So this week was filled with lots of new people, new
experiences, and new perspectives!
On P-day this last week, we were passing in the mission
office and we get this frantic phone call from this guy in our ward bursting
with excitement and energy and was like I HAVE TO TALK TO YOUR MISSION
PRESIDENT AGORA. (NOW)
Apparently, he had been invited by a friend to participate
in this huge religion forum that recognizes all these different religions from
around the world, and everyone presents themselves and they were organizing
this huge peace ceremony - like we're-all-BFFS-no-beef to honor all these
different groups and cultures of people. And Emerson was frantic that he was
the ONLY one there to represent the church and that he needed missionaries or a
Book of Mormon or at LEAST a nice looking shirt - and thus President quickly
cancelled any plans we had, and the trio missionaries of Natal was practically
pushed out of the mission office and into an UBER to head to this event. 
IT WAS THE COOLEST THING EVER. They had Budhists, Catholics,
people dressed in traditional Indian headgear, Baptists - around 23 different
religious representatives - and each one took a turn standing and bearing a
statement about their religion and presented an object to represent themselves.
To see cute little Emerson stand alone, surrounded by all these educated and
older men in fancy clothing, bearing simple yet firm testimony of Christ and
His true living and restored Church on the earth (complete with an old youth
camp tshirt e Livro de Mormon).. was pretty valiant stuff.
And we met a lot of people which was really interesting to
learn about their beliefs. We all have the same end goal, just different means
of expressing and getting there. But the amazing thing is that sometimes we try
to make things a whole lot more complicated than they need to be - religion and
which church and money and logistics - we don't need to have 10/20/30 different
paths, God already gave us THE ONLY path - our Savior Jesus Christ.
Through Him and His guidance, we can't go wrong guys, we
just can't.
#IamtheLIGHTandtheLIFEoftheworld
This week I found out just how much God was willing to test
me - where my heart was, my conversion, my reason for being on a mission, my
dedication and patience, but most importantly my faith. He really wanted to know if I actually believed
everything that I had always cherished in my heart - if I actually
trusted Him or if I only said that I did.
So Saturday was a HUGE day that had a lot at stake, and I
really didn't know what I was going to do or which words these people needed to
hear or ANYTHING. But the amazing thing is that sometimes God throws us a huge
challenge for which we feel unprepared. He tests us with things that make us
feel overwhelmed or stressed or uncertain because He wants to know if we really
trust in His ability to strengthen, alleviate, and empower us. Often our faith
comes easily, we feel the burning and trust in our hearts because it's good and
powerful, but there ALWAYS comes a moment that we are compelled to make a
decision -
trust or don't trust,
act or don't act.
What good is our faith if we aren't willing to act, really
trust, and tackle something that scares us?
food for thought :)
also dying because my companion hates approaching guys on
the street and meeting new people and so we did some practices that DEFINITELY
included a lot of me pretending to be a boy #completewithgoateyesanddirtbeards
#girlscampalloveragain
Sending my love!!
Sister Staheli
