Week #102 – Fully Pour Out Your Heart

Hello Everyone,

As you may have already guessed it was in fact a very busy week as usual except this one was particular seeing as it was transfer week which means that all of the missionaries finishing their missions come into Rome from all over the mission on Monday and we play taxi service all day bringing them from the train station to the mission villa or office. Then Tuesday morning we take them all to the airport and right after putting them through security we welcome a new group of fresh missionaries. It’s an experience to say the least. This one especially because I said goodbye to my MTC companion, Anziano Rosenberg. He wasn’t very happy that I got to stick around but to be honest it didn’t feel like it was time for me to go home anyway. There’s much left to be done.

The new group of missionaries is so solid. 14 Sorelle and 5 Anziani.

For this mission that is a crazy amount of Sorelle to get in one transfer. We needed them too since 12 just finished their mission. We followed the same schedule as usual bringing them past the temple on the way back from the airport and then in the afternoon doing a small tour of Rome seeing some cool sights and always talking to people.

Thursday was an all day transfer day for us bringing people to and from the train station or airport from morning until night with a small break in between. It was long, but good. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were filled with meetings with president, planning, seeing our new convert and other investigators and Sunday evening we were even blessed enough to have a member family invite us over. I almost forgot what that was like. I missed being with members. These especially have a great desire to share the gospel and the Book of Mormon.

This week I knew it would be hard. Not often do you get to know in advance when things are going to be difficult. I guess that’s one of the many advantages of the mission: being able to plan ahead. What I tried to do in response to the difficulty was quite literally follow the exhortations from the scriptures to “pour out [my] heart to God.”

I won’t go into my personal experience with it, but I can promise you this: you absolutely know the difference between a prayer when you truly pour your heart out to your Father in Heaven instead of just merely saying a prayer. The closeness you can feel, the tender feelings that fill your heart, there’s no substitute. So whoever you are and however you feel about prayer I invite you to fully pour out your heart to God the same night you read these words. If you don’t know what that means than start by sharing with Him all of your fears, your worries, your doubts, your uncertainties, the things you don’t share with anyone and it will flow naturally from there into the most wonderful spiritual experience. I know that Jesus Christ felt what we feel. He experienced our trials and felt our fears and He descended below it all and each of us all so that He would be perfectly positioned to lift every last one of us, one by one. I know he is our Savior and Redeemer and each of us can draw upon his strength no matter the circumstance.

I love each of you,

Anziano Friedman