It was never suppose to be easy

I came to some big turning points in my mission and really in life this week! You know missions are not easy. I have been so blessed with the ability to be positive and love life and my mission and I’m SO GRATEFUL for that. But to say my mission has been easy would be a lying through my teeth! This last month for me has been a struggle. One that I’m getting through but one none the less. Anyways, I’ve been trying to figure out what’s missing. Why all of sudden my mission seemed harder and why was I getting more sad and frustrated with Poland and how the work is going here and then I went to Warsaw for our MLC (Missionary Leadership Committee) meeting. We talked a lot about faith. During our pump up talk on faith I felt impressed to ask a question, not to put a damper on the meeting but to simply ask I said," you know I always love coming to meetings like this or zone conferences and stuff because you leave just feeling like your faith is restored and like everything is going to be ok again and we're happy! But then we back to our homes and we go back to contacting, to teaching, to the normal life of missionary work and we forget. We loose that faith and we are right back where we started. I’m wondering why it’s so hard? And if we are making a difference here. I really feel like this message you guys are teaching about faith is inspired. I know it is for me and it will be for the people in my zone, but I’m just wondering how do we take this and actually implement it into our lives. How do we leave here making real changes and having the faith that won’t falter that will allow us to be strong through everything our mission brings?" What the assistants said after that changed my LIFE. They said if you are going out there like we all do, and lose our faith, then we need to ask ourselves what it is we have faith in? If we are having faith in baptisms or lessons or miracles or in experiences then we will loose faith. We need to have our faith only in Jesus Christ. If we have faith in Jesus Christ no matter what happens on our missions we will know that this is his work. We need to remember why we are here. We are here because of Him and because we have a loving Father in Heaven who called us here to do his work. If we remember that then how could our faith fail us?

Alright I definitely might have changed a few things since it was days ago but the point is there, we need to make sure that we are gaining that perspective. Have faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement. Remember why I am here and what I am doing.

Then I read a lot of great things on faith but the best one is this from Elder Holland. I actually listened to it but he says this:

“Anyone who does any kind of missionary work will have occasion to ask, Why is this so hard? Why doesn’t it go better? Why can’t our success be more rapid? Why aren’t there more people joining the Church? It is the truth. We believe in angels. We trust in miracles. Why don’t people just flock to the font? Why isn’t the only risk in missionary work that of pneumonia from being soaking wet all day and all night in the baptismal font?

You will have occasion to ask those questions. I have thought about this a great deal. I offer this as my personal feeling. I am convinced that missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience. Salvation never was easy. We are The Church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, and He is our Great Eternal Head. How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him? It seems to me that missionaries and mission leaders have to spend at least a few moments in Gethsemane. Missionaries and mission leaders have to take at least a step or two toward the summit of Calvary.

Now, please don’t misunderstand. I’m not talking about anything anywhere near what Christ experienced. That would be presumptuous and sacrilegious. But I believe that missionaries and investigators, to come to the truth, to come to salvation, to know something of this price that has been paid, will have to pay a token of that same price.

For that reason I don’t believe missionary work has ever been easy, nor that conversion is, nor that retention is, nor that continued faithfulness is. I believe it is supposed to require some effort, something from the depths of our soul.

If He could come forward in the night, kneel down, fall on His face, bleed from every pore, and cry, “Abba, Father, if this cup can pass, let it pass,”¹⁶then little wonder that salvation is not a whimsical or easy thing for us. If you wonder if there isn’t an easier way, you should remember you are not the first one to ask that. Someone a lot greater and a lot grander asked a long time ago if there wasn’t an easier way.

The Atonement will carry the missionaries perhaps even more importantly than it will carry the investigators. When you struggle, when you are rejected, when you are spit upon and cast out and made a hiss and a byword, you are standing with the best life this world has ever known, the only pure and perfect life ever lived. You have reason to stand tall and be grateful that the Living Son of the Living God knows all about your sorrows and afflictions. The only way to salvation is through Gethsemane and on to Calvary. The only way to eternity is through Him—the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

I know it’s a long one but I was cleaning the kitchen this morning and I listened to it while Sister King was getting ready and I just burst into tears. It was so beautiful! I am so excited for this part of my mission. I have never learned so much. I have never had a stronger conviction that what I am doing here is of God. I have never known better that God is my Father, and He loves me and Jesus Christ LIVES!

I have never learned more about the Atonement in my life. He literally knows everything that I go through and knows how to make me better and stronger. He's done it all before me and I know he is right, right beside me every step of the way. Missions are suppose to be a struggle because like Elder Holland said we get to have this time and for a moment gain a tiny bit of understanding of what He went through for me. And that has changed me. That was what I was missing and what will allow me to grow and learn and continue to serve my mission with all my heart! I’m so grateful for my mission. It has blessed me so much and in ways I never would've received any other way than my serving a mission.

In other news we had a sports Saturday and it was so fun! I got my first sunburn. We played football and rugby like champs! Then right after that we got to go and do service for a family who is completely remodelling their house! I got put on sanding duty and will probably die from how must dust I inhaled but it was a blast! I love service and just getting to help people! It’s what we came here to do and it was so nice!