Tuesday, June 6, 2017

sow what June 5, 2017

What a beautiful week!! It is so hot. And so many people are outside!!
Back home I liked fall and winter better but as a missionary summer is
definitely the best. So many people to talk to and everyone is just
generally in a better mood. Sometimes it is kind of crazy because
there are a lot of people and it can be overwhelming but then you just
take it one person at a time and it is ok. An interesting thought I
had during district meeting this week was what if my mission was only
one day long? I think I had this discussion with some missionaries
when I was in my first area and we were trying to decide if it would
be easier to have like a two week or a month mission etc.. talking
about amounts of time. And there are pros and cons to each. The longer
you are out the more experienced you get. But if the mission was only
two weeks it wouldn't be hard to give your all every single day and
just work your brains out. We didn't come up with a conclusion. But I
randomly remembered that during district meeting. And then I started
thinking about what if I only served my mission for one day and that
day was today? And what would I do differently? And then WOW. I
realized that unfortunately I would do a lot of things differently.
Which is sad but also good because now I can see where I need to
improve. I remember somethings that I was lucky enough to understand
earlier in my mission. That Heavenly Father wants us to be at a
certain place in our lives but that he doesn't expect us to get there
TODAY. And we just need to take things one day at a time and make sure
we are doing something to improve every day. But we don't have to
suddenly change everything and solve all of our problems. Mostly
because we can't.. anyways I just need to be better at taking my
mission one day at a time and focusing more on the day than the week
or the transfer. Just focus on doing all that I can today. It was a
good experience and I'm glad that I was able to apply it to missionary
efforts. and needless to say I have made some changes and will
continue to do so. Keep repenting people.
The best day this week was for sure Saturday. We did service at a food
kitchen in downtown Peoria and then our mission nurse needed us to go
to the doctors and she told us to go to the Methodist place which is a
HUGE hospital hospital. And so we go to the front desk to try and
figure out where we are supposed to go. And we are talking to the man
at the front and he looks a little familiar. After he helps us he asks
if we are Mormon and we told him yes! He said we had talked to him
awhile ago while he was fixing up his yard but there were three of us.
We both immediately remembered who he was! He was nice and gave us
water and we had ended up talking to him for about a half hour that
day. He has had a couple of experiences with Mormons. And he likes
cooking and watches a man who is Mormon and has a cooking show on the
internet.. or something like that? Anyways I asked him if he had
cooked anything good since we last talked to him and he said he was
making pizza tonight and invited us over???!!? Okay?! We definitely
said yes hahaha. He gave us his address and told us to come by around
5. We then searched forEVER for the place we were supposed to go. He
told us to go to the emergency room. We went but couldn't really find
a desk or anything so we were wandering around the halls of the
emergency room. Then we found someone and they sent us to the surgery
floor. So then we wandered around there for awhile looking for a desk
or someplace that wasn't just always and hospital rooms then we found
someone else and they sent us somewhere else and they we got to that
place and they told us to go to the emergency room 😑 we were dying we
had NO idea what to do. Earlier in this process sister Fugal jokingly
said we should go to the pediatric floor because they would be nice to
us and take pity. Well now things were getting desperate. We decided
we would go check that floor before we gave up. We got there and met
these two ANGELS. They first tried to send us to the emergency room
but we must have had some sort of look of despair on our faces. We
talked with them for a couple more minutes and they were like "we are
pretty sure you are at the wrong place.. this is a hospital.. you
probably just need to go to the doctors office" and we said YES!! Then
they told us the address of like.. a normal family doctors office that
was affiliated with Methodist. While they were writing the address we
got to talking about the church and they had both been to Nauvoo and
said they loved it. Before we left one of the women told us she needed
to tell us something. She told us how she had grown up in a non
religious home and how she had a neighbor who was Mormon and every
Sunday when she was little her neighbor took her to church with her
for like 6 years and that now she is a Christian and everything she
had and loved and the peace she felt she owed to that woman and how
she wished she could find her and tell her and she thanked us on her
behalf and I could have cried!! I almost did. It was a big testimony
builder to me of the influence we have on other people and the seeds
that are being sown as we live the life that Christ would want us to
live. And I say this all the time but either I forget or I don't apply
it to myself or something because every time something like that
happens I feel like one of those dolls where you press the button and
it just like.. collapses haha. Anyways, to build on that concept more,
we had dinner with that man at the front desk, jimmy, and his family.
It was a good experience and we were able to have a good experience
and answer some questions. We also shared a message with them and it
led to a conversation where they DEFINITELY felt the spirit. But they
still weren't interested at this time. But that is ok. Sister Pace
sent an email awhile ago to some of the sisters serving missions and
she talked about faith and I really liked this part of what she said

As missionaries, you are helping people develop and increase faith.
Sometimes you're helping people reclaim their faith.  Sometimes people
who accept a first discussion will not let you back in, BUT they may
start praying again daily because of something you said.

After that dinner appointment I was kind of confused. Trying to figure
out what God had wanted to happen in that situation because it didn't
really seem like anything happened.. the spirit brought that back to
my mind and gave me some comfort. I hope they prayed. I have
definitely been seeing the blessings of previous missionaries efforts
in this area and I hope that I have been able to sow the seeds for
some missionaries too! Like the story of the pioneers who planted
crops along the trail out west and they would never be there to see
them harvested or reap their rewards but they knew that someone would
Love you!
Sister Madsen






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