its called "Feet a Fish" or
in other words- a fabulous foot treatment where little Garra Rufa
fishes from the rivers of Turkey nip at your feet and eat off all the
hard/dead skin.
Oh
my goodness it was so crazy! I accidentally shrieked when I stuck my
feet into the water and dozens of little parasite fish started chewing
on my feet. But my missionary feet have never felt better!
Believe it or not this trip to the foot spa was our district activity!
How hilarious.
Its been a really good week! Twice as miserably cold as last week.... but just as wonderfully good.
We
met with our rad Polish friend again this week. We had been really
thoughtful and prayerful about what we should share with her, because
its been really hard to know what to teach and how to help her. And we
decided that we needed to have a lesson about humility. Because she is
so happy and independent and strong, and has a hard time accepting all
of the gospel doctrines and principles. We've been trying to help her
find faith, but it takes humility to feed your faith. So we all talked about what it means to be humble.
Whenever I've thought about humility before, I've always thought of
it as someone who is passive and quiet and confidence-less. But really,
that's not it at all!
Humility isn't thinking less of yourself, its thinking of yourself less.
Humility is turning outward and thinking about others and how you
can help them. Its putting aside your selfish natural man desires and
acting on something greater. To be humble is to recognize your
weaknesses and to realize that sometimes you are wrong. Its to accept
the fact that you can't do everything alone and to accept help from
others and from God. Being humble is being anxious to grow and willing
to change. When we are humble, we put our trust in God. We trust that
God has a plan for us and we trust that He will help us. We accept His
plan, we strive to follow it, and then we let Him help us all along the
way.
Humility is not a sign of weakness- its a sign of spiritual strength.
As
we were having this discussion and teaching this lesson, she really
recognized that this was something she needed to hear and learn and work
on.
And so did I.
I think the lesson was just as much
for me as it was for our inactive friend. And the funny thing is that
both my companion and the member who came to teach with us expressed
that same thing...
We ALL needed it.
We all need it.
As
human beings, we need constant humility reminders. Because the reality
of mankind is that we are just not naturally humble creatures!! We
constantly think about ourselves and our problems and our own desires.
Its the natural thing to do and its so easy to get caught up in.
Sometimes we spend too much time and thought and effort trying to make
ourselves happy,
But the real way to true happiness is forgetting yourself and focusing on helping others to be happy.
Forgetting yourself and turning outward. Turning outward to those around you, and turning outwards towards God.
Its true, "Happiness doesn't result from what we get, but from what we give."
At the end of our lesson, we all kneeled together. And our sweet friend prayed for the first time in she-doesn't-even-know-how-
And as the words of her humble heart-felt prayer filled the room, so did heaven.
All of the very best moments of my mission have been moments that I couldn't even see.
Because my head was bowed and my eyes were closed.
I've been so so blessed to teach some of God's children how they
can talk to Him. And so so blessed to listen to their quiet thoughts as
they utter their first words of prayer. There is nothing more humbling
or touching than witnessing that first communication between Father and
child.
It makes me think about my own earthly father, and
how I miss him so much! And how it means the world to me and makes me so
so happy to hear from Him. I know my dad misses me too. I know he loves
me and that he loves hearing form me while I'm over here so far away
from him.
And I know its the same way with our Heavenly Father. He misses us.
He loves us. He wants so badly to hear from us while we're down here on
earth away from Him.
Some people have gone their entire lives without even knowing that they can talk with their Father.
So that's been my favorite thing as a missionary... I love handing people the phone and saying Here, call home.
Sister
Hale and I wanted to do something nice for somebody this week. Its
pretty hard to find service opportunities in Denmark, seeing as its like
the richest country in the world....
Well it was one of our investigators birthdays, so we thought we'd
bake her a cake! Turns out it was the first birthday cake she's EVER
had. (I hope my baking skills lived up to her birthday cake dreams and
expectations!)
She was sooo happy that we made her a birthday cake.
I've really realized that service projects don't have to be 4 month humanitarian trips to Africa or India (even though I am definitely doing that next year!) Sometimes it's the simple acts of thoughtful loving kindness that really mean the most.
Its about time for me to leave the library and
get on with the rest of my p day.... Groceries and laundry and cleaning
and all that enjoyable stuff are on the agenda today!
Hey I love you guys a LOT and hope you have a fabulous week.
CTR.
Sister Rogers
