Personal missionary experiences #2

Some more parts of journal entries. :)

5/22/2007
   We had some awesome lessons today! We finally talked to Matthew about why he doesn't want to get baptized. He hasn't gotten an answer yet and he doesn't want to get baptized until he knows it's true. So he said he'll read the Book of Mormon every day for 2 weeks (which he hasn't been doing) and pray about it. Yay! And our other lesson... we're working with Robert and Jessica and their little girl, Isabella. Robert and Jessica were members but were excommunicated and want to come back now. We watched the first half of The Testaments with them. They loved it and they promised to read the Book of Mormon together as a family! Yay again! I love this gospel!

5/31/2007
   We were walking home from the train station today and we ran into a couple of ladies who were struggling to carry a lot of stuff. We stopped and helped them to their apartment which wasn't that far away from ours. They're from Turkey and don't speak English or Swedish very well. So our "conversations" were pretty interesting. Haha. They were really cool though. They invited us into their apartment for some juice to thank us for helping them. We gave them a pass-along card and told them about the website but we're not sure how much they understood. Oh well, they'll remember that we helped them and maybe, hopefully, they'll meet some missionaries they can talk to some day.

6/8/2007
   Sister Madsen and I were talking the other day about how interesting it is that we can have 6 hard, discouraging days and 1 wonderful day in a week and all we'll remember is that one wonderful day. That one wonderful day makes up for all the hard and discouraging days.
   We've been having a hard time staying motivated lately. It's actually not the fact that we keep getting turned down that's hard for me. What's hard, I think, is waking up exhausted and with sore feet, sore arms, sore back, sore everything, and we still need to go out and work. Then I concentrate so hard on everything people say and try to think of something to say back so my brain feels like it's going to explode. So at the end of the day I"m just totally exhausted yet I still should talk to that girl sitting at the bus stop and think about how I can help her rather than think about how much I want to go home. Then I do get home and know that I'm going to wake up and do it all again the next day. Just being out in public as a missionary is exhausting... being on our best behavior and happy all the time... oh well, it's good.

6/9/2007
   Today I read an awesome quote about motivation (like I was talking about yesterday). Elder Neil L. Andersen quotes President Hinkley in his talk this last conference. Pres. Hinkley said: "When [an individual] is motivated by great and powerful convictions of truth, then he disciplines himself, not because of demands made by the Church, but because of the knowledge within his heart." Then Elder Andersen adds: "Are we sufficiently motivated by 'great and powerful convictions of truth'? Do our choices reflect this motivation? Are we becoming who we want to become? It's true, isn't it? Then what else matters?"
   So I guess I need to be motivated because, well, I'm a missionary. I'm a representative of Jesus Christ and I'm on His errand. I should stay busy because I love Him. And because I love the people of Sweden. The best thing I can remember right now is that I"m doing this because I love my Savior, Jesus Christ. I'll do anything for him... so here's my perfect chance to show Him.

**For Personal missionary experiences part 1, click here.
**For Personal missionary experiences part 3, click here.