Kelsey's Mission Blog

Yoo!

this week has been a really good and awesome week. It's funny that as a missionary one can do so much, be busy from sun up to sun down seven days a week and then sit down in front of a computer after the week is over and have nothing to say. I guess it just stops being shocking after doing the same thing for a year. I got up I worked I met some great people, I met some not so great people, I testified of truth and felt the love of God and now I don't really have any stories about it. but I will think of some. 

The past few days have gotten really hot. as a result with real running water and high temperatures that means that there are now BUGS, EVERYWHERE. the first ten bug bites were a shock to me, I've already been taking vitamine B for like a week and it was as if there was no change in my blood stream. I'd feel a mosquito prick and swat it dead, five seconds later there was another two inches away from the first. and on top of them there are black flies, little tiny carnivorous bugs that look like gnats but are evil! they are impossible to catch, and unlike mosquitoes they actually bite a little piece out of your skin, and you don't feel it until the bug is gone and you're bleeding everywhere. and there are literally millions of them. there was a day last week that we were trying to contact a referral on a country road and after stopping the car I didn't want to get out, because the sky was dark with black flies that had followed our car. they knew. I ended up with 12 bug bites that day. 

and now I get bit so much that it doesn't even phase me anymore. I've gotten bug bites on my knee and ankle callouses, up and down my legs a few on my arms, one on my cheek and forehead, and one really annoying one on my pinkey toe! the bugs really are diabolical.

we also had a lot of good experiences this week with people. I think the hardest thing with being a missionary is that most people try to write us off as just another denomination, and that we're really cute but we can't possibly know what we're talking about because we're 21. welp turns out even 21 year old ladies can get on their knees and ask God for answers in prayer. I know that this pursuit is not just another denominational game, or semantics, it's what Christ would be sharing with you if he were walking around visiting people today. it isn't hard to know, just takes patience, prayer study and experience. I could care less what you choose to call yourself in the end, but the truth is that God has restored the Kingdom of God on the earth today, and the only way to know is by seeking an honest answer. like the savior taught, there was a man who spent his life searching for the best pearls, but when he found the pearl of great price he sold all in order to acquire it. to find peace in this life we will need to sacrifice a great deal to have it. 

but every so often on my mission I've run into people who are negative and hostile. they invite you into their home, extend welcome and kindness only for the chance to turn it on our heads. it kind of stinks. I'll have to be honest, I don't really like being told I believe in a false religion and that I'm condemned to hell. no one does. I always leave those situations wondering what I should have done. I always try to follow Elder Jeffery R. Holland's command to defend our beliefs with courtesy, but following these situations I'm always drawn back to the scriptures. Christ himself proclaimed that "God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved." how do people not see that they are contradicting the very book they claim to be absolutely divine? why should our desire to become like christ make anyone angry or malicious? we don't go around beginning our introductions with "oh by the way your sinners and you're going to hell," or with the venom that has incited religious wars the world over. how can they really believe, even if we are in fact incorrect, and they're right in that religion doesn't matter, that in the end we'll stand before God and that they'll be rewarded for malicious words? it doesn't make any sense to me. and then I wonder, in accounts where prophets in the Book of Mormon and the Bible stand up against incorrect detractors and set them strait, is that something that we are supposed to be doing? Alma and Amulek and Aaron are all powerful examples. but maybe that is just the difference between me and a prophet.

In any case, Life is Life, and you trust in God and keep going. I know that he lives, and that he loves me and that shouty man. It may take me a little longer to feel likewise, but hey, at least I'm working on it. 

something I saw on the church's website though made me happier in that respect: Perseverance Is a Hallmark in Europe

anyway. I hope that things are great for everyone this week, and remember, the easiest way to make sister christensen happy is to read the book of mormon.

:)