It's getting better (March 24, 2009)

Well folks, it´s been quite a rough battle the past few weeks. I was feeling incredibly tired and slow starting about a month ago and then my hair started to fall out and I got extremely emotional. Everyone told me it was stress, and to keep going along and things would get better. But after weeks of hair falling out and crying without cause, what woman doesn´t get a little worried? I called the Sister of the mission, and we´re in the process of getting blood work and urine work done to see if there´s not a problem with my thyroid. I´m alive and working, but as any missionary knows, when you´re not physically well, the work in the mission doesn´t seem to go all that well too. A lot of prayer and fasting has gone into this process, and I think I got a good reminder from my mother too this week too that often we need to share our difficulties with others in order that they can serve us and help us. She also reminded me that admitting to something does not mean that you are weak, but often that joy and relief can be found in confiding in others.

We had a particularly difficult week, as my companion and I seemed to be slammed with an amazing amount of "NO´s". I´ve never had an area in my mission where people were so brutally cold and rude in respect to not wanting to receive a message, or anyone from the Church of Jesus Christ every again. Sunday night during planning we literally cried over the week and over what we felt were our failures. We prayed and literally pleaded that the Lord might bless us in this area. We both woke up Monday morning, humbling trying to make the best of what looked like would be another day of 'no´s' and "0´s" in respect to numbers. We prayed and talked and planned about what we could do better. We started out teaching a short lesson to a woman who told us she was baptist, and that she was happy in her church, but that her mother had received the lesson from the missionarios some time ago and we could come back to visit her mother. We also visited a member who´s going through a stage of depression and she invited us to visit her aunt who´s dying from cancer and help her clean her house. We made an appointment for later this week. We also were able to teach the wife of a excomunigated member who is returning to church. They are really awesome people, extremely honest and humble about their mistakes and their desires to do better.

We are already seeing light at the end of the tunnel, and I know with all my heart that even in the darkest moments, the most important thing that we need to do is pray and have a hope that things will get better, but we also have to have a desire to get up everyday and do our best, because as we know, "faith, without works, is dead". Heavenly Father knows us, and knows our needs. He also knows our capacidades and our abilities to overcome our weaknesses. If we turn to Him in all that we do, He has the power to make our weaknesses our strengths and to see us through.

I found this talk particularly inspiring for me as well. It was originally addressed to Priesthood holders (men), but I know that it applies to all of us as well. It is from Elder James j. Hamula (Winning the War Against Evil):

While God’s kingdom has been established on the earth in times past, the people to whom the kingdom was previously committed were unable to keep it. This time, however, is different. The prophetic promise is that this time God’s kingdom will not be lost but will overcome the world.

To ensure its ultimate success, the final restoration of God’s kingdom has been commenced with unprecedented spiritual power and is being sustained by that same spiritual power and something more. Reserved to come forth in these last days and labor for our Father and His Son are some of the most valiant and noble of our Father’s sons and daughters. Their valiance and nobility were demonstrated in the pre-earth struggle with Satan. There, “being left to choose good or evil,” they “[chose] good” and exhibited “exceedingly great faith” and “good works.” Such are the traits that are now needed to sustain the work of God in the earth and to save the souls of men from the intensifying wrath of the adversary.

Now, my young friends of the Aaronic Priesthood, you are these valiant and noble sons of our Father! You are the strength of the Lord’s house, His warriors! You are those who chose good over evil and who exhibited “exceedingly great faith” and “good works.” And because of your personal history, you were entrusted to come to the earth in these last days to do again what you did before—to once again choose good over evil, exercise exceedingly great faith, and perform good works—and to do so in behalf of the kingdom of God on the earth and your fellowman!

With God’s kingdom restored to the earth and your entry into the world, Satan knows that “he hath but a short time.” Therefore, Satan is marshalling every resource at his disposal to entice you into transgression. He knows that if he can draw you into transgression, he may prevent you from serving a full-time mission, marrying in the temple, and securing your future children in the faith, all of which weakens not only you but the Church. He knows that nothing can overthrow God’s kingdom “save it [be] the transgression of [his] people.” Make no mistake about it—the focus of his war is now on you—you who seek to “keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”


Have a wonderful week everyone,
Sister Tittelfitz


In the President's home


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açai na tigela- a Brasilian delight