Happy Birthday Katie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a happy day. You are so grown up! 11????? What!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Happy birthday. I love you SOOOOOOOOOOOO much. How did you get to be so great?
It was an awesome week! Do I say that a lot? I feel like I do. They're awesome! Monday we took our investigator to President's home for Family Home Evening. Then we drove across town at top speed to see a little Brazilian family who I now love more than life, the mom joined the Church in Brazil abut hasn't been in 20 years, now she wants her husband and three children to learn more about it. So she walked into Church and now we're teaching them.
I definitely did not go to a hard mission. My mission has been awesome. People are friendly, there's a culture of faith, it's always gorgeous outside and we have a mini van. What could be better?
Monday night was transfers. It was great! Some last minute changes made it a little crazy. More than two thirds of the mission was moved around! Yikes! Big shake up, but change is good. Always good.
Tuesday we got the new missionaries! They seemed particularly nervous. We responded in typical southern fashion by feeding them until they were so full that they couldn't think about anything else! Perfect. I love hearing the testimonies from the new missionaries. They are so perfect. "I have no idea where I am or what I'm doing here, but I'm a missionary now and I definitely know the Church is true so... Amen." What else is there?????? Perfect.
The next day we took out the departing missionaries to work with us for the day. That's always an experience. Missionaries call "going home" "dying". It does feel that way. Like we were close to the veil and now they slipped through. They are awesome and wise. Miss them already. Taking them to the airport is always hard. I tried to convince Elder Welsh to crash the car so we'd have to turn back and keep them all but he declined.
We went tracting in a neighborhood that turned out to be nothing but Indian people! Jacksonville is a refugee city and so we get every nationality imaginable, but Indians (the Hindu kind, from India. They cook with an enormous amount of curry and smile really big) are definitely the plurality. They do not speak English very well, so we have a great system. Elder Welsh knocks, and I stand directly in front of the door holds the Book of Mormon at shoulder height and smile as big as I can. They open the door and Elder Welsh says, "Hello! Have you read this book?" "No..." "Can we come in and teach you about it? It will make you happy!" they let us in, a little confused, and we sit down and pray and then we teach them. We usually get about 5 minutes into a discussion and they finally ask, "So, what, exactly, are you doing here?" and we laugh and say, "We're here to baptize you! If you get baptized, you can be as happy as we are!" And then they smile and say, "Oh..."
Hehehe, so it's not a perfect method. We're working on it. But a lot of Indian people have a very clear concept that something about the white boys with black tags is cheerful.
Saturday we had a bunch of service projects. Did you know leaves turn brown and fall off of trees?!?!?!? What?????? Yes. They do. And they need to be raked. Endlessly raked. Sigh. We taught Heaven and Praise and Melchizedek and Wisdom and Righteousness on Thursday! It went well! Ish. They were pretty insistent that animals do not have souls. Not really sure how that came up or why it was so important. Anyway, we'll get them.
It was a week of spiritual promptings. A prompting to knock that certain door or drive to that certain place to visit that certain family who just so happened to be waiting for a hello, for someone to reach out and love, a prompting to have a particular lesson or leave a particular commitment. Sometimes it can be hard to tell what is a prompting and what is not. I think that's because we give ourselves way too much credit. I am really not that smart. I'm not that calm or confident or instinctively self-sacrificing. If I have a good though, if I feel confident or sure or just good, for me, that means the Holy Ghost is in play. Maybe He planted the thought or maybe He is ratifying it, but if it's good, it wasn't my idea.
Just do good things! The better the better! Do the very best thing you can think of, and that's the Holy Ghost giving you as much as you can handle. And also, the Holy Ghost is a unique experience. We call it a thought or a feeling but that's not really what He does. My favorite word is "impression". He is unique. He is personal. He leaves and influence and a trace. He cannot be counterfeited. I know the unique feeling, if I have not desensitized myself in the cheap and the common. The unique feeling of the newborn child, of the glad hallelujah, of the realization of a dream or the connection with someone we love, of the sudden epiphany or the warning against danger that comes firmly but inexplicable to us and to those we love. We can start with what we know He says, and learn His language from there.
Anyway, Church came along and there were almost 30 people we're working with there. Recent converts, returning less-active families, investigators, etc... It was incredible. It was like having our own branch! It was wonderful.
We have a great life. We have the absolute greatest mission. I love my mission. I love my life. And I love this Church. I know it is true through the Holy Ghost. By listening, you can learn to recognize it as easily as a favorite song or recognize your sibling's angry cry or hurt cry or sad cry or tantrum cry. You can recognize His feelings as easily as you can tell whether a loved one is happy, sad, upset, or nervous. You can know and be known as simply and surely with Him as with any earthly relationship. It's just a matter of getting to know each other, paying attention to the little things, doing things together, taking time for each other, asking each other questions and giving honest answers. You develop love with Him mostly the same way as anyone else. Little by little we go. Little by little we make friends with Them. Little by little we learn to reciprocate, and therefore to feel, Their love.
I love you.
~Elder Jorgensen