Zao an! (Good morning!)

Good morning!

This week was full of lots of missionary success and lots of painful companionship things.

My new companion is a bumbly, painfully-insecure girl from Washington who has been on Island for three months. She is always chattering out loud the thoughts in her head. When she is in a good mood, her words hop around us like butterflies. Unfortunately, more often than not, it seems she prefers to spit out bats. Negativity is a huge problem. She also has an incredible ability to transform the butterflies I try to speak into bats, taking offense really easily. I think she should go to Hogwarts. Another problem was that after having such an awesome, happy time with Sun Jiemei all the time, I have been  bit resentful of this experience and not as ready to jump in and solve problems as I should have been.  It has honestly been a really hard week, in this regard. But it is extremely humbling and helps me gain a lot of emotional/spiritual wisdom. And every time I have challenges like this, I always think, "This is an opportunity to prove to myself again that God is real, that the atonement is real." And I get to work trying to love and work slowly through the challenges as they come up each day. If I really believe any of this is true, then I need to believe that loving her is possible, that she is worth all the struggle every day.

Just about the truest thing in the world is that if a person has a hard time loving you, it is because somewhere deep down they don't love themselves enough.

I want to tell you quickly about a miracle that happened last night, between us.
I had been kind of depressed all day, because of lots of things that there isn't time to repeat. It was tough; my mind felt so clouded with my own hurts that I couldn't be the loving, enthusiastic, sensitive person I wanted to be towards others. At the end of the night, I decided I needed to talk about it with my companion. So we started to talk about it. I told her how I felt, and she got super defensive. We talked and talked, and got nowhere. I was kneeling on the floor and she was sitting on her bed scowling at me and I was seriously about to give up, just get ready for bed and keep despairing that our problems were unresolvable. Then I thought in God's direction, and I felt him tell me, "You need to love her, not reason with her."

So all of a sudden my approach changed. I smiled, genuinely, for maybe the first time all day. And even though it kind of felt like pulling teeth, I started to compliment her, and thank her, for the things she had done to accomodate me that week. I told her the way she had responded to those  situations could be a pattern for how we could solve problems together in the future, and that I was really very grateful to her. Her anger melted SO FAST, it was incredible! Within a few minutes, we were laughing together and things felt more free than I ever could have imagined they would be, just an hour earlier.

I should probably be writing about investigators and baptisms and lessons and the things we do each day. But honestly, these experiences in my heart are the crux of the gospel for me. I really do believe in God's ability to change my heart. I went to bed with a heart so full of thanks. Love is real, and it's there for us when we decide that we want it.


Love you all!

Sister Brown