Week 2 - England MTC

I've begun to realize just how much I don't know - in all aspects of my life.

Spiritually, I've had a few experiences this week that really smacked me upside the head in order to get me out of my comfort zone, but in so doing really blessed me, too:

-I really learned about how we never know how the Lord is going to use us. My district was reading in the Book of Mormon earlier in the day on Thursday, and I had marked a couple of verses (1 Nephi 2:16, 19 for anyone who's curious). That night, S. Baird and I were doing our companionship study and I shared those verses with her. She just stared at me with this look of pure amazement and shock. She had apparently had a question about something all day, had prayed about it five minutes earlier and kind of just got the feeling that she knew the church was true and that was enough. Apparently, I answered her prayer with that scripture. I learned that, like in Genesis 2:18 and 1 Nephi 7:1, it's not good for man to be alone. As much of an introvert as I am, I've been learning that the Lord needs me to be around people so that He can use me in the way I need to be used, instead of hiding my talents and such. It's a little exhausting, but I can't even begin to imagine how much one scripture at the right time can mean to someone.

-When we went proselyting again, I wasn't very excited because I had a headache and felt a little bit sick and overall just was not looking forward to some of the rude people we ran into last week. However, S. Baird suggested we start with a prayer (goodness, I'm still struggling to get into the habit of starting everything with a prayer), and so we did. We only sat and talked with three people, but boy do I have a story that made everything worth it! <3 So we start off by walking up to this one girl (Manon) who speaks French, and she's been travelling for a bit. We sat with her in the square, and just talked about travelling and such. We started to transition into religion, and she put up some barriers and was like "Sorry, I don't want to talk about God. I have my own religion, and it's very personal to me." So we talked to her for a few more minutes about travelling, and then parted ways.

We were a little timid, because y'know, three cute girls wandering around a foreign city, and whatnot. But our teacher came up to us and challenged us to talk to someone waiting for a bus, and that she'd follow up on us in a few minutes. So we try a couple people, they weren't very interested, and then we're about to go try somewhere else, but we approach this one girl (Chloe) and compliment her headband, and proceed to have an hour-long conversation with her. We basically gave her one-and-a-half lessons. She's Christian and was very excited to hear that there was another book that talked about Christ. We got her contact info for the missionaries here. :)

Also, while we were talking to her a guy came up to us and asked if we were missionaries for the "Church of...Yeshus Cries" (accents, yo, so hard to understand sometimes), while pointing to our tags. A little hesitantly, we answered with a yes (hesitant, because usually when people walk up to us here it's to ask us weird questions about being virgins or to swear at us)(luckily this hasn't happened to us yet, but we've heard stories from the other missionaries here). He got really excited and started rattling off about how when he was in Tokyo he saw the missionaries but didn't have time to meet with them and he hasn't been able to find us and how he really wanted to contact us to learn more about our church. He gave us his phone number and practically skipped away!

And! AND! I'm not even at the best part, guys... Oh my days, this was so cool. So we were wandering back toward our bus stop, and made a goal to stop and talk to one more person. I saw a girl (Samira (or maybe Samisa?)) sitting by a fountain thing scrolling through pictures on her camera, and I was like, "Hey, why not her? She looks approachable." So we walked up and guess what? She's from Germany. Specifically, my mission. *mind blown* She's been travelling for 5 MONTHS, today was the only day she was in England (WHAT?!), and she still has 2 months of travelling to go! We talked to her about nature and shared Alma 30:43-44. Her eyes lit up when she read it and she was so excited to keep the book and read it through. We could have talked to her for DAYS! She was so sweet. She loved that our badges were in German and that we were learning her language. We took pictures with her and she said she was going to put us up on her travel blog - so you guys are going to have to check that out for me. ;) We got her information as well, and so in a few months when she's done travelling and we're back in Germany, I really hope we get to go see her and teach her more. In the meantime, you should check out her blog: vakantio.de/samisabenteuer

I just gotta say, there have been so many little miracles here so far. Sometimes they happen without us noticing, but when we do take the time to stop and think, we can see Christ's hand in everything. It blows my mind how much closer to God we can feel when we spend even just a few more minutes studying our scriptures, or when we put away distractions and just sit and think a hymn to ourselves while staring out the window and listening to the birds. I know a lot of it is the fact that our whole lives are dedicated to the Church right now, but I bet a lot of you at home would be able to notice the difference if you experimented a bit with this, too. :)

It's really amazed me that at this time last week I was so stressed and nervous, and now I'm starting to get the hang of things. Imagine what that will be like in 18 months!

Funny quote:

"She has a cacti on her sock! She is the dankest sister here." -E. Nicolis, in a very Italian accent. Also, he has admitted as an Italian, that he does do the hand thing.

Favorite new word:

Erlebnis - experience, but a different kind than Erfahrung means

Favorite spiritual thought/quote:

"It isn't just 18 months or 2 years. I pray that it's never over; I pray that it's forever." -Elder Holland in an old MTC devotional about how when you go home and take off your badge, it had better be printed on your heart. We need to continue to serve others in the name of Jesus Christ and we need to continue to share His gospel. The first person you need to convert is yourself.

Best wishes with everything back home. <3

Much love,

Sister Hamilton

Chorley Countryside