Patience & Hope

Hello, dear friends and family!!

Gee, I'm tired!! Why am I so drained?? Is Ootsu cursed with a curse of energy draining? Hahaha, I have no idea, but I'm really happy. We didn't see much direct success, but I'm still happy, because I know I gave it my all. I don't know what I'm doing quite yet, but I'm still learning after all. And you know, that's one of the things I learned last week: I learned that I'm still learning. The irony is tangible. Up to this point, I've always had experienced missionaries as my senior companion (like I mentioned above). In my eyes, they did everything flawlessly. So, with that image in my mind and by becoming a senior myself, I expected myself to do everything flawlessly as well. Perfectionism is a sin, right? And then, when I tried working as a senior, I only noticed the times when I didn't quite reach as high as that flawless senior companion in my mind. "I do everything wrong" is a phrase that came up in my mind a lot. I was down. Frustrated. I felt like I was not supposed to be a leader in any way. Then, a big, friendly Okinawan missionary came to me and gave me a good wake-up call. 

"You're a 6th transfer missionary... And you came here 2 weeks ago... Why are you expecting to do everything right? You're still learning!!"

Whoa!! He was right! What am I doing, worrying about everything I do wrong? I'm new here! I'm bound to make a lot of mistakes at first! All I have to do is learn from them, one step at a time. Life lesson learned. Such a relief! I worked hard last week -- I came home exhausted everyday. And that's all that counts. And what's more: success isn't directly visible, right? Our numbers for our goals last week may not testify of success, but behind the digits something else is happening. All I need is patience and hope!

Hey. You. Thanks for reading my mail. You're awesome. And you know what else? I hope you have a wonderful week, that's what! See you all next week!!

Mammoths of love,

~聖徒長老, Elder Santos