So this week it rained/flooded every day. This is why I don't have any new pictures because it would have been too risky to carry around my camera. Mom, just add a couple of older ones. Thanks.
Like all of you, I am really surprised that this week will mark 1 year in the mission for me. I am not sure if I don't believe it because it doesn't feel like that long, or because I don’t think I have ever stuck to anything this diligently for one year. I can’t believe that I have been a full time servant of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for a full year. I am so blessed!!
While reading the Book of Mormon this week I have come up with another “Chloe Theory” that has to do with the Pride Cycle. Why is it that every one says that the spiritual progression of someone on a mission increases by times 10? I have decided that it is because we go through the pride cycle about 10 times as often as we would in non-missionary life. Before my mission, sure I went through the pride cycle, but here it is daily. I wake up in the morning full of faith, exercise, study, and we head out to the streets of 9 de Julio. Our first lesson is a success, we’re feeling pretty good. After that, the doors get slammed in our faces; we forget how to be led by the spirit; we are discouraged; our appointments fall through, and we head to lunch down hearted.
After lunch during the Siesta, we do a little more studying, set goals with faith that we want to meet for the afternoon and nighttime, say a prayer of faith knowing that we need the Lord’s help and the spirit to achieve, and head out. With His help, we have great lessons where the spirit really teaches our investigator, and we are able to meet our goals. This daily process, of being destroyed and then built up by our faith in the Lord, allows for spiritual progression I didn’t even think was possible.
Although it is a painful experience, changing for the better is always worth it. As I we finished 2nd Nephi, I am just loving how much Nephi talks about the plan of salvation--specifically agency. Another reason I think that we grow on a mission is because we have given to Heavenly Father the only thing that He doesn’t require--our right to choose, or our agency. In order to be successful as a missionary, I must turn my agency over to the Lord, which is why obedience is stressed so much, because only by being meticulously obedient can we insure that we are doing things in the Lord’s way. At the same time, however, in submitting my will (following the mission rules and trusting in God’s plan for me), I also gain an unexpected but exhilarating freedom and joy that is only found in being true to myself. As it says in Alma 28:8, “And this is the account of (Chloe) and (her sisters), their journeyings in the (work of the Lord), their sufferings in the land, their sorrows, and their afflictions, and their incomprehensible joy.”
Love you all!
xoxo,
Hermana Chloe
PS. This week I am most grateful for my rain boots (short Hunter boots)--they are the best last minute purchase of my mission. Thank you Nordstrom Rack clearance rack :)
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