First of all, I want to talk about faith and trust.
One
of my big struggles with training Elder Kapalanga is that fact that he
hasn't gone through the MTC yet, so I feel very obligated to myself to
literally drill everything into his head as possible and be the one that
is demonstrating how everything is done, and then letting him observe. I
realized though that by doing so, I was negating any opportunity for
him to lead and to be able to try it out himself, and that's really the
only real way (in my personal opinion) that one can really learn to
become a better missionary, so one of the things that I worked on more
this week was letting my companion take the lead in certain things.
By
now, I've probably cemented into all of your heads right now that we
are in the middle of a very extensive finding process right now.
Literally the only thing that we can do is find. I realized that one of
the ways I can help train my companion better is that if I let him try
it out himself and apply himself to what's at hand. In this case, the
only thing that there is that we can do to have him do that is take the
lead in finding. I'm not going to lie, I took a little bit of faith on
my part. I knew that with him being as a brand-new missionary, he does
not have the experience of finding and talking to people. Adding to
that, he is probably not used to listening to the promptings of the
spirit when finding, and I knew that it was likely that he was going to
make some mistakes here and there, but I decided to let him spread his
wings a little bit and learn from trial and error by letting him lead in
the tracting. He was the one that decided which direction to go and who
to talk to. It wasn't absolutely perfect, but it definitely went better
than expected. We talked to a couple of people here and there, and we
even sat down for a lesson (though it did not go smoothly at all). I
realized now that he's more able than I realize, and I need to trust him
more in many aspects of missionary work.
The
other thing I want to talk about today is prayer. As I've said in the
past, my prayers have become more sincere and genuine. This week I
continued in my effort.
After praying all this
time though, I realized one night that all I was praying about was me,
me, and me and about things that I wanted from God, but I hadn't really
offered much thanks for anything that he had given me, so that same
night I knelt down in prayer and just offered a prayer of thanksgiving. I
did NOT ask anything of my Heavenly Father at all, but rather express
my thanks to him for all the things that he has done for me in my life -
or at least, the things I could think of that he had done for me at
that time. It was definitely a good experience. I'm just too used for
asking God of things when I've forgotten to thank him for all the things
that he has already given me up to that point. I forget if someone said
it once, or if it is just something that came into my mind, but I've
realized that one of the greatest sins that we can make in life is that
of ingratitude. We sometimes do not slow down and think how much God has
done for us in our lives, and then we eventually forget about all those
things that God has done in our lives.
You
see it happen over and over again in the Book of Mormon: God spares his
chosen people from destruction, the people praise and love him and are
prospered by him only to forget all of that in the space of just a few
short years. I've just finished reading 4 Nephi and am into Mormon right
now, and it's sad to see how blessed those people are turn from
righteousness to wickedness because they have forgotten The Lord's hand
in all the things that have happened to them. What's even worse is that
in Mormon, God spares them a couple more times, but this time they don't
even notice that it was him that saved them all along. It's sad. I
realize though that those examples are me at times. One of the things
I've hoped that I've learned in my Mission is to be more grateful for
the things that I've received in life. I've got a long way to go to
really by grateful in all things on a daily basis, but at least this
mission has begun to set me in the right direction.
Miss
you all as always. I should say one of the things that I'm grateful for
is having you wonderful people as my friends and family. I think that's
one of the things that I am grateful for most. It's one of the things
that I miss the most, but I thank my God that in a short time I'll be
able to be in your company again. There's nothing in the world that I
want to have more right now than being able to be together again this
coming Christmas season. God bless you all, and have a great week!
Love,
Elder Massey
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