The Closest Thing to Christ 2-24-2014

This week has been a roller coaster. I will just throw in some stories and talk as I go. First off, I figured I would quickly describe my living arrangement. I live in an upstairs apartment about half a mile from the ocean. The stairs are crazy steep….and they have holes in-between each one. Pretty much, one day I will die. I will stumble out of bed to go running at 6:30 and I will fall right down them. I look like I’m drunk whenever I go up or down because it’s either way early or late and I’m way tired. Good thing stair climbing style is not a qualification for missionary service We eat every night with a family from the ward and they feed us great food. In fact, it’s almost too good because I just overeat and then I have to try and run harder. This mission used to be known as the Carlsbad 30 (you would gain 30 pounds) ….great right? Good thing they changed it to the Carlsbad 30 (we all have to run 30 mins every day) I finally bought a beautiful fluffy comforter and pillow. Now it feels like home. We do not run on the beach….we do not touch the sand ever. We run up a hill and by a golf course. So we got bus passes! We are being brave and trying out public transportation. No missionaries use them in our mission and we had to get special permission to try it out. The first day I talked to a crazy man and a born again…..so that was kinda discouraging. It is really hard to teach and talk on a bus because no one wants to listen. They are all tired and listening to music or whatnot. But that will not stop me because a bus is a perfect opportunity for me to make a quality contact. They are almost forced to listen to me for longer than 30 seconds. I changed my attitude and approach and just was trying really hard to share the gospel. Then a miracle happened! Something I had been hoping for since I got my call in September happened! I got to teach a man in sign language! Yes, that is correct folks, I said something to him and he pointed at his ears and said no. I about died with happiness as I started waving my hands around going, I sign I sign!!! I started signing to him and learned about his family and background. Eventually I told him I was a missionary and I gave him a Book of Mormon. We had a twenty minute lesson purely in sign. I got all his information and ASL missionaries are going to teach him. It was a wonderful experience and I now I love my buses so much. Embarrassing moment: We all know I could probably fill up the whole page with these, but I’ll just stick in a few. We were street contacting and we went up to a man and starting talking about the Book of Mormon. He was clearly from a different country and he said he would let us come back to teach him a lesson. I guess I forgot that people from different countries don’t always just speak Spanish. Whoops. In short, I invited an Indian man to take the lessons in Spanish. My companion looked at me like I was crazy and then fixed the situation. I do actually know the difference between a Spanish accent and an Indian one but in that moment my brain failed me. I just wanted to be as helpful as possible! It was pretty sad though. I went on an exchange and was in the singles ward! So fun! The girl that we ate dinner with went and got herself engaged that night! Does it get crazier? That means her last dinner as a single unattached women was with me. Fitting I suppose since missionaries are both single and unattached. Well I mean we are attached to the gospel but that’s different. We had a zone conference this week. Something that was said was very powerful to me. The AP was talking about how we come in contact with so many people every day that don’t have the same knowledge as us. He said: You might be the closest thing to Christ they ever know. Think about that for a minute. Think about what that could mean. It hit me really hard that I am representing Christ everyday to people that might not really know Him. I must prepare myself to be the best for those people. I need to be more like Christ so that when they see me, they know and understand Him better. How sad it would be if I was not acting in accordance to my Savior and that is the image of Christ that they take away. May we all strive to be a little bit better because we are all the closest thing to Christ that some people will ever know. If we just let His light come through us, we will have shared Him and shown them what it means to have a loving Savior and Redeemer. Some days it is really frustrating but I know that as long as I am walking with God, all will be right and all will be well. Love, Sister Huber