This week was super good. I got to spend lunch with Sis. Soza and Sis. Cottrell one day which was great! A new Spanish branch broke off from our ward at the beginning of the transfer so we have been working hard to get the ward list sorted out and help the Silver Lakes branch know what missionary work they have.
We've also continued teaching the man I talked about last week. He is awesome! We asked him to read Alma 40 to answer some of his questions on resurrection and he read through Alma 51! He is really engaged and I love watching him find answers to things he has wondered for a long time. Teaching is the greatest!
Also, I got a letter from S. Gailey this week and she told me that they had a bible referral come through for someone S. Morrow and I knocked into and shared a prayer with! I have thought about her a lot and I am so glad she re-connected with the missionaries and was able to go to church. She has a baptismal date!!
The lesson I wanted to share this week happened in Panda Express. Our meal appointment had to cancel and we were pretty far from our house, so we decided to go to Panda Express. When we walked in, the staff was obviously overwhelmed because someone had not shown up for work. The manager asked one of the guys to call someone in, so the guy was in the corner quickly making phone calls. The manager yelled at him to come back and was super stressed. I saw irritation briefly cross the guys face but then he came back to the counter with the biggest smile and proceeded to calmly single-handedly put the shift back in order while also making every single customer feel listened to and patient. Meanwhile, all around him, the manager was going crazy and did not look like he was enjoying work very much.
So thank you, Panda Express guy, for teaching me the power of staying calm and letting go of offenses instead of holding a grudge. He had plenty of people to be irritated with- the person who missed their shift, his manager, the complaining customers, etc. But instead he just peacefully went about doing what he could, controlling what he could, and brushing off the rest. Props.
With that, I re-read an account of Joesph Smith this week. A woman came to him upset about rumors another woman was spreading about her, because she felt they were untrue. His advice to her was to go home and think about the rumor. Could she think of ANYTHING she had done to provoke it? Was there anything she had said or done that could have been mis-construed to become the rumour? Joseph said that if he had truly searched and could not find anything, he brushed it off and moved on because the truth would sort itself off and he was good with God. However, if he did find something, even if it was small, he was grateful instead of angry because he was now aware of a weakness or fault he did not know he had, and could now fix.
Isn't that the greatest attitude ever? It is something I am working to apply to my life and I have already seen a difference! It is the best.
I love you all so much and hope you have a good week!!!
-Sister Bren Scadden