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Mission "Bump" |
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April 14 13 14 2000:
I received the letter from Carrie: It was a good letter - she really expressed a lot of thought and feeling - not toward me, but toward a lot of stuff in her life - it was nice to hear from her and also to see a little emotion from her. She has a strong testimony and is a very intelligent girl. I'm curious to see what she'll think of her birthday gift.
Our work has been going quite well here - we have a strong teaching font who are all progressing - slowly. It's tough to find new people though - especially on the street. I hate to say it, but the people here seem to be a bit colder than down at Ancona - Barely anyone stops and talks to us - and when they do they're not usually too serious. It's kind of discouraging. But I figure it's just one of the many trials of life and my success will depend on how I deal with it. It's building my reliance on the Lord.
Yesterday was my bump mark. The mission is 1/4 of the way done - it's amazing. I really can't believe how fast it's going. Yesterday we also had interviews with Pres. Curtis. He is such an amazing man. He brings with him such a strong spirit and also a grand sense of love - he really cares for us and knows us.
His wife is great too - she's got love overflowing from her every pore also - she's like a substitute mom for the mission.
I gathered from my interview that there are some questions about the diligence level of my companion, that is: how hard he works to do this work. It's not like he's a slacker or anything - on the contrary he's been working fairly hard since I've been here. But every once in a while I do get the sense of a lack of desire or drive in him - this is tough for me because I think I'm the type of person who adapts to the situation at hand and goes with the flow - I try to be a good example and be encouraging - but it's easy to catch myself slipping into the same attitude. It's really not bad - I really think he just does the work differently than I'm used to - I hope we are doing what God wants.
Sometimes I also see a lack of confidence in him - maybe his testimony isn't strong (which I doubt because in private it's quite strong) or maybe he's just not real good at people relations - that is - missionary/people relations. I don't know - he's probably just a different type of person than I'm used to - we get along quite well though.
I think the mission really strengthens you in a lot of areas - not just spiritual. It's probably just my own pride and attitude that's causing this conflict - I need to take a good look at myself and maybe take some humility pills. |
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