my mark on Denmark: There is sunshine in my soul todayyyyy!

Man was I thankful for the few bright rays of sun that broke through the clouds this week.

Sister Hadley and I had big goals and big plans and big hopes for this week. We had so many lessons planned with all of our rockin investigators that we didn't even think we'd ever have time to eat lunch! But one after another all of our appointments were canceled and burned and postponed and rescheduled. What we thought would surely be the best busiest most successful week of our entire missions turned out to be quite the opposite.

How discouraging.

Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever set a goal and then fallen so short of it? Have you ever just felt like a failure?

Of course you have... we all have big goals and big plans and big hopes. And sometimes we just fall short.

After I've "fallen down" a couple times I find myself thinking that I must just be "clumsy." That it must just be the way that I am.

Sometimes we assume that because we've fallen down before, falling is our destiny. We might even feel so discouraged by our shortcomings and failures that we find ourselves thinking that we will never be able to succeed.

We think its our nature to fall short of whatever it is that we're trying to accomplish. That its our nature to give in to a temptation that we struggle with. We think its our nature, that its just the way we are and the way we'll always be forevermore.

Well its true- after Adam fell, it did become our nature to fall.

But the more important truth that I think we often forget is that our nature can change.

Every thought, every word, every action changes us. For better or for worse.

That's the purpose of the gospel- to help us choose good thoughts and good words and good actions, so that we're always changing for the better.

But all the while the adversary's method is to change us for the worse- one thought and one word and one small act at a time.

I think he really likes to convince us that we're failures. He likes to confuse us about who we are and what we truly desire and what our real potential is.

President Uchtdorf explains it so well-

"We want to spend time with our children, but we also want to engage in our favorite hobbies. We want to lose weight, but we also want to enjoy the foods we crave. We want to become Christlike, but we also want to give the guy who cuts us off in traffic a piece of our mind. Satan's purpose is to tempt us to exchange the priceless pearls of true happiness for a fake plastic trinket that is merely an illusion and counterfeit of happiness and joy."

Sometimes we fall. We fall short and we fall down. Falling is what we do! "But as long as we are willing to rise up again and continue on the path.. we can learn something from failure and become better and happier as a result."

We just can't let our shortcomings define or discourage us.

The best thing about the gospel is that there is ALWAYS hope. There is always someone there with outstretched hands- waiting to help us up again when we've fallen.

I've learned a lot from this week of failures....

I learned that its really important to make really good back up plans so that when things fall through I have somewhere to go!

I've learned that maybe its not the best idea to overestimate myself... its probably a good thing to plan time to eat and time to breathe!

I've learned to keep going. Even when it seems like nothing else could go wrong I've learned to keep my head up and keep going. (Ok lets be honest I've been learning this one my whole mission, and I'm still learning it every day...)

And I've learned that there's always little bits of success stashed in the corners of my failures. Not success in the form of lessons taught, but success in the form of lessons learned.

Lots of good things did happen this week though....

My companion and I celebrated valentines day with blondies and ice cream and pajamas and candles and awkward date memories.

And one day we visited a friend in the hospital and played guitar and sang to her, and all these hospital workers came and applauded for us afterward.

And then we contacted a man on the street one day who gave us his address and told us to come by. Turns out he lives in a crazyhouse with a bunch of creepy people. But hey, he came to church on Sunday!

We also learned how to knit from one of the less active ladies in our ward. I finally got the hang of it and my new goal for 2014 is to knit myself a sweater!

I hope you guys all have a great week. If you get bored you should like youtube a knitting tutorial. Because knitting is really quite enjoyable.

But if your attempt at knitting a sweater turns into an utter failure, or if you fall down or fall short in any of your other goals or hopes or plans, don't give up. Look up. Reach up.

"Trust in Him. Trust Him who knows all things. Trust Him who has all power. Trust Him who's love for you is perfect. Trust Him, who alone, suffered, paid and atoned for your sins, and your weaknesses as well. Trust Him that He will make of you immeasurably more than what you will ever, ever, in all eternity make of yourself.

He will create of you a masterpiece. You will create of you only a smudge.

You will create an ordinary man. He will create a God." -Lawrence E. Corbridge

Jeg elsker jer! Have en dejlige uge.

XOXO

Sister Rogers