AND! Guess what. Ok. I'll tell you. Sister Hogge is my new companion and she's amazing and wonderful and thoughtful and artistic and I love her and we're going to be the best of friends. No really. I'm not kidding. That wasn't my sarcastic voice.
an excerpt from a letter I wrote to Sandy:
"So I've been having an interesting conversation with myself. Here's part of it: Ok, I'm weak. Weak things are supposed to be made strong. I always interpreted that to mean that if I have a weakness, say impatience or something, through Christ I could become really super duper patient. And I interpreted that to mean during earth life. But here's what I'm starting to "get": This particular weakness of brain/depression weakness isn't going to be resolved until the resurrection. That means it will be made strong, but only after I can say about my earth and spirit world life, "I have accomplished that which you sent me to do." And he can say, "well done thou good and faithful servant, enter into my rest." I don't enter into his rest until the resurrection and judgement. Ok. So that means I carry this handicap the whole time. Alright, learning to deal with that... but the "well done..." part comes partly because He knows I did it with one arm tied behind my back. He's saying "well done..." and He means it! It's like when Emma and Beeb accomplish something big (like scouting thingies, even though he barely made it according to time constraints) and you say, "Good job, Beeb!" and you mean it because you know how hard it is for him to focus on things he's only sort of interested in. That's what it's like. I'm not going to be this amazing, powerful saint that the Lord says, "well done..." to. I'm a little, weak kid who has done the best she knows how. And it wasn't an amazing job, and he had to do most of the job himself, but he's proud of me anyway because he knows how hard it was for me to do with my little broken brain and my personal weaknesses. He knows it, because He's lived it. Sometimes I forget how much I really owe to him. None of my accomplishments are really mine. He's helped me all along the way. Nothing I've done has really been mine. You know what I mean? You and 6 year old Emma do the dishes and she runs to tell Matt that she did the dishes. And you let her say she did the dishes all by herself because you can see how happy it makes her feel to have accomplished something so big. Like that.
Also, I've learned that 5 very powerful lessons in a week is better than 20 weak ones. We had one very powerful one this last week, and Georgina is going to get baptized once. The Sisters Hogge and Wilcox combo-plate is particularly powerful. Why? Because the lessons go something like this. "Hi, we're the missionaries. This is our friend, The Spirit of the Lord. He's going to do all the teaching today. Spirit, we turn the time over to you." And so he carries the message from our mouths to their hearts. And the hearers and teachers are edified together and rejoice. Yup. 5 lessons like that in a week and we'll be just fine. "
and then:
That's what's going on. I'm not going to die this week. I'm still in major recovery... don't get me wrong. But I feel more hope than I have in months and months and months. Ah, the tender mercies of the Lord.
Conference: I need the Ensign now... do I have to wait for November? Sigh, so sad. Actually, I kept a list of all the personally important talks, and will print them out one by one to review and read. Love me the internet.
Pictures:
Ok. Computer's gonna blow up in 5 minutes... better go.
LOVE YOU!!!
