Sometimes things
get rough for us and we have trouble on seeing and recognizing the good
things in life. We get so frustrated with our present situation that we
begin to forget to try to make the most out of what little we have and
we fail to notice the subtle things that help us to find a little joy in
our lives. That's what the song "I Saw God Today" by George Strait
talks about. In the song, there's a man that has just been through what
can be easily described as a very intense moment in his life, and I
would reckon it was overwhelming too. But as he stops to settle down a
little bit, he mentions, that he "saw a flower growing in the middle
of the sidewalk pushing up through the concrete like it was planted
right there for me to see." On any normal day, he wouldn't have
noticed it, but because of what he went through he had the impression it
was not just happenstance that he saw that flower there and he remarks,
"I've been to church, I've read the book, I know He's there but I
don't look near as often as I should. His fingerprints are everywhere, I
just look down and stop and stare, open my eyes and then I swear, I saw
God today."
Definitely this week I can
sympathize with the man in this song. I've had the knowledge of the
Gospel and what not, but often I don't stop to see the subtle things in
my life that God has done to help me out. This week was especially tough
for us as we're heading into that point of missionary work where we are
running out of people to teach and we are failing to find people to
take their place and to continue our work. We even had a day where it
was just fall-through after fall-through. It was really tough and I just
had a lot of stress on my mind. Then one morning we were visiting this
one recent convert named Hellen. It was shaping up to be another tough
day. Hellen had gone to prepare something for us to eat and Elder Chola
had gone outside to take a call. I was sitting in Hellen's living room
trying to read my scriptures as I was thinking to myself how we were
going to manage to get by this week. All of a sudden I heard laughter
and squealing outside. I noticed that Elder Chola was playing with
Hellen's kids and family members outside. They were playing a group
version of monkey in the middle. At first I ignored it, but I felt
prompted to go outside and play with them. Even then, I was still
reluctant and I dragged my feet outside. Once I joined and began playing
catch with them though I was having the time of my life. It was
probably one of the happiest moments on my mission. I don't mean to
speak ill of any of my past experiences on mission, but by far and hands
down this was one of the few moments of my mission where it was just
pure unadulterated joy, even if everything else around me wasn't
necessarily going the way I'd want it to be. I realized shortly after
that experience it was maybe God reaching out to me to help me feel a
little better that day. I saw the fingerprints that day and opened my
eyes for once and I was able to see the hand of God in my life for once.
Last
Monday we visited President & Sister Mtale and had Family Home
Evening with them. They invited a nonmember father to join us, and we
had a good time. Sister Mtale shared a brief message, and we played some
fun games. I learned a fun puzzle game called Cups. I'll have to teach
you that one when I get home, because I love messing with people's
minds!
We had service at Sister Khama's as
always. We invited a couple other companionships to join us as there was
a lot of work that day. For the most part, it was another normal day of
service, but there was twist.
Elder Ouma loves
messing with these things that come from a tree that I don't even know
what it's called. The 'fruit' of that tree is yellow, shaped like a pea
pod and is VERY fuzzy! It's very dangerous though as the fuzz on it can
cause severe irritation and itching if it makes contact with any exposed
skin. Worse, if you scratch there, it spreads to the part of the body
that you made contact with the itching and so forth. I don't know why
the fetch he does it, but Elder Ouma loves plucking these itchy itchy
scratchy things from the tree and handling them with something to
protect his hand. The way I see it, it as if he was toying around with a
freaking grenade in his hand and that he was going to screw us all with
it!
So we had finished this service, and we
were all lining up to a bucket of clean water to wash our hands and
arms. Elder Ouma was in front of me, and all of a sudden he turns around
and I feel something brush my right index finger. Elder Ouma hadn't
realized I was there, and in his (protected) hand was a itchy itchy
scratchy that had just made contact with my own unprotected hand!
An appropriate representation of my reaction to said itchy itchy scratchy touching me:
Fortunately
I was able to be smart and not do anything that would get the
irritation all over myself. After some herbal application and some sort
of therapeutic oil that Elder Slade applied on it, it eventually
recovered!
Last of all, early this morning some
of us missionaries climbed a mountain to see the sun rise. There was
cross on the top of that hill so there was a relatively easy trail that
led us there. We had an absolutely OUTSTANDING view of all of Blanytre
and the surrounding region, and despite some hiccups, we made it right
on time for the sunrise! Elder Ssengooba had brought his Canon DSLR (A
Rebel T3i) and he let me take some pictures with it! It was great to be
able to get my hands on a really good camera! I miss my T4i back home.
Thankfully, I still remember how to use such a camera, and I took some
FANTASTIC pictures!
I almost forgot! I also got
my hair cut today. I'll simply say that it's different but mission
appropriate! You'll be surprised what I had done! Seeing as my family
members are getting some pretty new haircuts that they've never had
before, I'm getting in on the action too! I'll send a picture of mine
next week. Just wanted to give Elder Doig a shoutout for the sick job
that he did!
Take care everybody!
Elder Massey
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