"Success is Not a Matter of Luck"

I think I hit the biggest change of my life in the mission this past weekend, but let me start from the beginning,

Last week I hit rock bottom, never been so desanimado and sad in my life; waking up was hard, thinking was hard, all I wanted to do was cry.

And then the rain came. It rained and rained and rained and rained and nobody let us in, and I was singing and singing and singing with all my heart just so I wouldn't cry and so my comp wouldn't just give up. It was rough.

I can bet everyone has felt like this before. When you are falling and you can feel every sharp jab of cold air in your face and your arms, you see the bottom and there is no way to look up because you are falling down. BUT, when you finally hit rock bottom, you can roll over and look up. And above whatever pit you are in, whatever situation of sadness that you are feeling, God is always there with His arm stretched out ready to pull you up and out. But here is where it will always lie in your power. You choose whether or not to roll over. You choose whether or not to open your eyes, and you choose whether or not to make the effort to grab His hand. It all starts in your head.

 

Elder M. Russell Ballard wrote a small talk for missionaries that our President of the Mission gave us this past week. It is called Mental Tenacity. I felt like Joseph Smith reading James 1:5 when I read this talk, nothing has hit my soul more strongly or changed my life so dramatically. There are tons of good parts of this talk, in fact I am memorizing it, but the part I like the best is "Success is not a matter of luck. It is something produced and obtained every day until converting yourself". And I decided to apply it.

 

Sunday morning we got ready to leave and bring people to church and it was raining and raining hard. There was nothing that we could do about it. And we called our people and they all said no.  Easy to say that there luck wasn´t ours right? But no. I decided I wasn't going to live like that any longer so I went for it. I called them all again, told them what was up in the most direct way possible, went by their houses in the pouring rain and in the end, only one person walked to church with us. BUT it doesn't end there either. Easy to let your mind say, oh well we tried, nothing is going our way. NO. Have the faith. After church started the Familia C, menos activos showed up. La J tambien, and Then our baptismal date Ju showed up too. And I am a witness that it all starts in your head. If you let a little bit of doubt enter, that is where your success ends. I will see miracles, I will move on and I will choose to roll over, open my eyes, look up, STAND UP, and reach out. And God will do the rest.

"Think of baptisms and you will baptize"

 

Be a creator of circumstances, not a creature of circumstances.

 

Love,

Hermana Farner