As weeks go, this one's been fairly normal and uneventful. We've been doing a lot of street contacting, with not too much success. On Thursday, however, something pretty cool happened.
We (Sister Baker and I) went to the church to help the Grahams (the married missionary couple here) with Institute. When we got there, it was a little past 7:00 and nobody besides the Grahams had come. We decided that if no one was there by 7:30, we'd call it quits and go home. At around 7:20, a man riding his bike passed our church, stopped, backed up, and started reading the bulletin board at the edge of the parking lot. Sister Baker and I approached him,k and he started asking a whole lot of questions about our church, how it started, what it is, what makes it different from other churches, and so forth. We ended up giving him a Book of Mormon, explaining to him what it's about, where it came from, it's history, etc, and then we gave him a tour of our church building. The spirit was very present during the tour, and he really enjoyed all that we told him,. We exchanged information and are hoping to meet up again later this week. :D
So, this ties in to what I would like to talk about today (that's a thing I tend to do, have you noticed?). I've been thinking a lot this week about the difference between simply being happy and making the conscious decision to be happy, no matter what happens. After reading a letter from my mission president to the mission, about his son (who has just left to serve a mission in Russia), and how, when the family accepted the call to uproot themselves and move to Germany, he had made a conscious decision to be happy, even though he was leaving his home and friends for a foreign place whose language he did not speak. President Kohler went on to explain that Tanner had always been a happy child, but this conscious decision truly amplified that aspect of him. Whenever the family or mission office was stressed, everyone knew that when Tanner walked in the room, he would be accompanied by a smile and warm greetings.
After reading this heartfelt and personal letter from the President, I challenged myself to choose to be happy this whole week, no matter what. There were times when I shed some tears. It's been a little stressful lately, and I became overwhelmed once or twice in the past 7 days. That being said, as soon as I realized that I was choosing to be sad, frustrated, or scared, I immediately put the thought "Hey choose to be happy" into my head, took some deep breaths, and did just that. I chose to be happy.
And you know what? It totally worked.
Growing up, I always kind of hated it when bad things would happen and people would tell me that I just needed to choose to be happy. It wasn't that easy for me. It still isn't super easy for me. When you're stressed out and hungry and tired and need to be somewhere in 10 minutes but you're nowhere near to being ready, plus, it's all happening in German, it can be real stinking hard to be happy about it. So something that I've done to help me choose happiness is to search for the tender mercies in my daily life.
The phrase "tender mercies" is found several times in the book of Psalms in the Old Testament. More often than not, it is paired with the phrase "loving kindness". Zum Beispiel: Psalms 103:4, speaking of Jesus Christ, says "...who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies. " Later on in Psalms 145:9, it reads: "The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works. "
We are showered with tender mercies every day. I love the term "lovingkindness". I don't have a lot of time right now, but when you think about that word, the fact that it's a word, and that's it's not just kindness, but lovingkindness, and just how pure and amazing that term is, it's pretty great.
When we stop and consciously choose to be happy, and we search out the tender mercies of the Lord, life becomes so much easier. There are scientific studies that show the difference in our lives of those who actively choose to be happy and grateful and those who just live in their own world. Be aware of your surroundings. Find the joy in the little things, even if you're not religious. I promise that, as you do that, life will become easier. Trials won't seem so scary. You'll become happier.
I'm out of time (that also happens a lot), so I've got to go.
I wish you all a wonderful week!
Liebe Grusse,
Sister Sally Priest
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