Sacrifice

Another beautiful hike we did this week! :)

Annnnd Soeur Shields and I have fun on our P-Day today. Haha. 

Soeur Pagano and I with our Limoges tee shirts the bishop made us :) She is the one that replaced me when I left.

Salut my dear loved ones!
This week has flown by. Seriously, so fast that it freaks me out. I know that I say that all the time...but the time just seems to be going so fast I can't even understand it anymore!

I have had a really wonderful week :) The week here has not been the easiest, but I am just loving life and having so much fun and I am just trying to keep my faith in miracles. But that is not to say that we didn't have wonderful miracles this week!

Lina is still doing well, We have had a little bumps in the road in trying to get her to understand the plan of salvation..lets just say she really loves the idea of reincarnation. So, we are working on that one. But other than that, she really is progressing, just slowly :) And we have been teaching her with Odile, the one who got baptized on July 5th, and it has been so great for her.

But other than that, we are still in our super strong FINDING mode. The main way we have been trying to find new amis is through our wonderful members...and we have seen lots of cool miracles. We have had a lot of members set up activities with us to meet their friends. But it just is kind of a slow process to get these people that members introduce us to to REALLY become progressing amis. So, we are doing our best ;) And I am really just trying to do my best to not give up faith and to really expect miracles. One of the hardest things I think is not letting my faith drop after the miracles don't really happen as much as I would like them to. But something I realized this week is that sometimes I need to not let the miracles pass me by just because they aren't the miracles I was expecting. Because nothing ever really seems to happen quite as we anticipate it, does it? And when I started changing my mindset and just searching for ANY miracles throughout the day..I was amazed by how many miracles I really did see!

This is one of my favorite moments of this week:  We walked on the bus, and I sat down and started talking to this lady. I realized the entire time I was talking to her that this guy in front of us kept looking back at me and my comp. Which happens millions of times a day. I can't even tell you all the stares we get. But he had a different stare. He wasn't looking at us to make fun, or because he thought we were super weird, I could just TELL the way he was looking at us as he just truly knew us or something. I know it sounds weird, but I knew I needed to talk to him. And so we get off the bus, but then sadly he just books it in the other direction. I was sad because I knew he needed to be talked to. And even as he walked away he looked back at us 3 different times...but anyway, we went throughout our day and then as we were walking home that night...I see him. Sitting on a bench with his son. And I can't even explain what happened in the next 5 minutes. I honestly don't remember anything, because it wasn't me. In my entire mission I have never felt so completely overtaken by the spirit. Before I knew it I just walked over to him and started talking to him, and then all of a sudden I was just testifying to him like crazy. And I just can't get out of my head the way he was looking as me as I was telling him how much his Father in Heaven loves him. He was searching my words so deeply, it was almost like I could literally just see how much his soul was searching for the truth. Haha that sounds so creepy. Sadly he wouldn't even give us his number because he wasn't interested, but it was a miracle nontheless. That was just one of the coolest moments I have had on my mission. I just love more than anything where I truly feel like a instrument in the hands of my Heavenly Father. There is nothing quite like it.


I want to end with telling you all a really cool principle I have learned and reflected on this week.

Sacrifice.

We have an ami, who is the husband of a member. He is so close to baptism. I want to baptize that man before I leave here more than anything. But this week I just realized, he really isn't there yet. He needs such a huge change of heart. They are just an adorable young couple that I want so bad to be an eternal family!! But we had a lesson with him this week, and he told us the real reason he doesn't feel like he can be baptized right now, is because he is in the army. And he said he isn't ready to have to ...Stand up for the church. To have to tell people he is a member. Or to have to reject a beer when he is with his buddies. Lots of different examples. But really, he just isn't ready to make the sacrifices it takes to be a member of this church.
And I honestly was racing my head for things I could say to him to get him to understand.  To understand that the sacrifices are WORTH it. But all I could do was testify to him. Of how much, I personally know how much it is worth it. That living the Gospel is literally worth every sacrifice.

And then I started thinking. Howcome those before us, especially the early saints... why were they so much more willing to make the sacrifices they did? They literally we willing to give up EVERYTHING. Everything they owned. And even their own lives. They dropped everything for the Gospel.
And I started asking myself...do we have the same kind of faith today?
Who would we be if we DID? If we had the same amount of faith as these early saints?
It is an ongoing process of something I am going to study.
But I would invite you to all think about this week just how much you are willing to sacrifice for your Savior.
You all make amazing sacrifices. Thank you for your example.
I love you all.
I will see you soon.
The Lord lives, He loves you.
Bisous!!
Love,
Soeur Magleby