Dear Family,
Hello! Howzit man? What's new?
Things are well here. I've had a really tough week, but things are really getting better now. I haven't been feeling too well. It's nothing serious, just that I get tired very easily and headaches as well. I was mostly just frustrated because it was keeping us from accomplishing the work. I wasn't feeling motivated at all and I think Sis. Allen is a lot like me in that she is self-motivated, but has a hard time motivating someone else, so a lot of the work wasn't getting done. Friday was the worse day of all though. While in the shower I started thinking about what I've accomplished thus far on mission and it seemed like nothing expect gain weight! :) But I started getting really down on myself and started crying uncontrollably. This continued all morning. Sis. Allen phoned some of the Elders in our zone to come and give me a blessing. They couldn't come until lunch time, so we went out to some appointments we had. At lunch I received a blessings from Elders Tate and Woolley. It helped a bit, but I don't think I had the faith to let it really work. Lately we have been meeting a lot of absolutely golden people, but when we teach them the first discussion they are completely excited about ti but they end up putting us off for a month or more for seemingly good reasons, but it is frustrating because these are people who are ready for baptism. So, I started feeling like I'm not worth to see these people accept baptism, so the Lord is keeping them from being taught until I leave the area. This thought was killing me, but I kept thinking it.
That afternoon we went to a pharmacy to make some photocopies and as we were standing there a woman walked in and I instantly had a good feeling about her and felt as though I needed to talk to her, but I was having a majorly bad attitude and I decided that it would be a "waste of time" (ouch, I know, like I said, I was having a really bad attitude [here I drew a small picture of myself being struck by lightning]) so I didn't say anything to her. Sis. Allen spoke to her a little bit but didn't tell her who we were or anything. Then we left. We decided to go tracting, we drove to the place we decided to tract and neither one of us felt like tracting there. We decided to drive around and find a new place to tract, we drove around for about 1/2 hour not being able to decide where to tract. We finally decided to just pull over and study the map and find a place that way. I drove to a park and pulled over. As I pulled over I saw that same lady from the pharmacy standing there with her dog. I pointed her out to Sis Allen and asked her if we should go talk to her. She said, "you can" I lost my motivation there. I wasn't in a position to do it without moral support, so like a dummy I just sat there. Is started feeling quite guilty. I decided that I needed to go talk to her, but just as I was ready to get out of the car she ran off the opposite direction with her dog. I then began praying silently that if I was supposed to talk to her that she would come back. Before I even finished praying, she stopped running, turned around and began running straight for our car. Sis Allen and I both jumped out of the car and the lady came and started talking to us. Her name was Jackie. She is GOLDEN!! She has been searching for a church for years and she has investigated many but has not found one that she feels good about. We asked her if we could come teach her. She said that she is uncomfortable with one on one situations because she feels like she has no real knowledge of the bible. So we are going to invite her to a family home evening. She was so cool. We were still really frustrated that she didn't except the invitation to hear the discussions, but we still feel really good about her. For a while this experience frustrated me even more because this is exactly the situation that has been happening where we are put off one way or another. But now I feel a lot better about it. I think that the Lord was being so kind to allow me to feel the promptings of the Holy Ghost even when I wasn't living worthy of it all the time.
Sunday we had a fast for our GOLDEN pool. All these people who have put us off. We fasted and prayed that they would be prepared and that we'd be able to teach them soon. Last night we were able to teach one of them. Her name is Tholokele. She is so cool. In addition to teaching her the second discussion we were able to teach her sister, her sister's son and her 2 sons a first and second discussion. We will teach them all a third on Friday. I think that they all will be baptized. It was a really cool experience. 2 of the boys want to be baptized and serve missions. They asked us 20 questions about mission. It was pretty cool.
So, anyhow things are getting a lot better. I'm not feeling down anymore. I'm gong to a doctor today to see what's wrong with me. Hopefully I'll be able to get my health back into shape and that will help a lot.
Transfers are this week. Sis Allen and I are staying the same. I think I will be in Durban North for 3-4 more months. I may be training here next month. I know I've been writing about thinking I was going to train for months now. I guess I should stop listening to all the mission rumors! Sis Merkley started telling me I was going to train in May and remember that freaked me out? But we haven't gotten any new Sisters since March. Then everyone started telling me I'd train this month because there are 2 new sisters coming in, but then everyone found out about the Sister coming in Sept. and decided I'd train her, probably as a curse. No, that sounds so rude. It's just that Sis Akin, the one coming in Sept is amazing! She has done everything in her short 21 years. She is a dance teacher, teaches voice, was an EFY counselor the list goes on and on. She sounds cool, but how intimidating! So, anyhow, the way transfers worked out this time make it so next month I'll either stay here and train or go to Hillcrest in a three some (unless of course the Lord has other plans and does something totally unexpected) Anyhow, we'll see what happens. I'd be happy either way. We'll see what happens.
Well, I had better end. I hope all is well. I'm anxious to hear about Paragon. Do you guys have an e-mail address either at home or at Paragon? That would be excellent to be able to talk (write) like that. Also, a couple of months ago I asked for some photos from my album. Were you able to find them? (they were on the page that said something about party in the Movies 8 Parking Lot, in my black album) Could you send those if you can find them?
I love you all very much! Take care! The church is true and I love it! :)
Love,
Michelle
(As you can tell, I was and still am very hard on myself and I set expectations for myself very high. However, as I have aged and matured I have come to realize that I cannot get down on myself and beat myself up for not always accomplishing my goals. It is still a constant battle for me to be kind to myself, but I am getting better!)
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