Week 55: "The love of God inspires us to be better people"

Hello!

My Preparation day has been changed to Saturdays, so now I will be emailing on Saturdays!

These past two weeks have been super crazy. The mission call of my companion Hermana Lara says that she will serve as a full time missionary- part time proselyting and part time in charge of the missionaries' health. As her companion, we receive calls from sick missionaries, we give them prescriptions, we go with them to doctor appointments, and we travel to different meetings giving health presentations to help them take better care of themselves. The funny thing is she is going home in December, so these weeks have been crazy learning the whole nurse drill as well as learning the area. But, it is so so fun.

Every time I have a companion that is going home, it gives me an opportunity to reflect on how much I have changed since I started the mission. I used to think that being humble only meant that you avoided recognition, so much that it stopped me from doing good works and I tended to judge people for their desires to do "big things". I used to think that avoiding conflict was more important than speaking my opinion, so much that I didn't defend even people I cared about. I used to think that being accepting of others meant withholding my ideas of how they could improve. I used to withhold from explaining clearly tough things that I was going through, but I've realized that the faster we recognize our weaknesses, the faster we can get a move on making them better. For example, when the woman caught in adultery was brought to Jesus, He, though being perfect, didn't judge her but DID tell her to change. Something important to note is that Christ didn't say, "It's okay to sin, carry on", which for me is a true example of unconditional love. The love of God is so big, it inspires us to be better people, it gives us a reason to change ourselves, to be better at self-monitoring. However, sometimes we don't realize certain things we need to change, we need someone to tell us with love STOP. Learning to receive this kind of correction as well as learning to give it, requires a BIG effort to do as Jesus did when he said, "Neither do I condemn thee, now go and sin no more". I am grateful for Christ's examples of humility and love found in the scriptures, because learning from other sources sometimes leads to confusion. Humility is not just avoiding recognition, conflict, or disagreements, it's accepting the fact that Christ expects us to start from where we are right now and to change to become more like Him.


Good luck this week in elections :)


Hermana Bernal