(I haven't asked my friend about posting the letter out, therefore, I put down all the names, except mine, to anonymous.)
Dear Elder XXX,
Hello, how are you doing in your mission? Sorry
that I have not sent you any words after you have gone for your mission.
Actually, I have been going through some tough times since this spring.
Luckily, I am going out of the tough loop and getting way much better
now.
Anyway, Brother YYY told us that you were having a hard time
and depressed in the mission. I hope everything is better right now.
In
the issue of Aug 2011, the Church magazine "Ensign" has a wonderful
article named "Taking His Name Upon Me". Here is the quote from the
article: "A few weeks into my mission, I began to feel lonely and a bit
homesick. I loved being a missionary, but the work was much harder than I
had anticipated. I missed my friends, my family, and all the familiar
things I'd left back home. During my personal study one
morning........As I looked at my name tag, I noticed that although my
first name was absent from the tag, I saw my family name, the name of
the Church, and the name of the Savior printed on it. Suddenly I
recognized something that changed both my outlook and my attitude. I
realized that as a missionary I wasn't there to represent myself.
Instead I was serving to represent my family back home and, most
important, I was representing my Savior and His Church." When I have
read this part of the article, I thought about you, and my own mission
experience.
On my first several months of the mission, before my mission trainer
went home, we had a great man from Mainland China which was in our
investigator list. He was a doctor and an atheist back in the Mainland.
It was his first time that hearing about Jesus Christ. I could tell
during our lessons that he really wanted to believe and be converted.
However, since the Gospel and the message about prayer were way too
different from what he has learned, he could not just take it and claim
he believed. My trainer and I were very frustrated on doing so, we could
only prayed for his acceptance to the Gospel. Although he did not
believe completely, he still let us went to his place and took the
lesson. Finally, we got through until the last session. We planned to
commit him again to get baptized and shared the last session. His friend
was supposed to drive us there as he had been doing it ever since we
started the lesson. However, a couple hours before our lesson started,
he friend suddenly called and told us that his car was broken while on
the way to our apartment. So, now was the time for us to figure out how
to get there by taking bus, subway or even ferry. (BTW, he was living in
an island.) We never took any public transportation to get to his
house. Plus, we did not know the exact address of it. According to some
unclear memories, we tried everything we could to ask the people on the
street and even the bus driver about that investigator's neighborhood.
Finally, we used almost 3 hours to get to the house, for which it took
us triple times more than usual. My trainer told me that accidents
always happened when the investigators were going to accept the baptism.
He told me that satan would try everything he could to prohibit anyone
to get into the Kingdom of God. After we had arrived, we had a wonderful
and spiritual lesson with the investigator. He was committed to get
baptized at last. I have learned so much through this experience. I am
so glad that I learned it when I was still a junior missionary. This
experience has strengthened my faith and testimony. If we gave up, or
set up the other time to go, we might miss the time to commit the
investigator. Moreover, we might not learn to rely on our God in Heaven.
I know that you have gained so much spiritual experience while you
are out there. Remember, ".....with an eye single to the glory to the
God.......", then you would understand more why you are out there. You
are not doing anything for yourself, but our Father in Heaven and our
Lord who is the only Begotten.
You have gone to the path so far and don't give up!!! Stay closed to
the Lord. Stay focused to your work. Stay patient to your
investigators, members and companions. You can do it, I know that!!!!
Take good care!!!!!!
With love,
Thomas
