I am officially at a loss with words. There are a lot of words I could use to describe my week, but none could ever accurately paint the picture or express how I feel. I can list off events or experiences that I have had, but the emotions of the mission are impossible to express...
But if I had to pick a word to put it all in one, that word would be "love".
Love for God, love for the Savior, love for the scriptures, love for temples, love for my companions, love for the beautiful people of Washington DC, love for my mission parents, love for the food, love for cold, humidity, wind, and rain, love for dresses and skirts, love for sore legs and prayers on our knees...love love LOVE!!
Just when I thought my heart couldn't take any more love or it might EXPLODE, we received a referral for a less-active in the ward that had recently moved here from Honduras. I won't use his name for the sake of privacy, but listen to his words and tell me you don't love him:
"Sisters, thank you so much for visiting me. I was visited by missionaries about 3 years ago when I was baptized. I want to be who I was 3 years ago. I want to repent, baptize my family, and prepare to serve a mission...but what I'd love the most is to see my three little sisters serve one themselves."
In Preach My Gospel it says, "As your understanding of the Atonement of Jesus Christ grows, your desire to share the gospel will increase. You will feel, as Lehi did, the 'great ... importance to make these things known unto the inhabitants of the earth'".
The determination and sincerity in his voice was yet another testimony to me that the Atonement of Jesus Christ changes lives. There is no doubt in my mind that this man has experienced the purifying, cleansing, and redeeming power of the Atonement. His desire to spread the good news of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ left the impression so deeply planted in the heart of the reality of a Savior who atoned for the sins of the world.
"He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him NOT.
Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of us all.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb so he opened not his mouth.
He was taken from prison and from judgment; and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the land of the living; for the transgressions of my people was he stricken.
And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no evil, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
Yet IT PLEASED THE LORD to bruise Him..." Mosiah 14:3-10
... And this because of the unconditional love burning in his heart for every human soul.
I love Jesus Christ, and I say it in His holy name, Amen.
Hermana Hayes
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