Practicing Perfection

Hello friends!

I hope you all had another great week!

This week was pretty chill here in Solano. Nothing too crazy happened. We mostly just got to work and had a good time!

Before I hop in and tell you all about our work this week, I have a funny story:

I am not sure if I told you all…but it is sooooooo hot here. I have not been sleeping very well at all. I have a fan pointed at me, but it doesn't quite do enough to keep me cool. But, it's better than nothing… Anyway, one night as we were getting ready to sleep, the power went out! It was soooooo hot! It was impossible to sleep, or even sit inside. We did the only thing we could: we laid yoga mats on the balcony of our apartment to sleep because it was cooler outside. Luckily, sometime in the middle of the night, we got power back, so I was able to return to my electric fan and bed and sleep as well as possible…when it was 90+ degrees.

It was a grand adventure, for sure! It was kinda like having a camping trip on my mission!

And then… last night, my companion and I were staying in a hotel for sister’s conference, and we had air-conditioning. I was so excited to finally have a night’s sleep without so much heat. However, at 3 am, I woke up absolutely freezing. I was so cold that I had to grab a towel to place on top of my blanket, and I shivered the rest of the night…

I guess you can say that my internal thermostat is now fully broken :).

But back to the work…

Our focus this week was mostly on just helping Angel prepare for her baptism in a couple of weeks.

Every time we went to teach Angel, we were able to have a spiritual lesson. She is so excited to go to FSY (a youth camp) after her baptism. She was also able to go to seminary this week. I am so excited for her to be able to have these experiences. She was very hesitant about being baptized a couple of months ago, but as we extended an invitation to baptism to her a couple of weeks ago, and as her baptism gets closer, she seems to be getting more and more excited. I am so excited for her! I love her!

We also had a lot of challenges this week. There were lots of times when we had a great plan to visit a lot of people, but, sometimes slowly, and sometimes very quickly, all of our plans fell through. Sometimes people were busy, sometimes people were hiding, and sometimes people just told us they didn’t really want to talk to us. It was definitely a bit discouraging at times, but every time we faced a rejection, God seemed to open another door.

One of these experiences happened on Friday morning. Every single lesson we had planned for that morning fell through in the first half hour of work. Then as we tried to find new people to teach, we got rejected time after time. Finally, as it was time to return to the apartment to do our studies, Sister Bacot suggested one more little alleyway. As we walked down the alleyway, Sister Bacot saw someone standing behind their screen (I could not see them). As we approached the door, I had the distinct impression that we needed to share that we had a message of hope for her. 

We knocked on the door (or Toa po, because no one knocks here, we just yell outside people’s houses). She answered and I told her we had a message of hope for her. We found out that she has had a lot of struggles. Her soul longed for what we had to share. We were able to get her phone number and set up a time when we could share with her how she can find hope, even when life can be so hard.

Finding her was a testimony to me that God is aware of all of his children. Even though we were already supposed to be going home, we tried one more time, at one more place, and we were able to meet someone who needed to know God loves her.

We had another experience where we had made a plan that also slowly fell apart. We had planned to visit a member who had not been to church in a long time, but when we arrived at his home, he was not there. It was a little disappointing. As we were preparing to leave, his son came out, who is not a member. His son started asking us what time church was and how long it went. We answered him and invited him to come! He told us that he wanted to come to church and would try to come next week with his family. 

Once again, we were able to meet someone whom we would not have met otherwise, had our day happened as we had planned.

I love these little miracles that we experience on the mission. It teaches me so much every day. Of course, I want my plans to work out. I love days where everything goes according to plan, where I can go from lesson to lesson and help everyone come closer to Christ. But on the days when everything goes out the window, those are the days where I learn to rely on God and his perfect timing and plan.

For my spiritual thought, I wanted to share a part of a talk by Patricia T. Holland. My sister sent me this talk a couple of weeks ago, and I absolutely love it. It is called “One Needful Thing”. In the talk she said,

“We must have the courage to be imperfect while striving for perfection.” 

I absolutely love this. I often do not have the courage to be imperfect. I see my flaws and my weaknesses, and I feel disappointed or discouraged. But it should not be that way.

This week was a very imperfect week. We spent a lot of time walking around trying to find people and being rejected. But we kept on trying. And that truly is the important part.

No matter what we are doing or where we are in our lives, we are not perfect. And that is ok. This quote invites us to accept ourselves and see the good while striving to become more like our Savior every day. I have seen that as I accept myself where I am while trying to be better every day, I feel more joy. I am able to become better instead of just worrying about my weaknesses. I can see that God magnifies our effort as we turn to Him.

I know God loves each and every one of us. I know that He wants what is best for us. He created a perfect plan. He gave us the perfect path. He sent us His perfect Son. And He accepts our imperfect efforts as we strive to return to His perfect presence. As we rely on our Savior, repent daily, and work to live the gospel of Jesus Christ, we will be able to return to live with our perfect, loving Heavenly Father again. 

I love this gospel and all that it teaches. I love you all! I hope you all have a wonderful week!

The Church is True, God loves you,

Be happy, BE brave, Be smart,

Love,
Sister Miller