Congratulations!

Congratulations to Sister E.C., my former student, soon to be missionary! Thanks for letting me know about your mission call. I am SOOO excited for you. I hope you have great companions and joy in your service. Remember that the individual days seem long and tedious, but the months fly by. I know you will be a wonderful missionary.

I am going to take this moment to reflect on an experience from my mission. As a missionary, your time is the Lord's and not your own, and sometimes it is hard to know how to best fill your time to be the most effective. I had one companion who was a good woman, but she had some physical difficulties. I think when we were together was the only time that she was placed in a bike area instead of having a car. Her previous companion had belittled her whenever she physically couldn't keep up. Growing up she had also had some destructive experiences in her childhood. I soon came to realize that this dear sister's self-esteem was depleted. But I will never forget the day that I was frustrated because we kept missing our bus connections due to how slowly my companion walked. (We rode the bus because she couldn't ride a bike). I felt we were wasting time just standing at bus stops all afternoon. She suggested we stop by the Elder's apt on our way home, since we needed to drop something off. I worried that this was not the best thing we could do with our time, as some might think of it as a "social" call, but I agreed. As we were standing on the Elder's porch, a car drove up and parked in front of us. The man got out and called to us, "Hey, you guys. Who are you?" All four of us introduced ourselves, and the man explained how he had seen my companion and I waiting at different bus stops all day long. Everywhere he went, there we were. (He drove a lot as part of his job.) He felt like God was sending him a message and telling him he needed to talk to us. We spent the next hour sitting on the porch and teaching this man about the Book of Mormon. As we were together for 6 weeks, this sister and I had other similar experiences. Because of her faith and dedication, people often came up to us, instead of us having to find them. Together we set companionship goals to help build up her self-esteem, and it was a sweet and humbling experience for me. Heavenly Father knew what he was doing putting us together in a "bike area."