Letter to a granddaughter

In the mission world your "trainer" or first companion is often referred to as your "mom." And when you are called to become a trainer you get a "baby." 

A few months ago I had the privilege of training Sister Hart from Arizona. Flash forward several months to now. I'm running the last six months of my race in the mission field and just this week my "baby" was called to train a new missionary named Sister Staten.

Which makes me a "grandma."

Since I've been in the mission field for about a year I wanted to write down a few things that I wish someone would have told me at the beginning of my mission. 

So this is a letter to grand baby Staten as well as every other missionary new to the field.

The first thing I want you to know is that it's okay not to know. In all honesty none of us really have it all figured out. When I first came out I looked up to those who have been out for a long time and wondered how I would ever get to where they are. What I came to realize is that we are all relatively new. There will be a time when you take over your first area without the direction from your trainer. For me even taking over an area for the second time I stressed because I didn't want to mess anything up. You will get transferred several times and may be called to serve as a trainer or an STL. Always look at it as an adventure. There are many fun times to be had, but if you stress to much over not knowing exactly what you're doing you might miss them. My Sunday school teacher would always tell us that "You may not know everything, but you know enough." 

The second thing I learned is that obedience is so very necessary. I thought coming on a mission would make it easy to be obedient. But I've learned that even as a missionary there is temptation all around you. Sometimes it might be a companion that chooses not to keep all of the rules or a member who suggests something contrary to what your mission president has taught. The best thing to do is stick to the rules. Because we are promised in the scriptures that if we are obedient we will always be blessed. My trainer (your great grandma) Sister Guynn always used to say to me "never let anyone determine your obedience or your happiness." And Sister Berry, the Mission President's wife when I first came to Florida, always used to say "obedience brings blessings, but exact obedience brings miracles."

The third thing I learned is that joy is so very necessary in missionary work. I learned that sometimes happiness is a choice and it is also a challenge. Learn to laugh when you are uncomfortable and smile when you are stressed. Re-discover humor and remember that you have been called to this area because these people need your personality. So don't try to be anybody but yourself, and I know that if you do that you will touch the hearts of the people and you will be happy.

The fourth thing I don't think I really learned until I became an STL. Open your mouth and talk with everyone. And I mean everyone. When you are at a stoplight, roll down your window and tell the guy next to you that you know God loves him, pull over to the side of the road and ask the old lady watering her lawn if you can help her. Walk up to the grumpy man sitting on a lawn chair and ask him for directions you don't actually need. If the person you had an appointment with isn't home knock on their neighbor's house and ask if they know when their neighbor will be home. "Whatever your initial approach may be, refer quickly to the restoration." If you do this I can promise that you will always have a full teaching pool. 

The fifth thing I learned is that you probably won't be best friends forever with every one of your companions. There will be some who will become like your siblings, and others who you will clash with. But with each companion you are given comes a reason for why you were given them. It may be something you will learn from them. It may be a Christlike attribute you need to develop. Maybe they need you and your example. Try your very best to get along with them even when it gets hard. If you are having a hard time feeling charity then clean your apartment and pray for charity. 

The sixth thing I learned is that this time goes so fast. People always told me that at the beginning of my mission and I didn't believe them. Thirteen transfers are all you get to serve full time for the Lord. You will never have the opportunity to serve in this capacity ever again. Soak it all in and don't take any of it for granted. 

A few weeks ago one of our investigators was interviewed for baptism. The missionary conducting the interview asked him about his experience working with us as missionaries. His response was "Those Sistas, they are the tools that God uses to fix broken souls."

You have the sacred opportunity to be one of those tools that God uses to fix broken souls. 

I could keep going on with this list for another eighteen months but I'll leave it with this; you have been called to do the work of God the Eternal Father. You have been called to stand as a witness of His Son, Jesus Christ. It is not going to be easy, as Christ's life never was, but it will be the most fulfilling work you have ever done, and ever will do. 

Go kick butt. Do good things and just know that you are changing the world one broken soul at a time.

Love,

Sister Reid

Little Angel Jordan

I flipped through my scriptures after church as I did my personal study. My companion was sitting next to me on the couch reading in Ether. As I flipped I noticed a picture I had cut out of an Ensign and stuck in my scriptures earlier in my mission.

I studied the picture a little bit. It was a picture of Christ as he performed the atonement. There was another figure in the picture. An angel, sent to comfort Him in a time of dire need.

I read the verse underlined in red on the page. 

"And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him."

-Luke 22:43

As I thought about it I realized this is the only time we ever hear about this angel. We don't know his or her name, or their story. Only that they were called to comfort Christ.

But as I sat there I started to ponder what this Angels story may be. 

For the sake of this story I decided to refer to this angel as a girl, being a sister missionary myself, but I don't know for sure. I also decided to give her a name. I decided to call her Jordan. As I sat staring at this picture a story started to unfold in my mind and I quickly wrote it down. This story is fiction and I don't claim any of it to be true, but it taught me something. I decided to dedicate it to my trainee, Sister Hart. I hope you can learn something from it too.

Jordan was a new angel. She was small and had only made the decision to be an angel a short time before. Her wings felt uncomfortable and heavy to carry as she was not quite used to them yet, and her robes fit a little too loose because they were a size too big. 

Jordan awoke early in the morning and stretched out her wings. 6:30 am and class started in 20 minutes. She yawned as she grabbed her bag and ran out the door.

She got to the long hallway where the classrooms were. Because Jordan was a new angel she had extra training classes to attend everyday. She was the last angel to sit down so she took the last empty seat in the back of the room. She pulled out her notes and started to write down the steps that were written on the board for creating miracles for the people on earth. 

1. Find someone with a lot of faith
2. Give them a prompting
3. Reward them for acting

The teacher asked for a demonstration. The whole class looked down on earth and one of the more experienced Angels quickly made a miracle happen in South America. After a few minutes several other people in the room had successfully accomplished this task. "I'll never be able to do this" she thought to herself. She struggled to complete the task and the teacher said that anyone who was not able to do it would have to take the assignment home as homework. The bell rang and she left the room to head to her next class.

Her next class was choir. She sat down in the second row and started to talk to the girl next to her. "I've never really been a singer." She whispered. Is it hard? "No" the girl responded, "but I've been training to be in this choir my whole earthly life." She continued, "I started singing when I was young. By high school I was the in my schools choir, and I eventually got my masters in vocal performances and sang with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir." 

The teacher came to the front of the room and explained that all are welcome to join this choir and that nobody will be turned away so they should feel free to come and join bring their friends. And she asked the choir to begin with vocal exercises. Although the teacher had said the class was open to everyone and that you didn't need any past experience, Jordan still felt out of place as she realized that many of the people in the room had been professional singers while on earth and she didn't really know how to read music. As soon as the bell rang she slipped quickly out of the room.

Her next class was called "the ministering of Angels."  Jordan was excited about this class. It was all about comforting others. But as soon as the teacher started talking she put her face into her hands on her desk. Tears started to fill her eyes as she thought about how hard angel work is. "I'll never be able to be an angel" she thought as she remembered watching her angel friends do angel friends fluidly as if second nature to them. 

As she sat their with tears coming to her eyes a voice came over the intercom system. She listened as she heard the voice ask if Jordan could come down to the office to talk with Father.

Panic started to flash through her mind. She must be in trouble. It must mean she's not doing good enough in her angel training. 

She got to Father's office and knocked on the big door feeling smaller than ever before. 

"Come in" she heard from the other side and she opened the door and entered the room and sat in the big white chair.

Father had a smile on His face and welcomed her into the room. He asked her how her training was going and how she felt about being an angel. She said it was going okay but she didn't feel like she was the best angel. 

What He said next surprised her. Father said "Jordan, I want to call you as a comforting angel. And I don't want to call you as just any comforting angel. I want you to be the angel to comfort Christ, my Son when He performs the atonement."

"Me?" she thought. "But I'm not the best angel. I'm new and I don't know as much as the older angels. There must be someone better than me for this calling."

"Jordan" He said. "I want you for this job. You have been given special talents and gifts specifically for this task. I know you can do it."

She sat up a little taller in her chair. Maybe she would be able to do it. A few weeks later she fulfilled the call that she was given to comfort the Savior of the world.

This little angel taught me that we have all been given callings greater than ourselves. Sometimes we might feel inadequate. Sometimes we might look at the tasks that we've been given as something too big for us to accomplish. But our Father in Heaven knows us. He knows what we are capable of. As we do our best to fulfill the call that we've been given to serve others we will find that we are lifted up in the process. 

So to my trainee, Sister Hart, I just want to say that on your mission you may be called to do things that seem too hard. You may feel inadequate at times, but through your faith and diligence I know you will help make great miracles happen.

I love you lots and I am so grateful for this opportunity I've been given to be your trainer.

Love, Sister Reid

Your trainer

 

Four Year Old With A Nametag

Blog

Let me tell you a secret.

I'm a four year old with a name tag.

I'm a full time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I have been called by a Prophet of God to share Christ's gospel with the world. I have been called to labor in central Florida as an official representative of Jesus Christ.

When someone wants to investigate what our church is all about you'd think they'd send the very elite. You'd think they'd send some scholar who has studied the history of the church for 57 years, heck, you'd think that if someone wanted to investigate the church they'd send the Prophet or at least one of his apostles to teach them.

But no, they send me.

The other day I had gotten home from a long day of missionary work. I had my keys in my hand and instead of unlocking the door with the house key I proceeded to try to unlock the house by pressing the unlock button on the car key. My companion laughed at me for a bit and I couldn't help but think "and God called me?" That same question went through my mind when I went to our leasing office to get a new furnace filter and the man at the front desk asked what size we needed and I said "there are different sizes?"

I am an official representative of the church.

Sometimes I wonder why in the world Heavenly Father trusts us newbs with the task of teaching His precious sons and daughters about His sacred gospel, because clearly we aren't the most qualified. Seriously, he sends 18 and 19 year olds out who have little to none life experience out side of high school. Who barley know their left from their right, and who sometimes get embarrassed when people look at them. 

I remembered hearing a quote once that said that "God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the called."

Surely that must be true because the other day I was sitting in a lesson and a girl named Abby told me a story.

Abby is working in the Disney World College Program which is a program that allows college students to spend a semester working at Disney. Several weeks prior she had been having a really hard day. She was feeling very lonely and she had been praying hard to God for help. She left to go to the bus stop to head to work and on her way to the bus stop there we were, the sister missionaries, on the sidewalk by the bus stop. With tears in her eyes she told us that as soon as we said hi to her she immediately knew that God was watching out for her and that God loved her. She told us that as she got on the bus and went to work she thanked God for letting her know that she is not alone.

The other day we got a text message from a recent convert that said "Thank you all for what you do and I am so happy for everything! Y'all don't know how much of an impact each of you have in people's lives. Even if it's just a hello or just to see how they are doing. It's definitely an impact on people"

We hear stories like this all the time, and many more go unspoken of times when someone needed help or had a question and the missionaries were there at the right time with the right words.

I don't know about you but to me evidence points towards the fact that God must choose us unqualified for a reason. 

Because the fact that we as missionaries we don't really know what we are doing means that we must rely on God. We must rely on the Spirit to tell us where to go or what to say. 

So to all the missionaries out there that feel like they are failing, like you are only a four year old with a name tag and that you'll never be able to be good at this work, you are doing more good than you probably know. And to all those that are trying to decide decide if they can trust the missionaries to teach them truth, just know that we may not know everything. We may not speak the language very well and we may not know the answer to every question, but we have been called by a prophet of God to share what we know.

We know our message is true.

And we want to invite you to learn about this truth for yourself.

The Citrus Fruit Sister

What its like to be a trainee

Six weeks ago my Mission President asked me to serve as a trainer. My trainee's name is Sister Hart and she is from Arizona. She is the coolest ever and I asked her to answer the question "what it is like to be a trainee" and I thought you might enjoy her response.

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What its like to be a trainee

By Sister Hart 

What is it like to be a trainee? Well it's kinda like always imagining a chocolate cake... Like basically day dreaming about it, and then one day you finally get to eat this chocolate cake that you've been day dreaming about and it's way better than you expected. Yes, way better! 

Before I came on my mission, I was expecting it to be so hard that I would just totally want to go home. I mean, it is hard don't get me wrong, but not in the way you would expect. It's hard because you love the people so much, that you just get saddened by the fact that some of them are just not fully prepared to learn about the gospel. It's hard because you spend so much time and energy finding people who ARE ready to learn about this beautiful gospel, but they keep rejecting it. It's hard because when you think you've finally found the one who is ready, they decide that they aren't. But you know what isn't hard? Staying out here, working my hardest, and loving everyone I come into contact with. It's not hard to devote my heart and soul into not only serving the people of Florida, but also my God, AND my savior and redeemer Jesus Christ. 

To be a trainee means to get out of your comfort zone and try things that you never thought you would. It is the time in your mission when you basically decide what kind of missionary you want to be for the next 18 months. It's where you can learn all of these great things about yourself, because trust me, I've learned a ton of stuff about myself that I didn't even know. 

So the chocolate cake I have been day dreaming about since I opened my call, is WAY better than I expected. It's hard, yes, but the sore feet at the end of the night, and the sweaty back from the Florida heat is so worth it. And it's all because I know what this gospel can do for a person, and if I'm not trying my hardest to let everyone know, then I'm not being the missionary I decided to be the day I met my trainer. 

Being a trainee is tough, because you have to adjust to everything around you, but it's the best thing you can do for yourself and everyone you were called to teach. 

#SigningOff