Adios

July 28, 2014

Dear Family and Friends

I woke up this morning, felt the cold bite my face, and pondered for a moment that in another life I don´t have to build a fire and chop wood first thing every morning. I heard the rain fall in a constant drum and closed my eyes and let myself love and already miss that Chilean lullaby that has been in the soundtrack of my life for the past year and a half. 

My heart aches with every goodbye. 

Tomorrow, in the morning, I take a bus and leave Puerto Cisnes, traveling all day to make it to the mission office, then travel Wednesday for Santiago and Thursday for home. Home. The idea that I will be able to give you all a hug, tell you all how much I love you--really see the very family that I have testified over and over has been blessed by the gospel--the parents who I have really only appreciated fully in my mission--the idea winds through my mind and brings me a smile. Joy. 

(p.s..the seven year old girl who is sitting in the library next to me just looked at me and asked me "do you know a lot of English?" I told her that I grew up speaking English and her eyes got really big: "WOW." so that´s why I speak funny in Spanish jajajajaja)

This week has been incredibly special. 

I came here and felt so strongly that there was someone that I had to find, a baptism that we had to accomplish…a reason. I began to fast every week, pray, begging, walk down the street praying in my mind to find them. Help to do what I needed to do. I thought we had it in the bag-I thought that nothing could stop Cata from getting baptized. She didn’t have her interview and so I thought it was going to be a last minute miracle--that she was going to have her interview and get baptized my last Saturday. I invited her with all the faith that I had, waiting for the miracle. 

And for one of the first times, I had to get used to the idea that I wouldn’t get what I wanted. 

I have written many times in the mission, writing about the incredible conversions that I have seen and been blessed to be a part of. 

But as I consider, in these last weeks, I have experienced my very own conversion. The Lord asked me to trust him. Asked me to trust in his timing, in his will, and in his plan. He pushed me in every form that he could these weeks--My plans and ideas fell through one by one, my hopes drained liked water that filters through my cupped hand--in spite of all my efforts they went falling. 

I had to get down on my knees and ask for help to understand the Lord´s will. Ask for faith to trust and move on. Repent for selfishly wanting things my way... for not being truly a representative of Jesus Christ. It was a new level of faith, of trust, of understanding and of repentance. 

And I began to feel a peace. A peace of being, a constant, soft joy of having the spirit that couldn’t be taken away no matter what happened through out the day. I learned to trust. 

And just when I gave him everything--my hopes, dreams, plans...Saturday night, when I had decided to do a fast of gratitude, I received a phone call. A phone call from hermana Velderrain, in my old area in Rahue Alto. It has always been my dream to baptize a priesthood holder for all my mission.  And she told me that Mijael--an investigator that I had found, taught, loved and worked with for months, had gotten baptized. (A priesthood holder, AND he was atheist when we found him!)  He got baptized on Saturday. My last Saturday.

How sweet the joy. The work of the Lord is so much more than what I can see in the moment. It is, as Greg told me, about the conversion of the soul. And I don’t have to be present in the moment of the ordinance to be part of the process. 

In the moment when I was begging the Lord for understanding, I felt the scripture: "Wherefore, be not weary in well doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great. "

And then he proved to me just how much be meant it. 

And the Lord knows. The Lord leads. He has given me not what I want, but what I need. 

I can never repay him for the gift of serving him in the mission. 

I will forever be in his debt. 

I love you all, more than I can say

HASTA VER!!!

Hermana  Monroe

P:S::: SO THAT YOU KNOW. One, I am whiter than a polar bear. Two, I smell like a chain smoker. But seriously...my very essence of being has the smell of a camp fire hahahahahaha