Hello my most favorite family and friends!
This week has not been my most favorite week. First of all, Minnesota weather is so weird! Secondly, it is Spring Break at the University of Minnesota. That means that no one is on campus. Everyone is out of town so we have to do a lot of walking to find people who are actually here. On the plus side. We were able to get a lot of steps in. One day we hit 16,500 steps! That is a lot of walking! And last the worst! I was sick this week! I had a really bad cold! Let me tell you, being sick on your mission is the worst feeling. You aren't sure if you should rest or work. It got to the point where I decided that I needed to rest. But then the whole time I felt guilty because Sister Callister wasn't able to do anything and I also felt like I was wasting time. It was horrible. I am finally starting to feel better. It’s funny because I was reflecting on the whole situation and I was questioning why I got sick. I then started thinking back to what I have been praying for. ....Are you ready to hear what I have been praying for?
"Heavenly Father please help me so that I can have more of a desire to go out and work harder."
Clearly I have done this to myself. Oh my goodness! Heavenly Father knew that by keeping me cooped up, I would realize just how much I wanted to get out and work. The Lord works in mysterious ways, that's for sure.
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| Minnesotta skyline! |
This week we were able to try out an awesome new finding tool... SURVEYS! Sister Callister and I go out with clipboards in hand with surveys titled "How Mormon Are You?" There are 10 questions on it asking if they believe similar things that we do. It has been a really great thing. You would be surprised how many people are actually willing to stop and answer a couple of questions and then it is able to lead into teaching them the restoration and telling them more about us. We have had a lot of fun with this and we are excited to continue using them.
I don't know if I have mentioned this before but Sister Callister and I are able to go to different college campuses, University of St. Thomas, St. Catherine University, Macalester College, Hamline University, MSU, and St. Paul. It was nice because even though the University of Minnesota was on spring break the other schools weren't. We spent a lot of time at the University of St. Thomas. It’s very interesting being on that campus because it is a Catholic school. Not everyone is Catholic but a big majority are. We were able to meet a lot of awesome people and again people from all over the world. Minnesota is such a great place. :)
This week with Chloe things started off really well. She was able to meet with a member of the Mission Presidency, President Kerr for her second interview. He told her that she is definitely prepared to be baptized on March 22nd but then he suggested that maybe she should push it back so that her mom would be able to attend her baptism. He talked about how in this gospel families are so important and he said that if her mom was able to attend her baptism it might soften her heart and help her be more open to her baptism. Her mom hasn't been very supportive of Chloe's decision to be baptized. We also felt like this would be a great idea and really could strengthen their relationship. We were able to confirm with her on Wednesday that she wanted to push her date back to April 12th, but ever since Wednesday we haven't been able to talk to her very much. I am really concerned for her. We weren't able to meet with her once this week and she didn't come to church. She is also going to Florida for a week on the 26th. At this point we feel like she might just be really overwhelmed with everything. Sister Callister and I are going to try and back off for a while and continue to let the members get in contact with her. We feel like at this point she just needs to feel that love and support because she isn't getting that from her family. Hopefully we will be able to get a hold of her this week and we will be able to continue to help her prepare for baptism.
We weren't able to meet with Eva this week either. We had some appointments set up but she was never there. We were finally able to get a hold of Eva on Saturday. She told us that she started a second job so her schedule has been all over the place. We were so grateful that was all. But then she told us that she talked to her dad again and that he is mad at her. She then said, I don't want to be a member of the church. I don't want to lose my dad. Aggh. How frustrating. I feel so bad for both Eva and Chloe. I can't imagine having to go through what they are going through right now. Knowing what it is they need to do and having no support from their families. That is hard. This ward is so great because they are always doing everything they can to help others feel welcome. Keep them both in your prayers. They have some hard decisions to make.
Yesterday in church we had a really good sacrament meeting. They talked about the talk given by President Eyring called, "Where Is the Pavilion?" This is a really good talk that talks a lot about trusting in God and making sure that we are always close to God. In this talk President Eyring says, "Our feelings of separation from God will diminish as we become more childlike before Him. That is not easy in a world where the opinions of other human beings can have such an effect on our motives. But it will help us recognize this truth: “God is close to us and aware of us and never hides from His faithful children." There is the concept again of becoming like little children. This is a topic that has always fascinated me. I personally love children, I always have and hopefully when I am older I will be able to work with them, either as a mother or for my career. I love everything about them. I think it is so interesting that we are counseled to become more childlike. In this work I feel like everyone is trying to grow up too fast and are loosing all the wonderful childlike attributes that we all had at one point. Like it says in Mosiah 3:19 "becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father."
As I read both of these it makes me think of trust and how important trust is in this life. You need trust in everything that you do and it is something that we are all starting to lack. It made me think back to a time when I was playing with my little cousin. I would place him on the ledge of our kitchen hutch and I would tell him to jump. At first he was really nervous. I then looked him in the eyes and said "Jump. I won't let you fall." Then he did it. Without hesitation, he jumped. He trusted me. Just like my little cousin I want to be better at trusting my Heavenly Father.
He is there for us always. He will never leave us. All we need to do is take that leap of faith and "jump" He won't let us fall.
Guess what? Last year around this time, is when I opened my mission call and I found out that I was going to be serving in Minnesota, Minneapolis. I opened my call on March 17, 2013. Now here I am, actually serving in Minneapolis. It is crazy to look back and see how much I have grown in the past year. I am not the same girl who opened that white envelope a year ago.
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I love you all so much!
Love Sister Kendra Curtis
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