Overcoming Discouragement

Dear Family and Loved Ones,

     This past week was excellent. There was a lot going on in the mission including interviews for Ted, (he still has a few more days of interviews this week before he is done) training with our sister missionaries, ZLC and some very special baptisms.

It seems like it is taking an extra long time to get through interviews this transfer since we took a few days off for our Mission President’s Seminar but Ted will finish up this week just in time for transfers next week! The next couple of months are extra busy but we are so excited about our mission tour, zone conferences, transfers, Christmas devotionals, etc.

     Wednesday the sisters were invited to the mission home for training and lunch. We had a great meeting, the Assistants and our mission nurse both gave great trainings. The Elders taught about extending the baptismal invitation. Since it was Halloween they compared inviting our investigators to be baptized to Trick or Treating, they said the way to find out if the light is on (the universal sign that the family has treats) is to invite the investigator to be baptized. You don’t know if they are ready if you don’t ask. Our mission nurse taught the sisters about facing their fears and doing hard things, just the encouragement we all need! We had Hawaiian Haystacks for lunch and then decorated Halloween cupcakes for the sisters to deliver to one of the families they are working with.

     The missionaries all spent the evening of Halloween in their apartments cleaning – it’s not a good night to be out on the streets of Long Beach. We gave out over 200 pieces of candy at the mission home and even ran out of candy by 8:30 p.m. Rossmoor is a perfect place to go Trick or Treating and a lot of people drive their kids to the neighborhood from other less safe areas. It was so much fun to see the cute costumes and sweet kids out with their families.

     Friday was ZLC at the mission office. We served Popeye’s chicken, beans, biscuits and fruit. We had a few visitors in the office, including our area medical advisor and his wife, who joined us for lunch. One of the many things that Ted does is to plan the training for the Zone Leaders as well as the calendar and all of the information for the training that takes place in each district! I told him he is writing curriculum every transfer for multiple meetings – I don’t know how he does it all but he is amazing!

     There were some very special baptisms over the weekend including two in our ward which I was able to attend. The two men who were baptized were both very special. Their wives had been baptized previously (one just recently, the other many years ago) so it was an extra happy occasion to know that these families are now on the road to being sealed in the temple!

     Our Relief Society President took some time in testimony meeting to express some feelings of inadequacy that she had been feeling this past month, other sisters shared similar feelings, someone said, “There must be something in the water.” Many of the sisters to also told us that they try to overcome these feelings through remembering that discouragement is a tool of the devil, through prayer and applying the Savior’s Atonement. Later Sunday night one of our sister missionaries called and said, “I feel so discouraged, I don’t feel like I’m as good as the other sister missionaries.” I was able to share with her the advice that I heard earlier in testimony meeting. She seemed encouraged to know that she isn’t alone in her feelings and that other sisters have to work at staying positive.

     I shared with her the words of President Uchtdorf who taught, “I want to tell you something that I hope you will take in the right way: God is fully aware that you and I are not perfect.”
     “Let me add: God is also fully aware that the people you think are perfect are not.”

     “And yet we spend so much time and energy comparing ourselves to others—usually comparing our weaknesses to their strengths. This drives us to create expectations for ourselves that are impossible to meet. As a result, we never celebrate our good efforts because they seem to be less than what someone else does.”

     “Everyone has strengths and weaknesses.”

     “It’s wonderful that you have strengths.”

     “And it is part of your mortal experience that you do have weaknesses.”

     “God wants to help us to eventually turn all of our weaknesses into strengths,  but He knows that this is a long-term goal. He wants us to become perfect,  and if we stay on the path of discipleship, one day we will. It’s OK that you’re not quite there yet. Keep working on it, but stop punishing yourself.”

     “Dear sisters, many of you are endlessly compassionate and patient with the weaknesses of others. Please remember also to be compassionate and patient with yourself.”

     I also love what President Eyring taught about relying on God for to overcome discouragement. Speaking to new mission presidents and their wives, President Eyring recalled a conversation with President James E. Faust (1920–2007), then Second Counselor in the First Presidency. President Eyring had just been called to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and President Faust had noticed he was beginning to doubt himself. “I felt he was going to answer the question of whether I was approved of the Lord,” President Eyring recalled. “I began to ask him for that reassurance. … He pointed to the ceiling of his office and said quietly, ‘Don’t ask me. Ask Him.’”
President Eyring said President Faust knew that the only source for the answer to his question was the Lord of the vineyard.
“President Faust knew that time after time I had been called to labor. He and other human servants knew what I had done over those years. But only the Lord knew what had been in my heart and what had happened to my heart. Only the Lord knew in what way the Atonement and the Holy Ghost had changed and purified me.”
     President Eyring said that only the Father, His Beloved Son, and the Holy Ghost can provide the assurance Church members need to go forward boldly in their service.
     “It is not what we have done that matters,” he said. “It is how our hearts have been changed through our faithful obedience. And only God knows that.”
     President Eyring said he has learned how to seek and then feel the assurance that he is approved enough in his service to go forward in confidence. “Everyone needs that assurance,” he said.
     He asked the mission presidents to teach their missionaries that there is only one audience that they can trust perfectly. “Only God is a sure source of accolade,” he said. “And the accolade we need is to know that by serving Him faithfully we have become more like Him. That could shape the praise you give your missionaries. You will tend to praise them more for what they are becoming than for what they have done.”
      
    In times of discouragement we are blessed to know we can always turn to our Heavenly Father and our Savior Jesus Christ. As we feel their love and reassurance we can press forward in their work knowing it’s their approval that matters most.


We love and appreciate each of you!

The Long Beach Buberts