can rely fully on prayer and upon our God. Sister Fonua and I both immediately began praying in our heart from the moment we realized we had created such a problem and our prayers were quickly answered as a man was able to come fix it in less time than it took for us to figure out how to ring her doorbell and tell her what we had done. Anyways. Just thought I'd share my thoughts on that. I am glad all ended well. God hears and answers prayers:)."
"I truly have felt immense joys in doing the Lord's work as a missionary. I know these types of experiences are available to us all as we strive faithfully to endure to the end and just share this great joy that we have with all who will hear it. The gospel is a part of who I am. It is a part of everything I talk about. It is everything to me. And I am so grateful for it."
No comments:
Post a Comment