What a week we
had! It was such a blessing and privelege to be able to skype my
wonderful family on Thursday. I hope that everyone had a merry christmas
back home and that those who traveled or are going to travel this week
do so safely :)
I
MUST share what happened to us this week. On Wednesday night, we
accidentally left our phone on silent before we went to bed, and were so
tired that we forget.. well the zone leaders were calling us making
sure we made it home safely because there were lots of drunks out,
celebrating the 24th (Christmas here is celebrated on the 24th for some
odd reason)..anyway, we were fast asleep when sister betty, the member
who lives below us, knocked on our door and woke us up, saying that she
was on the phone with the elders. They were very concerned and had
called her to see if she knew what had happened to us. So, my companion
got up and talked to them, letting them know that we were fine, in our
house sleeping! I went back to sleep within about 5 seconds, but my
companion couldn´t sleep. Apparently, like 15 minutes later, she heard
weird noises from the room where our desks are, as if someone was
shuffling through our notebooks. She ignored it the first time, but when
it happened again, she got up and tiptoed to the other room. She turned
on the light, (meanwhile, I am dead to the world, unaware of anything)
and finds a SKUNK in our garbage can, shuffling through the old food we
had tossed out, and the big chunk of bread on top that we didn´t want.
Luckily, he didn´t get too scared, just looked up at her, jumped down,
and ran outside, sqeezing through a small (very small) opening below our
door. I don´t know how he did it, because she said he was huge! and the
opening is tiny. Luckily, he didn´t spray her! Thursday morning, I wake
up, go to the bathroom, half asleep, and as I walk out, I notice a
little trail of garbage, from the door to the garbage can, and the big
piece of bread in front of the door. I follow the trail with my eyes
until I see my companion, and she, knowing what I was thinking,
said..."I´ll telll you after we pray." and then told me everything that
happened, meanwhile I slept through all of it, It gave us quite the
laugh and I still can´t believe he didn´t spray us, leaving our whole
house smelling like skunk! We got lucky.
We´ve
had a really hard time contacting in our area here, due to articles
that have been published recently in the newspaper..lots of false rumors
about Joseph Smith and the church, and it makes me sad, because even
though the name wasn´t published with the articles of who wrote them,
everyone believes whatever they see or hear. We try to contact people in
the streets or contact referalls, and they just want to fight with us
or make fun of Joseph Smith. It´s been a little tough but has made me
realize how important our own personal testimonios are. Whatever they
want to say on the news or in the paper won´t change my testimony that
Joseph smith was a prophet, called of God in this dispensation to
restore the Lord´s church back upon the earth. It´s such a blessing to
be able to share this truth each day and bare testimony of it. I know
that as we get closer and closer to the 2nd coming, the world will
continue to be worse and worse, with persecution even stronger and more
violent, and for that reason exactly, we have to have strong testimonios
and know for ourselves
President Monson says, "We
can rely on the faith and testimony of others only so long. Eventually
we must have our own strong and deeply placed foundation, or we will be
unable to withstand the storms of life, which will come”
This
new year, it is my goal that I can find new ways each day to strengthen
my testimony and hold strong to what I know to be true, no matter what
comes my way.
Until next year :)
Hermana Melody Maki
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