Chocolate and Leapfrogs

We have started doing this thing where we try to talk to the first person we see once we get out of the apartment, and that has been really fun, because it just starts the day off with a bang!

So we were on our street and I see this guy, so naturally, I go up to him, and start the missionary spiel.

He pretty hard core shuts me down.

So, we keep walking, and I look down and see an entire chocolate bar on the ground.It was unwrapped, as if someone was about to take a bite and then some tragic unfortunate event made them drop it, naked, onto the street.

I see this and tears almost well up in my eyes.

I turn to Sister Helmick and am like

"Well, I guess you know you've gotten over rejection when the sight of a chocolate bar on the ground is more painful than getting rejected on the street."

Isn't perspective a beautiful thing?

 

We had a lot of fun doing doors this week!!

We walked into this "residential square" park thing, and we see two things:

First: a car is backing out of the residential square, and luck has it that he basically has to back straight out for several feet before he can access the main road.

Second: right in front of us (and in the way of the car in reverse) an innocent bystander is just trying to cross.

So, of course, we stop the innocent bystander, and in the process, the car has to wait for us before it can keep backing up.

The innocent bystander takes a card and continues on his merry way, and we turn to go klingel a less active. As the car backs by us, I notice that the window is open, and my thoughts go like this:

Hmmm I should toss a Book of Mormon into the open window....I wonder if we could contact him through the window?

Oohs...we should stop him.

With this thought, I turn to Sister Helmick and ask her opinion. She said she has the same feeling, so we pull a 180 and chase this car. We are literally jogging after this car, and it's awkward, because he can see us jogging toward him as he backing out.

We start talking to him and turns out he used to be a member, but due to things I can't explain with missionary language (haha just kidding), actually due to insensitivity and fear, things happened and he separated himself from the truth that he felt.

It broke my heart to hear him talk.

Leapfrogs and toadstools, we are all in this together. We need to be kind, folks. Promise me you'll be kind?

Bitte?

 

One thought I've had in the last couple of weeks is that difficulty does not equal fear, and that this gospel is about "when" not "if".

I've always said that happiness is not the absence of pain, but rather the presence of purpose or progression, and on my mission, that theory has been put to the test.

I still hold firmly to it.

This life is about coming to know, and that has to include rough spots.

I also know that real inner happiness must include the continual sammeln of personal revelation, or communication with God through the Holy Ghost.

And no, I don't actually care how busy you are, or how many good things you are doing, or how hard it is to take the time to read in the scriptures or pray or fulfill your visiting or home teaching. If you are not gathering daily nourishment directly from God then you will soon find that you are going in circles.

And not the helix kind.

We are beings of intelligence, and folks, "the glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth." Doctrine and Covenants 93:36

The only way to really feel fulfilled is through increased light, for that is our nature and our destiny, to be powerful, due to the light of the intelligence within us.

I know it can be hard.

I know it can be discouraging and sometimes frustrating.

And of course I do actually care about why it's hard, but God has not given and will NEVER give us anything to do that is too hard to achieve.

 

Everyday I invite people to come closer to Christ by acting on a small atom of faith. My favorite thing to do is to ask people if they believe in God and if so, what He means to them. I love it when people say that they don't believe, or that they don't believe that He could be anything other than a distant and unknowable power, let alone a kind, personable, tender Father. I love it because then I get to bear witness of who God is. I get to promise them that they can get to know for themselves who and what God is.

 

Folks, we all have to know for sure at some point or another.

I believe in a God who is my Father.

I "know" in a God who answers prayers.

I "know" in a God cares about you totally and completely.

I "know" in a God who wipes away tears off of faces, who motivates and builds, who inspires and cheerleads.

 

I "know" in a God who loves you with enough power to totally heal your scars.

 

I love you all,

 

Sister Roderer