Sister Hendrick's Missionary Blog: 9 months? 怎麼可能?!

Zhong DX, Zhong JM and Zhong Mama!

大家好~

This was a pretty good week. As weird as it sounds, I hit my half mission mark on Wednesday. I still feel like a new missionary.. but I guess since I'm done with being trained in America and Taiwan, I've officially been "broken", and I'm half way into my mission, I guess I can't consider myself "new" anymore. Time is going so fast and yet so slow.

Lately, I've been really praying to know what God is trying to teach me. What does He need me to learn? How can I let these next 9 months truly change me and turn me into who God wants me to become? I've really learned a lot about myself, and now I really want to take what I've learned to become the missionary that God can trust in.

I think everyone goes through this phase on their mission, where it feels like the whole world is on their shoulders, and being "successful" just seems miles out of our reach. The phase where no matter how hard you seem to be working, you still fail to get your investigators to church. The phase where no matter how much courage it takes to open your mouth, you're still rejected. The phase where faith in yourself, area, companion, and investigators start to slip away. The phase where you feel completely inadequate and incapable of being a missionary, wondering if you'll ever be able to change. The phase where no matter how hard, and sincerely you pray, it doesn't seem like God is listening. The phase where at the end of the day, you fall to your knees in tears wondering if you can take another day..

I've been studying about the grace of Jesus Christ, and I've come to know how infinite, divine, and completely available it is to everyone. Reading a talk on grace, I came across this scripture in Jacob 4:7: "Nevertheless, the Lord God showeth us our weakness that we may know that it is by his grace, and his great condescensions unto the children of men, that we have power to do these things.". This week, I realized I have been in the middle of "that phase", and reading this verse during my personal study a few mornings ago really spoke to me. As if God was writing me a note of encouragement. 'Sister Hendricks, you "have power to do these things"'. I was so quickly reminded that God has never failed me in the past. I have let doubt and discouragement blind me from seeing His mercy and experiencing Christ's everlasting grace.

Now it's time for me to really put my trust in God. That is how we find happiness. It is only through Him that has all wisdom and all power.

Sister Hendricks

Psalms 84:11,12: "11 For the Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. 12 O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee."