The Last Stand

Well folks. It looks like things are winding up. 

 

It’s time for the final sprint.

 

The last hurrah. 

 

The end all. 

 

It is my last full week in the mission. My last go as a full time representative of the Church of Jesus Christ. Everyone keeps asking me how I feel. This is what I say. 

 

NORMAL. 

I feel totally normal. I feel like it’s just another week in which I’m gonna fight apostasy and faulty reasoning and preach the gospel to every creature under heaven, like a good man Paul once did. And then next week, I’ll feel a little weird. A little off. 

 

So I won’t write all my ´I’m grateful fors´ and ´I’ve learned´ just yet, I’ve got 7 LONG DAYS to get grateful for more stuff and learn more things. Asi que, the run down. 

 

This week, we had a multi-zone conference and I was forced to give my first “final testimony” against my will. 

 

The area doctor also spoke and he instilled an everlasting fear of diabetes and worms and parasites and in grown toenails in me. I’ve sworn off cookies and men’s church shoes forever more. 

 

Then they gave all the missionaries cell phones so that we can get caught up with the 90s. Good thing I’m leaving next week and TAKING ANDREWS SWEET PHONE. (Andrew left her his google Nexus phone since he just left on a two year mission)

 

We also went to church. And found some people who want to hear the gospel message. One man, Mario, had spent 10 years taking the missionary lessons!!! I think he knows more about missionaries and the gospel than I do. But for real. He was the nicest person I’ve ever met, and I was soooo intrigued by him. He isn’t a member. I asked him why he hadn’t been baptized, and he told me that he just had a few doubts, but that he loved this church. 

 

 

And then I remembered that they day before I’d read this article in the March Liahona that talks about the difference between doubt and questions. 

 

What, then, is the difference between a question and a doubt? Questions, when asked with a sincere desire to increase one’s understanding and faith, are to be encouraged. Many ancient and modern revelations have come as the result of a sincere question. The scriptural injunction to seek and to ask in order to find is among the most frequently repeated. Sincere questions are those asked with the “real intent” (Moroni 10:4) to better understand and more fully obey the will of the Lord.

A sincere questioner continues to be obedient while searching for answers. By contrast, I have seen that when people doubt their beliefs, they often suspend their commitment to commandments and covenants while waiting for answers. The doubter’s posture is generally to withhold obedience or limit it, pending resolution of the doubts.

Good stuff right?? Let’s have questions, but faith is not waiting to act until we have all resolved. Faith is acting and trusting in our Heavenly Father, knowing he will reveal all to us as we are true and faithful. 

 

 

I love you all. I’ll write something really inspiring next week I promise. 

The book is blue and the church is true. 

 

Love, 

Hermana Hirschi

 

Also Sis Smith sat down for lunch one day at a bar stool and the screws magically popped out and the chair collapsed and I came UNDONE. Still laughing. Furniture round these parts y'all. TOP NOTCH.