He's Coming Right After This

Hello World!

It's cold here. And the ward seems to like me. Or not I can't tell. Yesterday I said the closing prayer in sacrament meeting, the closing prayer in Sunday school, and the opening prayer in Relief Society. Last week I spoke in Sacrament meeting, and next week I'm teaching Sunday School. And the ward's not super small or anything, so maybe I just need extra blessings ;)

During Relief Society yesterday, I sat next to this older lady who has Alzheimers I believe. She lives with her son and daughter-in-law, but her son goes to Priesthood, and her daughter-in-law just got called to teach in primary.

Her son will tell her that he will come get her after the meeting, but she forgets. She will get all agitated and look around for him. So I tell her that he is coming right after the meeting. She asked "He told you?" and I nod. Every 3 minutes or so she'd start getting agitated, so I would just whisper and tell her, "He's coming right after this. He told me." And then she would relax.

That's kinda like life. We forget that The Son really is coming. He's coming right after this, and we are not forgotten.

We also had a lesson with a recent convert named H. She has MS and is confined to a bed. We showed her the Mormon Message "Men's Hearts Shall Fail Them" Afterward, when we asked her what she thought, she said, "Well, I know that!" Her faith is astonishing. She takes her trials in stride. 

It got me thinking. We're currently working (or trying to) with a handful of less active members. Many of them have been offended, or don't believe that God loves them. If people leave for these reasons, they don't understand the purpose of life. They don't realize that our trials are opportunities to grow. They don't understand that God loves being merciful, but sacrifices His desires to spare us torment that we may progress and develop.

Sometimes we get frustrated 'cause church isn't as uplifting as might be expected, whether because our calling takes us out of our preferred meetings, there are too many distractions, or whatever else. We might not get the upliftment we'd hoped for, but we do have the opportunity to develop patience, or tolerance, or love, or compassion. What's better? Learning theory for how to be better, or having practice?

We contacted this lady who'd been out of the church for years, and didn't really want her records in, but her family kept sending them. She explained that the church didn't really fit her family. (She has a little boy with autism, among other issues that make church attendance hard) But she said she still believes the doctrine. Well, she doesn't understand key parts of it. Particularly how religion is to change us--to make us better. We shape ourselves to be more like Christ. We don't shape Christ to fit our preferences.

We've gotten to meet a lot of really great people, who we will hopefully be able to teach. It's really hard to find people right now 'cause it's so cold. But we still tracted for a couple hours. And we still have all our toes, so that's a nice bonus. But more importantly we did find people to teach--a couple from Haiti who are missionaries from their church, but are in the states to take care of their baby's birth defects. We'll see where that goes :D

Hope all is well for everybody, and that wherever you are, it's warmer than it is here :)

Sister Bowen