May 15, 2017
This Week
To give you a quick update on what happened this week… we went to Bolga and it was really incredible. I love going there and seeing the pigs and the people; the people there are so, so kind. It was wonderful.
And the Mother’s Day phone call was wonderful. I’m sorry that we got cut off at the end and you couldn’t hear me, but I heard every word that you said… all the way to that goodbye. It made me tear up a bit, actually.
Learning and Growing
Growing more is exactly what I was trying to say at the end of the phone call before we got cut off, as well as what I want to talk about today. I’ve been thinking a lot about my progression as a person. For sometime it has seemed like I was making little, maybe even backwards, progression in the ways that I wanted to grow the most.
When I was back home, my personality and my core nature were not always aligned. I would have a caring personality, but in my core I was still a prideful, arrogant person who thought he had everything figured out. The change that I’ve seen on my mission has been a slow correcting of that core nature, to have the integrity of sincerity inside and out and to lose any self-righteousness, any “judgemental-ness,” and any backbiting.
I remember one week after Church I was walking with my companion where I had taught a good Sunday School lesson and had overall enjoyed Church. I was bouncing from person to person trying to make as many people laugh and smile as I could. I know I felt the Spirit during the meeting and I wanted everyone else to feel it too. I took some time with a couple people who were down (one boy in particular) and I just tried to make everything better (just like I would if I was back home but this time with an added something). As we were walking away after the close of Church, I told my companion how much I enjoyed Church because I felt like myself. I felt like my true self. Weird observation, but this is how I truly felt. I felt like an agent. I felt like I was acting completely of myself, that I was doing good things (now I’m starting to tear up a bit), and I felt like I’m on my way to becoming exactly who God wants me to be.
This and That
There was one thing that I really wanted to share that I didn’t have the opportunity to say during the phone call yesterday. Dad, I’ve got the running itch. I’ve worked out on and off again throughout my mission kinda half-heartedly. I think the best shape I ever got into was when I was in Obuasi, where I worked out well for about 4 months then stopped.
I couldn’t sleep well one night. It was kinda hot and I just felt wide-awake while lying down. I took the phone that we share and saved a draft of a text message. On that draft I set goals. So I set some new goals. I set a goal for each race stretching from 400m to a marathon. I will not stop until I do everything I can to achieve my goals or get as close as possible.
I know that at the same time I have this determination for running, I have the same determination for the work of the Lord. Indeed, I am a disciple of Christ and I will hold true to that. True blue, through and through, right? Yeah. I’m on it.
That’s what I want to share this week. Sorry no new photos, I didn’t really take any recently.
All the best,
Elder Gilbert
Just Gilbert 