I'm Just a Person

Monday, June 8, 2015

Hello all! This week, I went to the Swiss temple, took pictures, but forgot my camera at home.  So you'll all just have to wait until next week, k?

Moving on to the letter --

Last night, reality hit my companion and me pretty hard.

Backstory is needed.

We have an investigator, N, who wants to be baptized.  Long story short, she can't get baptized until she gets married, but the German government is requiring a somewhat ridiculously large number of unrelated papers and letters from a country that doesn't have such things, which makes getting married a difficult thing for her to do.  She also does not speak German, which puts another wrench in things.  She's been working at this for over 8 months.

So, a couple of weeks ago, she told us she had an appointment to try to get things moving on June 8th (today!).  We offered to be her translators, but she told us she already had someone lined up.  Well last night, she called us and said her friend had cancelled on her and she needed help.  Sister Smith and I exchanged looks, asked if we could call her back, and went to work.  We had planned to go to Switzerland again today, along with other things.  On Mondays, we only have to do 3 hours of missionary work.  It's basically our "Saturday".  The rest of the day is dedicated to grocery shopping, cleaning, emails, and whatever else we'd like to do (within reason).  We had already planned our 3 hours of missionary time, and needed to go through with them (another story, which I'll tell after this), so we canceled everything we could, rearranged, and figured it out.  While we did this, a feeling of urgency came over us.  We called our Mission Leader, who told us he randomly had gotten today off, meaning he could come and be a much  better translator than us, because his German is better and he understands the government here waaaaaaaay better than the 20 year old American girls.

SO, everything started falling into place last night.  When she first called us about this weeks ago, we really felt like we were the ones who needed to be there, but we didn't want to be pushy.  Now we were going to be there.  Benji (Ward Mission Leader) had the day off.  He knows the people who work there and he's a fantastic influence.  The train times worked perfectly for us.  N. spends half her time up near Frankfurt, in a different mission - We've been in contact with the Elders there, and called them to inform them of what was going on.  They had been feeling that something was about to happen, and they had asked their whole ward to pray for N, whom they haven't seen much of, and they did.  Everything was in our favor.  It felt so right.  There was some definite divine intervention in the organizing of this meeting.

But what goes up must come down.

As we calmed down and processed the good news, our thoughts drifted to someone who will remain unnamed.  This person has been struggling the past few weeks.  As we considered how we could help them, a very real feeling of fear started creeping into our home.  We were discussing the problems and how we could help this person avoid them, the reality of Satan's presence in this world hit me.  I've said this before, and I'll say it again: THe war between good and evil, God and Satan did not just magically end with the biblical times.  It rages stronger than ever on the earth today, and we must be aware of the evil influences that appear in our lives.

I have felt fear in my life.  I felt it when I lay in a hospital bed, unable to move my legs, unsure if I would ever walk again.  I felt it when I realized I had made mistakes that could have potentially ruined my life.  I felt it when I watch ed a child I love turn blue from lack of oxygen, a reaction to a birth defect which threatened her life.  I have felt it many times, and I will feel it many times more.  This fear last night, however, was very different.  I hadn't felt this before.  I felt as if the devil himself was laughing at me.  Laughing at my attempts to help this person escape his grasp.  Laughing at me, the 20 year old girl, living out of her element, speaking a language she doesn't fully understand.  I'm just a person.  And it was kind of terrifying.

And then I laughed back.  I took control, planned, prayed, and pondered.

It's that easy.  Well, sometimes it is.  I think it was only that east for me, because I know where I stand. I know I stand in a higher place than the adversary.  I know that GOd will never be defeated.  I know that, no matter how scary things may seem, everything is going to be okay.
To give you some closure, Nancy's meeting went well.  A lot of progress was made.  Steps forward were taken.  As for the Unnamed, we did see them today, and were were able to help them take a step forward as well.  I would like to point out, however, that none of this would have happened if it weren't for the Lord.  I didn't really do much of anything.  I just followed the promptings I got, inrprovised a little, sprinted to catch a train, and just stood there and smiled.  The presence of the Spirit that came with me did the work.  I'm just a person.  And its kind of awesome.

I love you all!
Read, Pray, Love!

Sister Sally Priest