They say it takes about 30 days ....

When you get to that time in your life when you are ready to serve a mission it seems that everyone is so happy for you and you take on some kind of a rock star persona. That is what you think anyway. We have realized that the rock star goes away very fast and that reality sets in quickly. When we were almost ready to leave I sat down and started to make a list of things I should do in my first thirty days. Now remember this was my list not Sister P's. She is the smart one, she said let's just go find out what the Lord wants us to do. Now back to my list. We should turn the world upside down. We should teach and baptize and bring everyone to Church and so on and so on. And we should feed everyone and get everyone a job and everyone to speak English and we should get them to drive on the right side of the road! then suddenly thirty days goes by and I find that I have accomplished nothing on my list, because it was on my list not the Lords. I have learned in these past several weeks what my dear wife has known all of of her life. It's the Lords mission were on. Its He whom we serve. It's His work not yours. Going on a mission is hard work. It takes a whole different mind set than we thought. It's a blessing for sure but it takes lots and lot of work. It takes a total dedication of all your thoughts and all of your attention. It takes a total commitment. We hope and pray everyday that the Lord will send us many many senior couple to serve with us. We are so big we can offer you your very own country. Now how can you refuse an offer like that?. Yes, it takes about thirty days in the mission field for a man like me to start to understand that I must listen to His direction. Now I don't want to paint a picture that I don't listen. That I am a run away train. I think we all have agends and plans and things we think about doing. But I realize that when I listen and then ask if this is the direction we should go it seems to run a lot better. We are here to do as He directs and that when we listen a little more and pray a little more we are in tune a little more. As we move around these two wonderful big countries we see His work in progress. We see just how it will be in the future. But right now, we must go a little slower and listen a little harder. It's small sure steps. It's such a simple task, right? The Mission is growing. The work is moving forward. The people are in tune. And we will succeed. We are thankful to be here. We are getting the house up and running. We move forward and then
we move backward. The nice thing is we have learned to laugh in both directions. Xoxo M&A