Well, I don't really know where to start. This week was pretty tough, but I have learned a ton. I keep growing and learning in the gospel, but sometimes I have a hard time seeing if anybody else is having as great of a time as I am.
We did a ton of porting this week. We also visited all but 10 people in the area book to see if any of the dropped investigators were still interested. Especially since nobody, stinking, updates their area books!!!!! You probably won't recognize me when I get home because I am kind of an organized freak now!
So anyways, we went through at least 50+ names of amies, half of which had moved and didn't have numbers. Those ones weren't good, but we just took those houses as normal porting experiences when the people we were looking for had left...... they still weren't interested. Then, half of the remaining half were less than excited to see us. We've narrowed it down to four people who are interested in us coming back. And now the area book is all neat and tidy and divided into separate villes and who is interested and not!
We did a ton of less active work as well. Let's just say I have had more success, with pretty much anyone, than these less actives. I have had some of the most rude reactions out of them......kinda sad but life goes on!
The thing that was disappointing though, was that we have not seen Tao for 2 weeks!!!! He kinda just disappeared off the planet and I am worried that he might already be gone. Hopefully, we can see him at least one more time before he leaves. He can be baptized in China! They just so happen to have a branch right next to where he will be going, and we have left him all of the information to get there. But, I would still feel more comfortable talking to him and getting his coordinates to give to the church there!
Also Tia's baptism is indefinitely post poned. The reason we fixed the date in the first place was to see if she was really as interested as we thought. Sometimes it was really hard to decipher her feelings! I felt really impressed to ask at the end of a rendez-vous if she felt good about her baptism or if she was worried about it, because she likes to hide her feelings. I knew from experience, that no baptismal date is solid until they are in the water! Turns out that she is SUPER nervous about what her family will think. In China, they will pretty much disown you if you believe in God, and you will bring dishonor on the family if you practice religion. She has kinda been putting her butt on the line as it is. There are a lot of other cultural problems as well, but I think that is the biggest one. Anyways, she came to church and we started a lesson there by asking if she had made a decision yet. If, parents aside, she even wanted to be baptized, or if she needed more time. We just wanted HER to decide not us! However, our lovely DMP or mission leader, jumped in and basically told her that we only wanted her to be baptized because of our pride, and that she should take some more time to decide when to be baptised. BUT, to be baptized before she goes back to China. I love our DMP to death, but sometimes I wonder!
Tia still wants to learn more and agreed with being baptized before she goes to China.
Anyways, this week was very stressful. I briefly questioned the effectiveness of what I have been doing here. I learned, probably the most valuable lesson, this week in studies and throughout these experiences. I have been studying a ton on Charity and how I can be more charitable,because honestly, France just needs a big stinking hug! I felt like, if we could just love em to death, miracles would happen. And one did. As I was reading in the gospel principles on charity I come across something very interesting. It said something to the lines of: if you want to be charitable and love others, you must learn to love yourself. We are commanded to love others as ourselves. Just as you can only help someone obtain a testimony as strong as your own, you can only grow to love someone as much as yourself! That really hit me, because I think that was the biggest thing I struggled with before my mission. I never really respected myself for who I really was, and who I really am. If someone did something wrong to me, I hardly ever took it out on them, which is good. But, I almost always took it out on myself. I liked to take the blame for everything, and it sometimes really got me! BUT, I am a child of God and have inherited God like qualities and have the divine potential
I love you, and I hope all of you are well. Have a super week and I will catch ya'll laters! Elder Lyons
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