Hello all! Well first of all…I am sorry about that email last week. I was kind of in a weird mood. I told my companions, “I feel bad for whoever had to read my email this week!” This one will be better, I promise. Plus I got my pictures to work this week, so I am happy.
It’s funny because my mom told me this week how she was teaching Sunday school about John 3 & 4 talking about being born again. The reason this is funny is because of an experience we had this week! We were walking into an apartment complex (it is government housing, so a lot of people that have disabilities live there) and a guy passed us. We said hello, and he said “You look like Christians! You have the glow.” This was cool to hear, so we of course said thank you. Then he asked Sis. Browning who was standing closest to him if she had been born again. She told him she had been baptized, if that was what he meant (you never know what these people mean when they say that). He just looked at her all crazy and said, “you mean you don’t know what it means to be born again?” like it was the craziest thing in the whole world she would say something like that. Then he started getting all confrontational! The best was when he said “all you have to do to go to heaven is to be born again, that’s what the scripture says.” I quoted John 3:5 for him and said we interpret that to mean we need to be baptized. Of course he didn’t agree and I guess to him born of the water doesn’t mean baptism. I don’t know. Anyway, his argument (which we hear a lot, just not usually yelled at us) is that it doesn’t matter what you do in your life, as long as you are “born again” which to him is some kind of process similar to being saved in other churches, an actual thing that you do, you are good and you are saved. We didn’t get into it with him or anything, but it was just ridiculous. Sis. Browning asked him the purpose for him talking to us, and he said he felt sorry for us and didn’t want us to misinform people. She asked if it doesn’t matter what we do in our lives, why does it matter what we are doing? Well, to him it doesn’t matter what you do but you still have to be saved. I feel sorry for him too. Isn’t that a nice idea? All you have to do to go to heaven is go to church one day and get up and say you accept Christ, and then do whatever you want for the rest of your life? It is a convenient idea. I can see how it would be appealing to people. But I guess I just wonder how they explain when Jesus tells us that if we love Him, we should keep His commandments. I know that there are educated and wonderful people that really believe that, and they have arguments to support them in what they say. But that is why I am grateful for the restored gospel, a living prophet, and the gift of the Holy Ghost so I can really know truth. Anyway, it was funny, even though we kind of a little bit wanted to punch him. Don’t worry! We only thought about it. Then we went upstairs and taught our investigator, and came back down an hour later. As we were walking to our car, can you guess who we happen to pass? The guy. Seriously. He goes, “did you save anyone up there?” I told him we are working on it.
We had a few actually good and productive experiences this week though! We are teaching this lady who is from China, and she doesn't always understand what is going on. She also didn't grow up in a religious home, so the ideas of God and Jesus Christ are kind of foreign to her. This week we watched Finding Faith in Christ with her in Mandarin and talked about who Christ is to us. It was really a cool lesson! She was really able to start to understand why He is important to us. Sis. Browning asked her at the end of the lesson, "Do you believe Christ is the son of God and died for us?" and she stopped and thought for a minute then said yes. We talked about it and she understands that to learn about Christ is the most important thing we can ever learn about. So cool! It is different teaching people with no Christian background. I realized how different my mission experience must be from people who actually serve in countries where Christianity is not the dominant religion.
It’s funny because my mom told me this week how she was teaching Sunday school about John 3 & 4 talking about being born again. The reason this is funny is because of an experience we had this week! We were walking into an apartment complex (it is government housing, so a lot of people that have disabilities live there) and a guy passed us. We said hello, and he said “You look like Christians! You have the glow.” This was cool to hear, so we of course said thank you. Then he asked Sis. Browning who was standing closest to him if she had been born again. She told him she had been baptized, if that was what he meant (you never know what these people mean when they say that). He just looked at her all crazy and said, “you mean you don’t know what it means to be born again?” like it was the craziest thing in the whole world she would say something like that. Then he started getting all confrontational! The best was when he said “all you have to do to go to heaven is to be born again, that’s what the scripture says.” I quoted John 3:5 for him and said we interpret that to mean we need to be baptized. Of course he didn’t agree and I guess to him born of the water doesn’t mean baptism. I don’t know. Anyway, his argument (which we hear a lot, just not usually yelled at us) is that it doesn’t matter what you do in your life, as long as you are “born again” which to him is some kind of process similar to being saved in other churches, an actual thing that you do, you are good and you are saved. We didn’t get into it with him or anything, but it was just ridiculous. Sis. Browning asked him the purpose for him talking to us, and he said he felt sorry for us and didn’t want us to misinform people. She asked if it doesn’t matter what we do in our lives, why does it matter what we are doing? Well, to him it doesn’t matter what you do but you still have to be saved. I feel sorry for him too. Isn’t that a nice idea? All you have to do to go to heaven is go to church one day and get up and say you accept Christ, and then do whatever you want for the rest of your life? It is a convenient idea. I can see how it would be appealing to people. But I guess I just wonder how they explain when Jesus tells us that if we love Him, we should keep His commandments. I know that there are educated and wonderful people that really believe that, and they have arguments to support them in what they say. But that is why I am grateful for the restored gospel, a living prophet, and the gift of the Holy Ghost so I can really know truth. Anyway, it was funny, even though we kind of a little bit wanted to punch him. Don’t worry! We only thought about it. Then we went upstairs and taught our investigator, and came back down an hour later. As we were walking to our car, can you guess who we happen to pass? The guy. Seriously. He goes, “did you save anyone up there?” I told him we are working on it.
We had a few actually good and productive experiences this week though! We are teaching this lady who is from China, and she doesn't always understand what is going on. She also didn't grow up in a religious home, so the ideas of God and Jesus Christ are kind of foreign to her. This week we watched Finding Faith in Christ with her in Mandarin and talked about who Christ is to us. It was really a cool lesson! She was really able to start to understand why He is important to us. Sis. Browning asked her at the end of the lesson, "Do you believe Christ is the son of God and died for us?" and she stopped and thought for a minute then said yes. We talked about it and she understands that to learn about Christ is the most important thing we can ever learn about. So cool! It is different teaching people with no Christian background. I realized how different my mission experience must be from people who actually serve in countries where Christianity is not the dominant religion.
Well, I guess I will tell you this funny dream I had and will have to mention the fact that I am coming home soon. I really can't believe it. Only one more email after this! It still doesn't seem real. Anyway, I had a dream that I came home and everything was normal. I got home that night and got in my pajamas and was about to go to bed. Then this person that was my sister/Sis. Browning/someone that didn't look like either of them came into my room and said she needed to go to the store and needed me to go, I guess because she couldn't go alone (companionship I guess...). So I just decided to go as I was, all tired and gross-looking and in my pajamas. We go to the store and start seeing all these people I know and I was not happy! That is NOT how I wanted to see people, all gross looking and tired. Then suddenly the store turned into my work at the library and everyone was saying hi. I was trying to run away and they didn't know why I wasn't happy to see them. Then I ran down a hallway and Sister Finlayson, one of my former companions, was in a room having an accountability interview with an elder (that is just an interview we have with our zone leaders every transfer). She saw me running down the hall and somehow recognized me and ran after me screaming my name. I turned around and was excited to see her, but I just did not want to be there. I don't really remember the rest of the dream, just that it turned into a train station for some reason and I was crying. Also it was one of those dreams where it is like you are watching yourself and know it isn't real, so I was laughing at myself too. What a mix of emotions! I thought it expressed pretty well how crazy I am feeling now. So no one be dragging me to the store in my pajamas the night I get home! :)
I had another good experience this week- we had our monthly president's fireside at the VC yesterday where recent converts bear their testimony and president and sister VanKomen speak to everyone. Me and some other sisters did a musical number then I went and stood in the back. When President was speaking he had the missionaries that were involved in the baptisms of the recent converts get up and share what the experience was like. Then he keeps talking and randomly says, "I would like to ask Sister Hafen to come up here." Oh great I thought. So I go up and he asked me how much longer I had on my mission, and I said we aren't going to talk about it. :) He told them anyway. Then he asked me to tell the story of Joseph Smith and bear my testimony. Something I can definitely do! If I can't do that by now, I fail. Anyway, it was really cool. I hadn't had an opportunity to bear my testimony in church because there were too many people, so this was definitely inspired of President to ask me. I don't even know what I said, but I remember it just flowing. When I feel like that I know it is the Spirit and not me. I was just overcome with gratitude for the Restoration and this opportunity I have had these last months to share it with the people in Missouri and Kansas. It is the best thing ever!
Ok, last but not least my Book of Mormon reading this week. I was reading in 3 Nephi about all the wickedness and then all the destruction that happens. Then there is a darkness that settles on everything, so thick that any light is just extinguished. Can you imagine that? Then they hear the voice of Christ. That is really all they could be aware of at that point I think. He tells them of all the wickedness and all the horrible destruction that has just happened. All the cities he has destroyed. I was just thinking, man, why always all this destruction? But then came the next verse, 9:13 which says: "O all ye that are spared because ye were more righteous than they, will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you?" That scripture hit me so hard. For some reason I think we tend to have the idea (or at least I did) that these people who were spared were amazing, spectacularly righteous people. And some of them were. But there were also a lot that weren't. Just like us, they had made mistakes. They had sinned. They had done stupid things. But the Lord didn't destroy them because He had a purpose. I guess what I learned from this story was how much our Heavenly Father and our Savior love us. Just because they destroyed all those people doesn't mean they hate them. Opposite actually! I really think that all that destruction was ultimately for the greater good of everyone. The people that died would have the chance to accept the gospel in the spirit world if they chose to. We don't really need to worry about them. And the people that were spared now had the opportunity, the opportunity they wouldn't have really had otherwise in that wicked world, to return to Christ, repent, and let Him heal them. As I read I could just feel the love Christ had for all of those people and the love He has for each of us. I know that our world today is horrible just like it was then, if not worse. And just like a lot of those people, we know the truth. But what will we do with it is the question? Will we be like the people that were moaning in the darkness because they wished they would have repented faster or sooner? Or will we be one of those people that are excited because they know what is coming? Yesterday in church a guy bore his testimony and said how grateful he is for the temple being built here. He talked about how he has a testimony that it is the little things that make the difference. He said that if Christ appeared to that temple, how many of us would be clamoring to get there right away? But sometimes it is hard for us to even get up and go to church. We aren't perfect. Those people weren't perfect, and neither are we. But I have a testimony that Christ is saying that to all of us. Come back to me, repent, and I will heal you. We have to let Him in to heal us. And He will!!!!!
Ok. I think that is all for this week! Thank you for your support and prayers. Pray for me that I won't go crazy this last little bit and that I can stay focused on the important things too! I love you all.
-Sister Hafen
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