Bitter or Better

Dear Friends and Family,

I hope that everyone had a good week. I think the summer has finally ended and the weather the past few days has been beautiful here! I am truly serving in one of the most beautiful places :)

Sister Mecham left on Wednesday. We spent Tuesday running around saying goodbye to everyone and crying every now and then. On Wednesday Sister Mecham was transferred to the Otter Creek Ward in Little Rock so not in my zone or stake but still on the Arkansas side of the mission so I should still get to see her at specialized training which is coming up soon. My new companion is named Sister Cooke, she is from Las Vegas and has been out on her mission for about 14 months. She is super awesome and I am excited to work with her. Unfortunately she came to me with the flu and has been really sick this whole week :( On Saturday I finally made her call the mission nurse and she was ordered to stay in bed all day. Which mean I was stuck at our apartment all day long. Luckily she is doing much better today and I haven't felt sick so hopefully I won't catch whatever she had. 

 

I'm not going to lie, this week was a little rough but I have come to learn that sometimes the harder weeks are the ones where you learn the most. It was hard to say goodbye to Sister Mecham. It was hard to have to be in charge of planning everything because Sister Cooke didn't know anyone in Conway. It was hard to be navigator all week. It was hard to have a sick companion. I spent a whole lot of time on my knees this week asking Heavenly Father to just help me get through the next hour or to just help me know what to do next. And as I was reflecting on the week on Saturday as my poor sick companion slept, I thought about how it would have been really easy to let all these hard things make me bitter. And there were definitely times when I felt a little bitter, when my situation felt a little unfair. But instead of being bitter I decided I was going to let my situation make me better. Instead of giving up and being upset I was going to try my best and learn from it.

We all face hard things in our lives and we all have the choice to let those trials make us BITTER or BETTER. The difference between these two words is the second letter, the "I" verses the "E" and the difference between the two perspectives is the same. We become bitter when we only think about what I want or what I don't have or how I feel. When we focus on the "I" or ourselves it is easy to let our trials make us bitter. But if we focus on the "E"ternal instead we become better instead of bitter. We focus on the positive, we focus on what God is trying to teach us, we turn outward instead of inward. It is not always easier to focus on the eternal but I promise that as we do we are given strength to get through our hard weeks. I know that because I chose not to be bitter and upset, I was blessed with the ability to get through the week to know what to do and where to go. Even though I had no idea what I was doing we were able to see miracles this week.

I am so grateful for the gospel and I am so grateful that I get to share it with others. The gospel is what helps us see the eternal perspective when things are hard. Thank you as always for all the support.

Love

Sister Aase