Sunday 3 August 2014

Gathering Israel- One soul at a time

I just wanna say, I just did a quick read over all the emails I just
received and there are so many miracles happening all over the place.
Nothing makes me happier on a Monday than to get on here and hear
about all my family and friends progressing well with their lives, and
all my friends on missions growing and changing and helping other to
do the same. As I studied in 1st Nephi this week (I think this week I
made it about 3 chapters, there is a rediculous amount of footnote
researching happening) its literally ALL about the gathering of
Israel. So, when thinking about it logically, the Book of Mormon was
written for our day, so basically all we need to do is be preparing
for the gathering of Israel, diba?? Thats what I think anyway.

So, long stories short.
We have been eating a rediculous amount of bamboo lately. All the
time. Because its free and you can just go pick it out of the ground,
people get some bamboo and suddenly they're super keen to feed the
missionaries. Nobody's complaining, it tastes way good. And avocados.
Oh man. Its avocado season and people have more than they can eat so
they're just constantly dropping bags and bags of them on our
doorstep. Couldn't be happier about that one!

This week was Ramadan so everyone had the day off work, and since our
branch is still on a high from all the amazing changes happening,
everyone went over to one of the struggling members houses to clean
it. They weren't there because one of the kids had typhoid, one had
dengue, one had bronchitis and the mum had the flu so they were at the
hospital, so the timing was perfect. The older son and his girlfriend
and baby were there and it was such a blessing for us. Hes kind of an
off the radar less active that nobody really visits, but last week we
ran into him when he was drunk and he told us his whole story, about
how their dad left them and ruined the family which led him to make
bad choices and now they have a baby. But he also told us they were
trying to save so next year they could get married at the church and
his wife could get baptised. So we decided we were going to make that
happen now. The members really reached out to them and took the time
to get to know them that day and it was such a miracle. Gonna make it
easier to get the whole process in the works.

One night we were walking from one appointment to another and we
walked past a part member family's house where we have recent
converts. There were a ton of people crowded outside the house and
someone told us that something bad had happened. We ran inside and the
mum of the family was on the floor barely breathing. We did everything
we could to help her and get her breathing normally again. After a
while I realised the only other adult that was there when we arrived
was her son, who immediately left when we got there. All the little
kids were crowded around her trying to calm her down and help her, as
in the little kids, 3-12 year olds, and not even one of the people
crowded outside the house even came in to see what happened. We called
everyone we could think of to come and nobody did. Eventually we got
the Elders over to bless her which made her feel better. Without doing
into details, she was the victim of some pretty bad domestic violence
by one of her own family members, who them stole every last bit of
money they had. They didn't even have money to buy milk for the baby
so they mixed him up a bottle of sugar and water. In the end we were
there for about 2 hours trying to get everything sorted out for them
as best as we could. We found out the next day that someone had told
all her family members that they thought she had died, and they still
didn't even come home to see. If you can't even trust your family,
man. At least she has the gospel.

This week was a week of seeing the Priesthood in action. And this was
a time where I think I most felt like a missionary, where we did so
much more than just sit down and teach. Everyone in our area seemed to
develop some serious problems and sicknesses this week so the Elders
basically followed us around giving blessings to everyone. One other
miracle that occured was in a family we have been wanting to teach for
a long time. The daughter is an investigator but the day we started
teaching her the dad went into hospital with a random sickness that
they still never figured out. After three weeks in the ICU and nearly
dying he finally came out on her 18th birthday so we went over to
celebrate. The moment we walked in someone came up to ask us if we
could get him a blessing. We still can't figure out who even told him
that missionaries could do that, but we didn't question we just got
the elders back over. It was super spiritual, the whole family and
extended family was there and the Elders were able to explain all
about the Priesthood and how they would need to use their faith.
Priesthood in action, its my favourite thing.

Loving my life as usual. Making sure I never forget to do the little
things to keep life hilarious. Now Sister Webb is gone I don't have
anyone who wants to listen to my out of control dreams during exercise
anymore so I started a dream journal. I'm super lame now haha. Last
night the Sisters were trying to figure out what they were going to do
for a talent show they're going to tonight and said they would do
whatever we told them if we helped them. We taught them a squirrel
dance and then made them squirrel outfits, this is me squirrel dancing
in the kitchen. Plus this week since we have to tramp through the
flooded streets on a daily basis, my foot got infected with the filthy
road water and swelled up like a golf ball. I couldn't wear shoes, and
I couldn't get it wet but I still wanted to work so the answer, these
delightful blue rain boots! Everyone was loving it, random people love
to comment on the boots, so I've been galavanting around the sugar
cane in the blue boots this week. Worlds best finding tool!

Love you all, work hard every day and never stop progressing.
Bad things will happen to those who stop progressing.

Love you,
Sister McKim


No comments:

Post a Comment