The choices we make and the attitudes we have in the face of trials and opposition determine what kind of missionary we are going to be. When a door is slammed in your face, when someone gives you a fake address (this happened all the time in Argentina), when you feel like nothing is going right, how will you react? Will you put a smile on your face, and keep moving forward with faith and hope in Christ?
“Wherefore, there must be faith; and if there must be faith there must also be hope; and if there must be hope there must also be charity….And if ye have no hope ye must needs be in despair; and despair cometh because of iniquity.” (Moroni 10: 20, 22) If you ever find yourself in despair, which means to have no hope, remember that it is the Adversary, Satan, that wants you to get discouraged. So don’t let him do that to you!
If you have charity, the pure love of Jesus Christ, in your heart, and if you truly feel that love for the people in your mission, you will have hope, and faith, and you will maintain a positive attitude, and you will be more successful.
How to Get a Positive Attitude
So if you find yourself with a bad attitude on the mission, what do you do? Elder Boyd K. Packer, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, admonished us to study the scriptures and the words of the prophets in such instances. “True doctrine, understood,changes attitudes and behavior.” (Ensign, Nov. 1986)
I’ll conclude with a couple of passages from the Preach My Gospel manual: “The attitude you have toward your mission experience is a reflection of your love toward your Heavenly Father and His Son and your respect for the priesthood.” (PMG p. 151) “Hope is an abiding trust that the Lord will fulfill His promises to you. It is manifest in confidence, optimism, enthusiasm, and patient perseverance. It is believing and expecting that something will occur. When you have hope, you work through trials and difficulties with the confidence and assurance that all things will work together for your good. Hope helps you conquer discouragement.” (PMG p. 117)
So remember what Dory, from the movie Finding Nemo, said, “You know what you gotta do when life gets you down? Just keep swimming!”
“His Grace is Sufficient” -Brad Wilcox
Drops of Awesome:
DROPS OF AWESOME!
Hello Sisters! This talk is adapted from a talk by a sister in the Vista 1st ward, which I just found out also was on a blog somewhere else according to Elder Hansen. Oh well, it’s awesome so it doesn’t really matter where it originated. Anyway, I decided to revamp it into missionary style because the lesson taught in this talk is one of the greatest lessons I learned on my mission. I’m sending it to every sister in the mission, regardless of whether I know you or not, as my departing testimony. May you all know that you are individually loved of God and are cherished by your amazing mission president and his wife. May you all know that there is no such thing as a bad missionary, no matter how imperfect you may think you are! Anyone who is willing to sacrifice 18 months of their time without any obligation to do so in order to serve the Lord and His children is an amazing person! YOU are important and capable of accomplishing great things, beginning with small and simple things… which is where this talk begins.
It was a sunny California morning, and we were walking around on Grand Avenue in Escondido. We went out of our way to talk to someone who said he would be willing to hear more about our message. We wrote down his information in our planners and joyfully texted the referral to the Felicita elders. We felt so accomplished that we were in the right place at the right time to meet this person who clearly had been prepared to receive the restored gospel! We were nearly perfectly happy.
Nearly.
Just at that moment, the thought came into my mind: “that’s awesome that you went out of your way to talk to that man, and you’re putting on the ‘missionary of the year’ act today. What about yesterday and the day before? You hardly ever cross the street to talk to people or interrupt them while they’re on the phone. You hardly talk to everyone you see!”
My bubble had burst. “I’m a bad missionary,” I thought, as I looked down at our phone, where we had just received a text back, thanking us for the referral. Then another thought came. “What is wrong with you? You are being an awesome missionary at this moment. The man you just talked to is happy. You gave him a Book of Mormon. He has an appointment with the elders Tuesday at 4! You really listened to the spirit to discern his needs! Do not rob yourself of this moment’s joy because of what you failed to do yesterday or what you fear you might not do tomorrow.
This started me thinking of all the times I do something good while beating myself up for all the times I hadn’t been perfect.
“You taught 3.2 perfectly today? Wow, great job! NOT. Remember the last lesson when you butchered half of the Plan of Salvation? Clearly she isn’t getting baptized because you’re such a crappy teacher!”
“You made your companion’s bed this morning! Woopty doo! Want a cookie? Don’t you remember a few days ago when you got frustrated with her during nightly planning? Let’s be honest, you’re a terrible friend and no one wants to be stuck with you as a companion.”
“You started studies at 7:59 today! Great job! Remember yesterday when you started at 8:05 because your hair was obviously more important than the people you teach and having the spirit with you? You don’t really care about studies. Not all the time anyway.”
How destructive are these kinds of thoughts?
As we texted “you’re welcome” back to the elders and continued our stroll down Grand Avenue, my mind started to shift.
“DROPS OF AWESOME,” I thought. Every time you do something good, something kind, something productive, it’s a drop in your bucket of awesome. You don’t lose drops for every misstep. You can only build; you can only fill.
I contacted a guy on the street! Drop of awesome! I gave him a Book of Mormon! Drop of awesome! I testified boldly and didn’t care how awkward or annoying I was being! Two fat drops of awesome!
All day long I chanted these words in my head. I told my companion I loved her even though she was being really naggy. Drop of awesome! I loaded my dish into the dishwasher after dinner. Drop of awesome! I didn’t give into the temptation to tell my Ward Mission Leader that I think he’s a Nazi! Drop of awesome!
When I started thinking about my life in terms of adding these drops of awesome for every tiny act of good, I found that I was doing more and more of them because it’s a lot more fun to do good when you’re awarded with joy, rather than beating yourself up for every failure in your past.
By the end of the day, I had realized something important. If I was listening to my companion complain about how much she missed her boyfriend, really listening with full attention at that moment, then I was a good listener, regardless of the 50 other times I had brushed it off or multi-tasked while she was talking over the past week. If I was engaged in sincere prayer, really communing with my Heavenly Father and seeking His will, then I was a person who engages in sincere prayer, regardless of how my prayers were (or weren’t) yesterday and the day before that and the day before that.
As I added up these drops of awesome, I found that in those moments, I had actually become the person I had always wanted to be and more importantly, the person the Lord wanted me to be!
Have you ever said any of these things? “Well, because we got home one minute late tonight, the spirit will be nonexistent during planning and tomorrow is going to be terrible.” Or, “I always fight with my companion. She hates me. I’m a terrible friend.” Or, “I didn’t run today. I guess I just don’t run anymore.” Or, “I got a little frustrated with my zone leader today. I guess I’m just becoming that terrible missionary who hates mission leadership now.”
These are lies, depending on the next decision you make, the next drop of awesome you put in your bucket. You may have done these things or have a hard time with them, but they don’t define you and you can change this very instant. You may not think you can change permanently, but you can change the next choice you make. And as you change that one tiny next choice, you make think “I got this one drop of awesome but I may never be able to get another again.” And that’s okay!
You made the right choice once, and in that moment, you were the person you wanted to be. That is a triumph! For one night, you were the person who goes to bed early. One morning you woke up and the first words out of your mouth were positive so you were a morning person in that moment. BAM! Drop of awesome!
You don’t need to wait 3 months to be who you want to be. Straighten up your desk for 3 minutes right now and say “drop of awesome! I am an organized person! That is who I am! I have proof!”
In the end, it’s really about allowing yourself to feel joy and to be proud of the small victories of life. This builds momentum and you want more drops in your bucket. When you don’t get as many, pick yourself up and say “what can I do next?” There are a lot of things as missionaries that we don’t have control over, but when we do our best to improve the things we can control, we find great satisfaction and confidence in our work. We feel the spirit more and are simply happier! Nobody wants to talk to a grumpy missionary anyway, right? Would you?
There are a whole lot of religious implications to this because, as Mormons, we know that we are not the only people adding these drops of awesome to our buckets. Through Christ’s Atonement, He is with us every step of the way.
The Atonement is an infinite ocean of awesome that can fill our buckets of awesome to overflowing if we let it. We will never be able to fill our buckets on our own, and knowing this can sometimes bring us down. However, relying on the Savior’s ocean of awesome to fill our buckets can bring us true joy. Paraphrasing the words of Paul, “His strength is made perfect in our weakness. Most gladly therefore will we rather glory in our infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon us” (2 Corinthians 12:9). When our buckets overflow with awesome, where does all the excess awesome go, then? Well, our buckets get bigger! Our capacity for joy and light increases! And we just keep working one tiny drop at a time. We should never compare today’s drops with yesterday’s or tomorrow’s. We can give our “all” every day of our missions, without our “all” being the same every day. Let’s not compare our drops with other missionaries’ and especially to our own at different points in our missions.
As we live, love, and repent when we do wrong, we allow ourselves to be glorious, beautiful, and dare I say perfect in Christ. Only through relying fully on the Savior can we fulfill our divine destiny as daughters of God and joint-heirs with Christ. Christ doesn’t make UP the difference for our imperfections, He makes ALL the difference. The Atonement works for us just as well as it does for everyone else! You can repent. You can change. You don’t HAVE to be perfect! In fact, you will never be perfect! But we can work to become better one tiny drop at a time. The Lord loves us, roots for us, and cheers for every drop of awesome we can manage. Our victories are His victories. He wants us not to just endure to the end of our missions, but enjoy to the end!
“Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass” (Alma 37:6). I invite all of you to go forth and be awesome! Don’t just be obedient to be obedient. Let obedience be motivated by love, and change your very nature through the Atonement of Christ. I promise you will find great joy in our work. Remember, the Gospel is not about doing something. It is about becoming someone. When we rely on the Savior, we can truly become the missionaries the Lord needs us to be, and those changes in our nature will affect the rest of our lives. Why do we want to become this missionary? Because we love those we serve! We want them to be converted! We can help them be converted by having the spirit with us, and we can have the spirit with us when we are obedient, rely on the Savior, and are HAPPY! I hope all of you can find the happiness I have found on my mission. I love you and much more importantly, the Lord loves you.
Have an awesome mission, sisters!
Love always,
Sister Amanda Berg
Let Go(d). This is His work. Not yours. Because He loves you and knows how this service will bless you and mold you into the person He needs you to become, He lets you help Him in this work. Strive to listen to the promptings of the spirit and He will help you to know what to say. Trust Him ALWAYS. Even when you're working hard and doing everything "right" and not seeing the success you'd like to see. It will come in His timing.
So after all that being said, please know that I definitely had my (many) times where I complained (more than I should've) or I wasn't perfectly obedient, or I taught a crappy lesson, or I said something ridiculously dumb or awkward. That's completely normal. And do not beat yourself up about it. Learn from it and move on. Don't dwell on your weaknesses or past mistakes. Look forward and realize that God does not expect you to be a perfect, sinless missionary. As long as you are striving to do the right and serve God, all is gonna be okay and Heavenly Father will fill in any gaps and help you all along the way. I promise.
I hope this little list helps you all out there as you prepare to embark on your missionary service. Keep a smile on your face and keep walking, joy will come :)
15 Signs you’re doing well in life (be grateful, you’re probably good on most, if not all of these!)
1. You’ve lived and learned
No one said life was easy and while the bumps on the road may hurt, the ride is definitely worth it. Think back to your failures and defeats. You must know they were all for a reason and part of a grander plan. Each difficulty has led you to where you are at today, each trial has molded you into the magnificent, resilient, person that you are. Continue to move forward in faith, hope and love, knowing that each experience has taught you what you need to become who you were born to be.
2. You have a comfy bed to sleep in
I’ll never forget an interview done on NPR a while back. A young Haitian mother told her story. She had little ones that constantly wondered when they would be able to eat and go to school like all the other kids around them. What impacted me the most about this story was their sleeping arrangements: they all laid on the dirt floor, and at night if it rained everyone would have to get up, grab whatever was left of their “bed” and move to a dry spot. This story gave me a whole new appreciation for my bed and I hope it does the same thing for you!
3. You strive to be better
The fact you are feeling a bit down because you haven’t achieved what you want to achieve shows you are trying. In the grand scheme of things, you always strive to be better and for as long as you continue to do that, happiness, success and love will come – just don’t give up. Einstein once said: “It’s not that I am so smart, it’s that I stay with problems longer.” Hang in there and never stop striving to be all you can be!
4. You have/had a job
Whichever way you look at this one, it is still a win-win situation for you. If you have a job: kudos! Keep at it and know that you are richly blessed. If you recently lost your job, don’t fret! You’ve gotten a job before, you can get one all over again. Perhaps this is the opportunity you’ve been waiting for to do something you truly love to do. Keep searching, keep hoping, and know that you can accomplish the seemingly impossible if you work hard and believe you can.
5. Knowledge is at your fingertips
In this day and age, you can learn anything and everything you want. Knowledge is truly at your fingertips! Since knowledge is power, seize that power and let it assist you in the pursuit of your dreams. Take advantage of all the “learning” opportunities that come your way.
6. You have food to eat
Sometimes a bit more than you should! Food is such an overlooked blessing, yet if you miss it for a few hours you start feeling the necessity of it. Take the time to enjoy your next meal, whatever that is, savor each bite and remind yourself that happiness is found in enjoying the simple things of life, such as eating a piece of pie.
7. You have the power of choose
Aristotle once said: “Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives – choice, not chance, determines your destiny.” Need I say more? Claim your power to choose.
8. You’ve experienced love butterflies or something like it
Ahh! To be in love…to feel your whole body literally react to that moment when you simply steal a glance from the one you are infatuated with. Experiencing such a natural, basic and simple, yet passionate moment will give you memories that will last a life time. You are beyond blessed to have experienced such a sublime moment!
9. You have clean water
This one should not be overlooked. Do you ever watch Bear Grills and all his desperate moves to get just a few ounces of muddy water? There are also people who aren’t going without water because they have a survival show, but instead because it is their harsh reality. Around 783 million people do not have access to clean water around the globe. Be thankful and fully aware that you are doing well in life even if you don’t think so.
10. You have a dream
Whatever your dream is, it’s yours. You have the ability to embrace it and create it. Don’t give up on dreaming or on your dreams. They are what life’s best things are made up of.
11. Your happiness is real
You have the power to choose happiness for your life in everything you do and in every circumstance. Your happiness is defined by whether or not you are able to discern and seize an opportunity to feel happy. It may be something as simple as enjoying the laughter of a child.
12. You have clothes to wear
And sometimes too many options, which trumps your productivity, but that is another subject. The bottom line is, you don’t have to go naked through the streets or poorly dressed. You enjoy the blessing of being properly dressed for every occasion and have the ability to shield your body from the elements. Really, life would get very cold without clothes.
13. You have the ability to forgive
Can you imagine what this world would look like without forgiveness? Never mind the world, just your life! Imagine how bogged down, bitter and unhappy you would be if you did not have the ability to forgive other’s mistakes as well as your own. It would make it nearly impossible to live and most definitely a nightmare to move on with life when difficulties arose. You have the unique gift of forgiving and moving on.
14. You believe in something greater than yourself
For all the times you were so caught up in your own little world and drowning in a kiddie pool version of life’s problems, you’ve had the ability to step back and realize that you have something greater to live for than yourself. Whether it is God, your family or friends, you can believe that your purpose is to achieve something that will be for the greater good or to simply bring honor to your God.
15. You have the opportunity to build global friendships
In today’s day and age, your best friend can literally be five thousand miles away yet you can still experience the beauty of that friendship. You have the unique capacity to be acquaintances with one person in almost every country of the world, something no other generation before the 1900’s was easily able to do. As far as I am concerned, your global ability to make friends is definitely a sign you are doing well in life, even if you don’t think so.
Neal A. Maxwell on inadequacy:
What can we do to manage these vexing feelings of inadequacy? Here are but a few suggestions:
- 1. We can distinguish more clearly between divine discontent and the devil’s dissonance, between dissatisfaction with self and disdain for self. We need the first and must shun the second, remembering that when conscience calls to us from the next ridge, it is not solely to scold but also to beckon.
- 2. We can contemplate how far we have already come in the climb along the pathway to perfection; it is usually much farther than we acknowledge. True, we are “unprofitable servants,” but partly because when “we have done that which was our duty to do” (Luke 17:10), with every ounce of such obedience comes a bushel of blessings.
- 3. We can accept help as well as gladly give it. Happily, General Naaman received honest but helpful feedback, not from fellow generals, but from his orderlies. (See 2 Kgs. 5:1–14.) In the economy of heaven, God does not send thunder if a still, small voice is enough, or a prophet if a priest can do the job.
- 4. We can allow for the agency of others (including our children) before we assess our adequacy. Often our deliberate best is less effectual because of someone else’s worst.
- 5. We can write down, and act upon, more of those accumulating resolutions for self-improvement that we so often leave, unrecovered, at the edge of sleep.
- 6. We can admit that if we were to die today, we would be genuinely and deeply missed. Perhaps parliaments would not praise us, but no human circle is so small that it does not touch another, and another.
- 7. We can put our hand to the plow, looking neither back nor around, comparatively. Our gifts and opportunities differ; some are more visible and impactful. The historian Moroni felt inadequate as a writer beside the mighty Mahonri Moriancumer, who wrote overpoweringly. We all have at least one gift and an open invitation to seek “earnestly the best gifts.” (D&C 46:8.)
- 8. We can make quiet but more honest inventories of our strengths, since, in this connection, most of us are dishonest bookkeepers and need confirming “outside auditors.” He who was thrust down in the first estate delights to have us put ourselves down. Self-contempt is of Satan; there is none of it in heaven. We should, of course, learn from our mistakes, but without forever studying the instant replays as if these were the game of life itself.
- 9. We can add to each other’s storehouse of self-esteem by giving deserved, specific commendation more often, remembering, too, that those who are breathless from going the second mile need deserved praise just as the fallen need to be lifted up.
- 10. We can also keep moving. Only the Lord can compare crosses, but all crosses are easier to carry when we keep moving. Men finally climbed Mount Everest, not by standing at its base in consuming awe, but by shouldering their packs and by placing one foot in front of another. Feet are made to move forward—not backward!
- 11. We can know that when we have truly given what we have, it is like paying a full tithe; it is, in that respect, all that was asked. The widow who cast in her two mites was neither self-conscious nor searching for mortal approval.
- 12. We can allow for the reality that God is more concerned with growth than with geography. Thus, those who marched in Zion’s Camp were not exploring the Missouri countryside but their own possibilities.
- 13. We can learn that at the center of our agency is our freedom to form a healthy attitude toward whatever circumstances we are placed in! Those, for instance, who stretch themselves in service—though laced with limiting diseases—are often the healthiest among us! The Spirit can drive the flesh beyond where the body first agrees to go!
- 14. Finally, we can accept this stunning, irrevocable truth: Our Lord can lift us from deep despair and cradle us midst any care. We cannot tell Him anythingabout aloneness or nearness!
No comments:
Post a Comment