It hit me today… Even though at times I miss being at home and living that life, what a blessing it is to be out here! Never in my life will I have an opportunity to do something like this again. Spend two years during the prime of my life to focus exclusively on others and further my understanding of the scriptures. Pretty cool experience and in a lot of ways it is like living a mini life. The mini life part is because you come out like at birth literally knowing the least possible. It is an extremely humbling experience, as the weeks and months go by you slowly develop and learn to adapt and grow as you go.
Someone was speaking about their favorite part of the mission and I was starting to think… what is mine? Then it hit me – I love meeting new people and helping those in need of help. I would say that every day we meet somewhere between 5-10 new people and about and 1-2 of those we get to know very well. It is so cool to get to know these people and hear their life stories and learn about the places they’ve been.
I was thinking about how we met Samtina a few months back. How did we meet her? We were walking in her complex to an appointment we had. We were a few minutes early and noticed she was having trouble cleaning the top part of the porch and given that we were both tall we went and helped her out. How random, right? And I had never met someone from the Ivory Coast before. First language is French! Any way, since then we have developed an awesome relationship with her and she is truly a friend of ours. She has come to church the past 9 weeks in a row and even committed to be baptized. All from a chance meeting with her when she needed some help cleaning. How is that possible? Such a cool experience and I am loving every minute of it.
The other joy I have is doing some of the help we do at the hospital and retirement homes. When we go play bingo on Friday’s at the hospital it makes my day! These eldery people can’t wait to see us! It’s crazy to think that for 3 years straight, there have been missionaries going there every week and playing bingo and getting to know these great people. They are the coolest! They have so many experiences and are so cool to talk with. I love hearing about when they were young. The great times they had in college, about their families, everything. It’s not that much time, but a couple hours can make such a difference in the lives of others. Been doing some reflecting today and determined that it is another great day to be a missionary in North Carolina!
The other joy I have is doing some of the help we do at the hospital and retirement homes. When we go play bingo on Friday’s at the hospital it makes my day! These eldery people can’t wait to see us! It’s crazy to think that for 3 years straight, there have been missionaries going there every week and playing bingo and getting to know these great people. They are the coolest! They have so many experiences and are so cool to talk with. I love hearing about when they were young. The great times they had in college, about their families, everything. It’s not that much time, but a couple hours can make such a difference in the lives of others. Been doing some reflecting today and determined that it is another great day to be a missionary in North Carolina!
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| Missionaries with a tiger. Ryan Van Wagenen served his church mission in North Carolina from 2005-2007. |
