Half-miracles?

Half-Miracles?

So this week...we spent so much time contacting.  SO MUCH TIME.  Like 4-5 hours straight for at least 4 days.  It was insane!  Out in the hot sun, sweating like crazy, inviting people to repent and be baptized.  I don't think I have contacting so hard in my life as we did this week.  Even in areas where that is all you can do, I think we still did it more this week.  At some times, we really just would rather teach a Recent Convert in the church, but we knew that contacting was definitely the best use of our time!  So we did a lot of weeding and sorting.  It was great and I think we even got sunburned just a little!

It all climaxed on Saturday night, where we were trying out a new idea from the Zone.  Basically we invite all our potential investigators to a meeting, where we teach them the basics of how church works on Sunday.  It was great!  People just kept showing up.  And they were all people we had contacted.  I think in total we had 7 of the 10 people that showed up.  We were more than surprised.  I wasn't expecting it at all!  It was a great tender mercy from the Lord, to say the least.

Sunday morning, NO ONE is answering their phones to come to church.  NO ONE.  It was the worst feeling ever. I don't know what happened, but we had only 2 investigators show up.  One is our cute friend working towards a baptismal date in August (she's 15) and then the other is Sister Fa's little sister.  That was it.  None of our 7 came!  It wasn't the best feeling in the world to say the least. 

SO it all just left me wondering.  Is there such thing as a half-miracle?  When Saturday night was a miracle, but then it didn't follow through until Sunday...it really left me confused and with a lot to consider.  I talked to Sister Ellis a lot about it, and I even studied about it this morning.  It all lead back to one simple principle - God's will and timing.

If there are such things as "Half-Miracles" then God's infinite and eternal plan is half-baked.  And that is most DEFINITELY NOT the case!  I can pray all I want for something to happen, and I can have faith, but if it is not the right time or the will of the Lord, then it will not happen.  Faith is not just about bringing about miracles, but it is also found when just trusting God above yourself and others.  He is the supreme force in the Universe, and there's nothing I can do to change His will.  Sometimes I just wonder:  If I could really see what was going on around me, no doubt there would be miracles on every corner.  Half of the miracle was the part I could see.  The other half of it is the half I have to have faith in.  Things I can't see, but that I believe are true.  I know that God would not let our efforts go to waste, and even though it didn't quite produce the results that I wanted or expected to see, I am sure that it was all part of God's plan that I have yet to see in its fullness and glory.

Alma 32:21-22

 21 And now as I said concerning faith—afaith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye bhope for things which are cnot seen, which are true.

 22 And now, behold, I say unto you, and I would that ye should remember, that God is amerciful unto all who believe on his name; therefore he desireth, in the first place, that ye should believe, yea, even on his word.

3 Nephi 9:20

20 And ye shall offer for a a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost, even as the Lamanites, because of their faith in me at the time of their conversion, were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and they knew it not.

So, to sum it all up, God is blessing us, even when we don't know it.  But we can have faith in His plan that all things will work together for our good, even if it isn't what we expect to receive. 

Love you all!

Sister Norrell

Pictures:

We went to the Dusit Zoo last week!  We saw some pretty cool stuff.  :)

Turtles!  This is about the closest I got to touching the animals...picking up turtles from the turtle pond.  They had a bird and a big nasty yellow snake they could put on you...but I wasn't in for that much nature. ;)

Water Monitor Lizards and Bears

I tried to see if my tongue was as long as the giraffes.  I just broke the social norms in public, and I didn't even get close to measuring up!

And there is this weird painting among all the other animal paintings on the wall to the zoo...we were a little disturbed...but not enough to not take a picture of it!

We rode some foot power paddle boats...whatever those are called in English... with all the missionaries and members, it kinda turned into bumper boats and seeing who could go the fastest.  We only had one casualty!  Elder Kandun kinda sorta fell in the water.  Just his wallet was wet from paddling too fast.

It rained.  Really hard.  We were stuck for about 20 minutes.  Typical Thailand!

We went into the mall to use the bathroom during our contacting time.  We got a little distracted by their super hero exhibit.  I think we are going back today!

Yes.  This is the Joker.  And notice the cat.  That is a real cat.  I think all the Thai people were taking more pictures of the cat than the statues.  

If anyone can tell me what this one is (the gold one with long lucious locks) I will be very grateful, because we all have no idea!  

Me and the random thing...whatever that is. 

And spiderman. Not my favorite hero but I couldn't resist! 

I don't know what happened, but we just kept finding all these weird sacrifice looking things when we were contacting.  Scary?  Very.  Picture worthy too!

Deliciousness.  I don't know what it is, really.  Maybe tapioca with taro and coconut milk?  So good!