Kallid Sõbrad,
A mission is a wonderful thing. It is a new adventure, a new language, a new culture, a new life... The list goes on and on. The word wonderful or "suurepärane" as it is said in Estonia is a good way to sum up a mission. I have only been a missionary for about a year now, so I have only seen the first half of the blessings that come from doing the Lord's work. I have learned some valuable lessons, that I otherwise wouldnt have learned with out becoming a missionary and coming to Estonia. I have learned that God knows us all personally. He knows each of our needs, and exactly what ways we need to grow. He gives us certain experiences that prepare us to be better people. He gives us tasks that he knows if we complete, we will untap some more of our full potential. Life isnt easy and missionary life is definitely not the easiest part of a lifetime, but I have come to realize that this is truly where I belong, and where all young men this age belong.
Estonia is a beautiful country, with a beautiful culture, and wonderful people. The history here goes back centuries and centuries through years of occupation by other countries. The general feel about religion is for the most part on the skeptical side. It is hard for people to identify any good that religion has done for them here. The longer I am here the more I can see from their viewpoint and feel for them as we try and address there concerns. Missionary work here is difficult. We are still able to see success though. We are still able to see God's hand in our every day work as people are prepared to hear this gospel message.
I had a recent confirmation that the Lord really is preparing people for us to teach. We have been teaching a man and his living companion for a while now. They have a little boy as well. I contacted him on May 28th, 2010 so it was quite a while ago. We taught them twice at the first and then they went on vacation for a while and couldnt meet. It just seemed that they werent extremely interested but every time we called them they said we could meet and that they wanted to meet. Just recently we started teaching them again. Last week as we were at their housing talking to them, his companion started talking about things that are unexplainable. She said that a few months ago he woke up one morning and told her the dream he had had the night before. He saw a guy, whom he thought was God. That was the first impression he had that he saw God in his dream. The guy didnt speak to him, but when he woke up, he felt like God was trying to speak to him, trying to send him a message. They discussed the dream and decided that it was something special, but didnt know what to think about it. That was the morning of May 28th. That day he took his son into the city and that is when I approached him and asked him if we could share a wonderful message from God about his restored church. He willingly accepted and everything is history from there. They are really taking this whole thing seriously by investigating the church. They realize that this dream he had wasnt a coincidence. They are wonderful and are coming along. It made me realize though, that it wasnt a coincidence that I was right there, placed in his path. It is a testimony that we always need to be working hard as missionaries, doing our best to always be talking to people. We will never know who has been and who hasnt been prepared and therefore we need to talk to everyone and eliminate any chance.
Miracles are evident in every day missionary work. Week to week we can notice the Lord's hand in the work. For example, this last week was a wonderful week here in Tartu South. We came off a good week the week before thinking it couldnt get much better. We worked hard though, and the hard work paid off. We were able to find a lot of new people who are interested in hearing about the gospel. On Saturday we met with a young man. I was going through my old planners calling people that had been contacted a couple months ago and I came across him. We set up a lesson and met with him on Saturday. He is a younger guy about 23 years old. He is shy and held back but very humble. As we started to talk with him he mentioned that he had been thinking about baptism lately. We taught him about the restoration, and towards the end he said that he feels like everything is correct that we talked about. He had a good feeling about it. Luckily we had a member with us and he was able to explain to him that that was the Holy Ghost testifying to him about the truth of this message. We asked the investigator at the end of the lesson if he would follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding the proper authority from God. He said he will. We set a date for October 2nd. On Sunday we had 23 lessons at 7 pm at night. The exact same number from the week before. My companion and I were very pleased with this, but we looked at each other and said, "We have to get one more. There has got to be someone out there that wants to be taught and hear about the gospel, someone that can be brought closer to Christ." We were determined to get one more. We said a prayer before we walked out the door and we asked that we could find someone to teach. I dont know about my companion, but I had the idea that I wasnt going to come back in until we had found that person. I am pretty sure my companion had the same thought. So we went out and starting heading towards the teaching center. We started to make our guesses on how tall the man was going to be that we teach. What color of hair he is going to have. How old he will be. We were ready as can be to find someone who was ready to find us. We got into center and starting talking to some people. After about 5 minutes a man walked up who had been an investigator referral a while ago. We never had the chance to talk to him. He looked a lot different than our guesses had been but I knew he was the one we needed to teach. He was willing to talk and we ended up having a wonderful lesson. He must have thanked us numerous times for our willingness to talk to him. He said he gets really bored here without his family. He really enjoys talking to people and he is thankful that we are his friends.
It was a great lesson for me to see the hand God has in everything. We were able to pray in faith that we could find just one more person to teach before the end of the week and our prayer was immediately answered. We were able to end the week with a slam dunk, being on a spiritual high, knowing we did our part this week to find those prepared for the gospel. I know that this is the true church. I think maybe that is the largest lesson I have learned in my first year as a missionary. I know when I talk to people about this gospel, that it is the truth, the truth restored the Joseph Smith. I would advise anyone considering going on a mission to not consider it but to just do it. Work hard, and get about a year into the field and you will know why you did it. It is sometimes hard to imagine the future, especially a future as a missionary, but it is even harder once you are a missionary to imagine the past without your past as a missionary. Ma tean et see kirik on õige. Mina olen tänulik oma tunnistuse eest, oma perekonna eest ja oma koguduse eest. Ma tean et kui meie usaldame Jumalat, me suudame teha kõiki asju. (I know that this church is true. I am thankful from my own testimony, family and ward. I know that when we trust God, we are able to do all things.) Always do what would please God and you will find that this is most pleasing unto you as well. I am not a Lord of the Rings fan, but this is a good quote that can be compared to Joshua 1.
"I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down, but it is not this day. This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!"
We must never give up in a time of adversary. We must always fight, fight for what is right. Fight for the true Church of Jesus Christ on the earth today. Always stay strong and never, ever give up.
Armastusega,
Vanem McGavin
With Love,
Elder McGavin
с любовью,
старейшниа мкгэвин
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