I Feel My Time is Short

January 27, 2014

Oi familia!!!

DESCULPE!!! for my super short email today.  :(  Sadly, my time on the computer seems to get shorter and shorter as the ELDERS who go first take up ALLLL the time!!  :P haha, oh well.   I'll just have to be short and sweet!  I feel bad because I got a lot of emails this week and can't even read them again :(((

I can't print them yet... but I'm hoping to be able to this week at the library--we get an hour in the week besides pday to print or go on mormon.org/lds.org, sooo we're going to plan on doing that.

I'm super nervous because I feel like my time here is SO short.  We had interviews with President and Sister Neider this past week and they said “Time is not your friend,”and never before have I felt so much this saying hitting home for me.... I keep waking up and feeling homesick -- but not for home (no offense) -- but for my mission, as if I’m being reminded over and over how fast time goes and how short this time is to completely dedicate my life to this.  

And on top of that, I know how much shorter the time may be for this area specifically.  It's been a baby area pretty much.  This is the first time for a while they have had their own set of sister missionaries.   It was shared with another ward before so it didn't get much attention.  But wow, we've worked and the area is looking up, already!!   In the last area, it took a transfer and a half to really get it to explode!   This area, we got it up in 3 weeks!!   woooh!   haha,  It still needs soo much work though. I feel like I've put more into this area faster than any of the others.   I already love it and don't want to leave, yet I still have that creeping feeling that my time here is SUPER limited :*(   It's NOT a good feeling to have.. sighh.  This poor ward has had missionaries in and out sooo fast all the time.  We really need them to trust the missionaries...... so they put two visa waiters in hahahah.....sigh.  Breaks my heart! but it will all work out for the best.

We met a Part member family last week where the mom, the member, is super inactive and her children (10yrs and 8 yrs) are not members and her fiance goes to Central Christian--the big concert church that teaches their people to hate Mormons :( --and he really doesn’t like us.  But we found out that he'd be home Sunday afternoon and we felt like we should go by. We knocked on the door and he answered and was very cold and disgruntled towards us so we asked if we could come by sometime when he'd be home with the girls so he could just know what we're teaching them so he's kinda in on the loop as well and not left out and he said he has his church and doesn’t want anything to do with us.  He then said he was offended years ago and it threw him into a downward spiral that turned him atheist for years.  We didn't know what to do or say but we just knew that we needed to sincerely apologize on behalf of the Church and the specific people who had offended him.   He tried to explain it more and we just kept apologizing and letting him know that we really don't want to offend him or push anything onto him and he invited us in to talk some more so he could explain.  Boom. 

We were sooo shocked. We kept talking and he explained that it really was the death of his father that turned him atheist and the Mormon missionaries teaching his mother just came in at the wrong time and he took it out on them and so since then he's hated Mormons and then he joined Central Christian and learned to hate us more (not saying all Central Christian churches do this, but at least the ones here do....) but anyway, we just let him know that as the head of the household, we wanted to make sure we had his permission to teach the girls and wanted to make sure he knew he was welcome to sit in just to make sure what we were teaching his girls wasn't crazy!  haha.  But yeah, he was like yeah, sure I might come and sit in sometimes.   And they can be taught if they want to.   So we were like great!  So we were there talking for like an hour, but it was seriously the best use of time.  We got no numbers out of it but the seeds have been planted and he is sure on his way to warming up to the blessings of the gospel.  I never saw so clearly the blessings of truly taking the time to understand the individual and his needs. I've never seen the blessings of my Patriarchal Blessing so evident in my life before--it said that I have the gift of compassion and understanding and I always thought those were lame ...haha.  But it turns out it really helps in missionary work and in dealing with others as we strive to be representatives of Jesus Christ.  

I am grateful for the blessings God has given me because He knows exactly what I need.  I love you all and hope you have a great week!  I will read all of these email messages ASAP!!!!

Thank you all for your support and love and prayers!  II feel them with me every day!
The miracles we see daily lets me know your prayers are heard!

MUITO AMORRRR!!!

<3

Sister Yoshimoto