This week I grasped the concept of Paul/in his earlier life Saul and his trials and his work to bring the gospel forward! I admire him and his zeal and faithfulness after his conversion, even knowing he had done wrong in the past, he moved on and did what God asked of him.
Also, Alma 29 this week really hit me! Alma said, "O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people!
Yea, I would declare unto every soul, as with the voice of thunder, repentance and the plan of redemption, that they should repent and come unto our God, that there might not be more sorrow upon all the face of the earth.
But behold, I am a man, and do sin in my wish; for I ought to be content with the things which the Lord hath allotted unto me."
Sometimes I also sin in my wish that I could get on a very, very high tower and go cry repentance to EVERYONE all at once and everyone would want to turn to correct paths.
But, Alma continues, "I know that he granteth unto men according to their desire, whether it be unto death or unto life; yea, I know that he allotteth unto men, yea, decreeth unto them decrees which are unalterable, according to their wills, whether they be unto salvation or unto destruction."
Why are we happy as missionaries? Because "I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it. I do not glory of myself, but I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy. And behold, when I see many of my brethren truly penitent, and coming to the Lord their God, then is my soul filled with joy; then do I remember what the Lord has done for me, yea, even that he hath heard my prayer; yea, then do I remember his merciful arm which he extended towards me"
"Yea, and that same God did establish his church among them; yea, and that same God hath called me by a holy calling, to preach the word unto this people, and hath given me much success, in the which my joy is full."
Amen.
The beginning of this week was very crazy and sleep-deprived. We welcomed 11 new Elders fresh off the plane and all their trainers and bought them sandwich meat and had to scan some legal documents so we spent a day like office sisters? Sister Allred accidentally called this Elder "Bowels" instead of "Bowles", and of course he is the one that ended up getting trained here. Clearly we are very mature. #crijeva
President Grant, The Zagreb Sestre, Sister Grant.
Podgorica, the newest city in our mission (wait I take that back, we just barely barely opened up ČAČAK!) and the only city open in all of Montenegro, which is only opened to Elders, has had two baptisms lately! Elder Harris is there and he is training again and his other trainee he just trained is training too. No unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing! Awesome to see the work there.
Two good tracting stories this week--- we have been doing that more so than contacting lately cause it is getting colder and darker earlier and I think rained for a solid 3 days straight this last week! So Sister Allred and I are a power companionship in that we are fine with working hard and naporan, fine with talking to people, getting yelled at, threatened, whatever we handle it and move on and work harder. EXCEPT
We laugh so much. And I am not even kidding you I think Satan knows that and sometimes he gets us! We see a huge pug dog waddling down the street and we chuckle through a contact or whatever. Anyways so we get to this door tracting and it says "FAJT BARNABAS" and sister allred is like "faaat" and we had already rang the doorbell, this large stara baka comes to the door in a huge bright neon sweater and Sister allred said it just sounded like I was really emotional as I was trying to explain the another book about Christ. We were laughing very very much a lot after that door. Even when we finished the 8 story building and were on the tram home we were laughing so hard, I cried all my makeup off! Everyone was staring at us. At least they know we are joyful in sharing the good word!
Story 2 //// I cant find the dash or the apostrophe anymore on this keyboard. Europe problems. Another day we are doing this building and there was what I call a "hall of no return." You get into the building and onto a floor but then instead of a free for all all the doors are available to knock on, you have to buzz a clear glass door to even get let into the HALLWAY to get let in. So if you ring the bell, someone has to walk out there door and down the hallway to even see who it is. So this man in his 50s talks the long walk down the hall of no return and cracks like door open and says are you jehovahs witnesses? I say "no, we/re mormons!" He says "even worse!" and makes his way back into the hall of no return.
So we are like two floor down and this same guy comes back and is like actually, I want to apologize and I have a feeling I should ask you what your church is and how it is different from the Catholic church. Sweet! So we start testifying, Joseph Smith, the proper power from God, baptism, the whole 9 yards. Then he felt the Spirit and I am not even kidding I think it scared him and was like well, my church is older than yours and I will never read your mormon book! and walked away! Zanimljivo.
This week is full of good stories/ I am writing in my journal one night and Sister Allred comes jumping out of our room and is like.. Theres a bee in my laundry!!!!!!!!!!! I kind of chuckled but opened the door and there was this huge thing the size of a large baby carrot buzzing in her laundry basket and then got all crazy in our small room! So I herded it outside using a crusty kitchen towel, some yelling, and turning on and off different lights and opening the windows. We slept with our windows closed that night and woke up all sweaty. Yum.
PS "like" facebook.com/mormoni.rs
facebook.com/mormoni.hr // the edited orange pic is SO GOOD
Robin told us that when she got out of the font and I wrapped a warm white towel around her and hugged her even though she was all wet that is the first time she has ever felt a motherly influence in her life. Like a hug a mother would give. It made me cry! She is a really special lady. We talked about goals and the temple this week with her. She is a blessing to the branch.
Our phone kind of, the sim card broke this week and we had a mission public affairs meeting and some other interesting things where we really needed our old phone. I really laid on the floor one night and told sister allred that when I get back I will just hibernate in a glass case at home for 3 days because my body and mind are very tired! But enduring to the end also!! We have THREE members of the seventy coming to ZAGREB in the next 8 weeks.. it will be busy and good.
all the new elders and their future trainers
That's it for this week. I have reviewed some conference talks and a few old talks as well from Elder Holland, and I just want to end with, IT WILL AT WORK OUT! President Grant always always quotes me as, when I lost the car when I was serving in Rijeka, he called the senior couple and I ended up talking to him and I was like, "Don't stress president! Just don't stress!" (car got towed haha but it all worked out!) God did not send us on this earth to be constantly worn out and fretting! He sent us here to help us learn and grow and we can be happy as we do so! Even when life sometimes gets shaky!
Volim vas,
Sestra Richardson
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