Waiting Patiently on the Lord

I finally have some time this week for a group email!
Over the past few days I have learned some very important lessons that I
never expected to experience or come to understand on a mission. It has
cause heartache and soul-searching and faith. As missions do. Basically, it
is just the simplest gospel truths that I have learned, but I have learned
them in new capacities and depths. One example is AGENCY. My RC missed
church yesterday, our investigator with a baptismal date is too busy this
week to meet with us, I get rejected daily, and most people don't listen to
our message. A message that could bring joy, forgiveness, peace, and
indescribable blessings! Hope and peace has been instilled in me throughout
my mission, but in these cases, that hope and peace felt selfish. Of course
it will work out for me; I have a loving family, the gospel, a home in a
free country, opportunities to pursue a college education, loving parents,
and a testimony of eternal truth. But what about the people here? That
continue to live their lives after my 18 months here are done. That
continue to work in difficult, monotonous jobs, or among difficult family
situations, or other trials. I just want others to be able to have the
blessings that I have had in abundance my whole life. Was I doing enough?
Why couldn't they just listen and accept? Why do I have these immense
blessings when others obviously do not?
Then we had a lesson in Gospel Doctrines and I again realized how
opposition and agency are central to our purpose here. We CAN have eternal
life, with our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. We CAN be happy here,
right now. We CAN have the help of a perfect, empathetic, loving Savior to
conquer all of life's trials. But we must choose. And many people simply do
not choose that TODAY. But that doesn't mean that they won't tomorrow, in
10 years, or in the spirit world. My perspective is so small and all I need
to do right now is give people the choice.
I am not sure if I am even explaining this well, and I know it's kind of
heavy stuff. Really, I am so happy, and more of my time is spent having
lovely conversations in Cantonese with kind people, laughing with my
companion, reading scriptures, sharing my testimony, having my breath taken
away by Hong Kong's sights, and prayerfully thanking my Heavenly Father for
well..everything.
Today we are making guacamole, cookie dough and making a tent fort and
writing letters. So it is going to be a very fun, relaxed P day. YAY! Ether
12:4 has been on my mind, and this scripture from D and C... 1 Verily I
say unto you my friends, fear not, *let your hearts be **comforted*; yea,
rejoice evermore, and in everything give thanks;

2 Waiting patiently on the Lord, for
*your prayers have entered into the ears of the **Lord* of Sabaoth, and are
recorded with this seal and testament—the Lord hath sworn and decreed that
they shall be granted. 3 Therefore, he giveth this promise unto you, with
an immutable covenant that they shall be fulfilled; and all things
wherewith you have been afflicted shall work together for your good, and to
my name’s glory, saith the Lord.

I have also come to understand that we can choose to have our hearts be
comforted. Pray, let the love and peace God gives be enough, and be
patient. Words cannot express my feelings. I wish I could bear my testimony
in Cantonese through the computer, but just know that I know that Christ
lives. He truly loves me. He directs this church. I KNOW this is true.

Love you all!

--
*Sister Dopp*