Week 58 - "The ward is coming to like us, which is always the hardest battle. Slowly we are conquering the hermanas in the ward."

September 10, 2014

Would the person with the power to control time quit pressing the fast-forward button? There are people down here trying to do a marvelous work and a wonder and it's a bit complicated when the weeks fly by as hours. All right?

Sorry. As a forewarning, my thoughts are a bit scattered today.

To begin, I would like to express my deep and seemingly endlessly filling love for my Father in Heaven. This week has been full of tender mercies, even in the moments I would rather the earth swallow me up, I have found many blessings through the love of my Heavenly Father. He loves and blesses me in ways that I feel at times I don't deserve. He has allowed me to change in so many beautiful ways and I am recently realizing some of the changes. He blesses me daily with the power of the atonement to improve in the smallest things.

Les cuento que [Let me tell you] being a missionary is probably the most complicated calling I'll ever receive in my lifetime. It is another level of stress, another level of love, another level of pressure. It is requires another level of spiritual mentality, another level of patience, basically if you allow it to, the mision can perfect you. In fact, I believe that is why we are called on missions. To mature, to grow, to become like Christ through experiences we can only have in the mision. You come to realize the true purpose of life, the perfection of the plan of God, the necessity to enjoy and not just endure the things we are called to live.

Let's see. This week was relatively normal. We contacted a lot. Lots of doors in the face. Lots of selfish people who don't want anything to do with the church. We met a very elderly catholic man with a very firm testimony of the doctrine of his church. Really we were looking for his brother or son or something. But when we told him we were misioneries, he immediately lit up. I learned many new things of the Catholic church. I didn't know that they don't believe in Resurrection. Or life after death. How depressing. We tried to testify, but the elderly people here in Chile aren't especially keen on listening to us when we have something in contrary to their beliefs.

The ward is coming to like us, which is always the hardest battle. Slowly we are conquering the hermanas in the ward. I like the metaphor my dad wrote to me: it is moving like molasses moving uphill, but we are doing it. Maybe the hermanas won't like that we don't spend hours with them chatting, or that we don't just go with the flow and want to do more things with the ward, or maybe they just won't like how we are. What is important isn't that they remember my name, it is that they remember what I taught. Even if I am here to make the molasses move two centimeters, I will do what I can.

I know that this work is true. It is of God, it is divine and the people who direct it are truly inspired. I love my Savior, I love that He trusts me enough to direct His saving work here in Santiago. I love that I have an eternal family, that they love me and that I can be with them at my side in the next life. I love my Father in Heaven. I love this gospel and the incredible changes that are made through it. Just have a fantastically wonderful week, all right? I love you!

Hermana Castleton