Привет!
This week was full of so much laughter and SO MANY MIRACLES! Sister Goodell is truly one of my best friends. I am grateful we get to start and end our missions together. We love each other and have the drive to be better together. We talk to EVERYONE, especially knowing that we only have a couple more weeks to do so here. We love representing Jesus Christ!!
The work:
I title this blog, "God’s Human Hands" because of an experience we had with a woman on the street. She almost started crying multiple times on the street, saying to us, "I take this as a sign, as my personal message from God that there is hope. You gave me hope again." As we dutifully redirected to GOD any praise she gave us, she said, "Yes, but sometimes God needs human hands." What a privilege to be God’s human hands in her life on the street.
As we walked out the doors on Friday morning, the first person we stopped on the street was a very sweet man. He was probably in his 30s and he had a wife. After talking about joy on the street, he said, "I was actually just at work, but I was on my way to the store to grab some breakfast. If you would just wait 10 minutes while I go grab food, you can come back with me to my office and meet my work buddies. You can teach us all!" Our jaws dropped as we accepted the offer. The nice man went and bought us strawberries and pastries, then we went to his work office. We drank herbal tea and ate as we discussed faith, repentance and even baptism. We talked for almost 2 hours. He has such an open heart to learning. We were blown away. We will be meeting with him together with his wife this week. Truly an amazing experience.
Here is a picture of us after we walked out of his office with my jaw dropped!
We have found many people here that are "searching for truth." One girl we met with is searching. We taught her the truth that she is a beautiful daughter of god. He loves her, and we know she loves him! We went around in a circle and repeated the words in our different languages (Estonian, Lithuanian, Russian, and English). Amazing, powerful experience. This week, like me, she has been telling herself every day in the mirror, "I am God’s beautiful daughter. He loves me, and I love him." Such a powerful truth. If you truly understand your identity as a daughter or son of God, everything else makes sense, including your life purpose.
For the past 6 months, I have been listening to our prophet President Russell M. Nelson's talks from the beginning of his service until our current day. There are so many talks and speeches, but I FINISHED THEM THIS WEEK! I learned so much from him. The biggest thing I learned is that he bears his sincere, strong testimony at the end of each of his talks. He almost ALWAYS ends with, "Jesus is the Christ. This is His church. It is being led by his living prophet today. We are his people." Such a powerful testimony. Since realizing his pattern, I have taken the opportunity to bear my testimony more often. It has been powerful to end many of my conversations with my testimony. I know that Jesus is the Christ. This is His church. I love Him, and I am grateful to know He loves me!
Sister Button got here this week! She is Sister Wightman's new companion.
Sister Button and I are the "trainees" here in Vilnius.
Sister Button and I are the "trainees" here in Vilnius.
Say hello to the Russian speaking missionaries!
"Russian smiles" and all.
One of our friends taught us how to draw cubes.
Culture:
Today is the longest day of the year! In Estonia, the sun only goes down for about 30 minutes, then comes right back up! In Lithuania, it goes down around 10 p.m. In the Baltics, it is common to build a huge bonfire and many get drunk and try to jump over the fire...so there ya go!
Some people here ride electric scooters to work (like Razor scooters).
Yellow watermelon is a thing here!
The ILP students here are awesome!!! It was so fun to have lunch with them and talk in American English with them.
Here is one of my besties and me eating Asian food in Lithuania.
Funnies:
We were talking to another woman who works at an ice cream shop. It sounds silly, but I felt a strong prompting the whole time that I needed to buy ice cream from her, even though we had just gone over to talk, not to eat ice cream. So, I bought some ice cream (her favorite flavor of course), and she gave it to me FREE! Again! Free ice cream for the second time in Lithuania. I like this country!! :) Sister Goodell said jokingly, "Maybe God just wants you to get fat before you go home." HAHAHAHAH
This is the girl who gave me free ice cream LAST week.
Lol - the apartment we moved into was was so dirty. We spent so much time cleaning it. When we finished, we took a selfie of us lying on the floor to show it was clean enough to lay on the floor!!
As we walked out of our apartment, I was writing something in my planner and ran straight into a sign HAHAHAH. My head was totally fine after a second, it was just really funny.
(Mom comment: There is SafetyZone video on that exact point, "Pedestrian Safety." We have missionaries who get injured hitting their heads just like that: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/media-library/video/2019-01-0007-pedestrian-safety?category=missionary-safety&lang=eng. Love you - be careful;) To other missionary parents out there - there are ten missionary safety videos available at the link above once you scroll down the page. Each video represents a primary safety issue your missionaries face.)
Spiritual thought:
I had an interesting experience on the bus...I was observing some teenagers near me. They were just goofing off. One of them came to sit next to me. She seemed very sweet. I started talking to her, and she said she believed in God but didn’t really talk about it much. It was clear she was shy about her faith, as she knew she might be persecuted for it. Her friends saw us talking, saw I was a missionary, and they started pointing and cussing at us. I tried to make the girl laugh and keep her attention on me and on God instead of her mean friends, but she eventually stood up and went over to her friends again. For some reason, even while being made fun of and cussed at, my smile would not leave my face.
I thought about Lehi's dream about the tree of life described in the Book of Mormon (1 Nephi 8, page 14). In the dream, there were many who tasted of the fruit of the tree of life (i.e. tasted of the joy of God’s love from a short conversation on a bus with a representative of Jesus Christ), but were "ashamed" and fell away (i.e. too embarrassed and moved seats). I know God is merciful, and He will give that girl many more chances to accept His love. But I felt true Godly sorrow for her. I wanted her to feel of God’s love for her!! I hope she felt it even just a little bit.
As I was being persecuted as well, and as a man observing the situation also said something mean to me, I felt true peace and joy. That joy is a fulfillment of this scripture in the Book of Mormon (one of my favorite things Jesus teaches):
11 And blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake;
12 For ye shall have great joy and be exceedingly glad, for great shall be your reward in heaven; for so persecuted they the prophets who were before you. (3 Nephi 12:11-12)
I felt great joy and was exceedingly glad!! I know that joy was a blessing and gift from God. I am thankful for it.
Trust in the Lord. Choose joy. Find peace.
Õde Smith-Driggs
2 Cor. 9:15 - Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.
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