Monday, October 27, 2014: Thoughts on Self-Esteem

This is a blog post I've been meaning to write for a long time. When Sister White and I were serving together, we had a lot of ponder sessions. We would just spend days digging as deep as we could on one subject together until we had gone as deep as we could go. One of these ponder sessions was one that has stuck out to me in particular. We were considering self-esteem--what it is exactly, if it's the same or different from confidence, and how one develops it. This is what I've found so far. 

When I was younger, I would not say that I had very good self-esteem. That's probably true for a lot of people. I've always been tall. Because of that, when I was little I always felt like a big awkward giant who towered over everybody. I wanted to be one of those little, petite girls, but instead I was big--and that's just something you can't change. I was pretty convinced when I was little that I was ugly. I don't really know where that came from, but for whatever reason that was what I thought. And so because of that I felt vulnerable, so I was very shy, so I didn't talk to very many people, so I didn't have very many friends, so then I felt like I wasn't popular because I was unlikeable, so then I liked myself less. I stuck to my best friend, Britt, because I knew she liked me for who I was and that we would always be best friends. (Little kids have great ideals like that.) That's where I felt safe. If she wasn't at school, I would usually sit by myself and pick at the grass for recess. 

That's not to say I had a bad childhood. I had an awesome childhood! My parents gave me everything I ever needed. And I had an awesome thing called an imagination where I WAS pretty and popular and exactly what I wanted to be, so I had a blast. I was just less comfortable around other people than I would have liked to be. 

Then I moved. Those who knew me at that time might remember I was NOT a happy camper. I was leaving my best friend behind in Idaho and moving to Utah to be around a bunch of strangers, and I just knew I was going to hate it and I knew my parents hated me for making me do it. But it actually turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to me. Heavenly Father knew I had a lot of growing to do, and I couldn't do it if I was clinging to my very limited friend group for the rest of my adolescent life. At first it was really hard, but I had to learn to branch out, and because of that I made a lot of friends. I discovered my love for theatre. Crazy, right? A super shy girl getting onstage in front of an audience and actually enjoying herself? I know that doesn't make any sense. But I loved it and it was the best thing for me. My directors and my friends and the art itself gave me the courage to step outside my shell and be the outgoing person that is secretly in there--it just takes a minute or two for her to come out around new and unfamiliar people. By the end of high school, I had gained a lot more confidence. I could walk down the halls feeling a lot less out of place because I knew I would pass by familiar faces who would be happy to see me. I felt like I had finally "made it"--I felt like my battle with low self-esteem was over. 

But confidence is not the same as self-esteem. I did not know this before my mission. Turns out, it's possible for someone to be confident in something--or even many things--but still not like themselves. Or maybe someone might act like they think they're the best thing since sliced bread, but that's really all it is--an act. So I guess you could say I was putting my acting abilities to use in my regular life. I could pretend I was okay with myself, but that didn't mean I believed it. 

Every transfer, our mission president asks us to make a new goal, and pick a Christlike attribute to work on. Last transfer, I picked charity. When I talked about it to President in my interview, he wrote "self" underneath the word "charity" and told me to work on having charity toward myself. I didn't understand that for the longest time. Up to this point I had learned how to have patience with myself, and how to forgive myself, but I didn't understand how it was possible to have charity toward myself. After all, isn't charity all about being selfless? 

This is what I discovered, after quite a bit of studying on the subject. In short, charity is the pure love of Christ. So if you have charity toward yourself, you love yourself--not as the world would but as Christ would. You see yourself the way He would see you. That means you don't look in the mirror and go, "Ugh, I hate my crooked teeth/big nose/freckles/acne/frizzy hair/whatever it is that  you think you don't like about yourself on your face." You look in the mirror and see yourself as a child of God. 

So at first, this was the conclusion I came up with. You gain self-esteem by knowing who you are--a son or daughter of Heavenly Father. But then I considered many of the incredible people I've served with or around on my mission. I can think of a few just off the top of my head who know they are children of God--it's something they tell people every day--but still, they can't seem to see how amazing they are! Knowing is not enough. You have to understand what being a child of God really means, too. 

Do you remember the book, "You are Special?" I won't try to explain it too much since this is already way long and my emailing time is short, but it's about a group of small wooden people called Wemmicks who stick either gold stars or gray dots on one another every day. The pretty or talented ones always get stars. The "ugly" ones get gray dots. Eventually, the main character, Punchinello learns that if he doesn't care what people think, the dots and stars people stick on him will slide right off. But my whole life, I never understood why he couldn't just let the gold stars stick. But now it makes more sense to me. If he let the gold stars stick, he would still be letting what the world thought of him determine who he believed he was. That's exactly what I have done during my life; I've been lucky enough to be surrounded by people who have told me I am good. But I was relying on their opinion of me to keep my confidence up. In reality, it shouldn't matter what people say about you either way. That's not to say you can't accept a compliment gracefully, but whether it comes to you or not, to gain real self-esteem, you have to learn to be able to like yourself regardless of what others think of you. 

How? The answer is simple. In the book, Punchinello goes to see Eli, the man who carved him in the first place. He tells Eli he doesn't think he's any good, and neither does anyone else. And then Eli asks, "Do you think I made a mistake?" I think that's exactly what Heavenly Father would say to us if we were to tell him we didn't think were were any good. He made us exactly as we are, and none of us were mistakes. 

In D&C 18:10 it says, "The worth of souls is great in the sight of God." It doesn't say, "The worth of a soul is great in the sight of God if she is beautiful and a size 2 and has perfect hair and no zits and a clean house and is rich and has a great job and is athletic and artistic and good at everything." It simply says, "the worth of souls". Any soul. Your soul, my soul, any soul--no matter what. When we can see ourselves with that perspective, we can learn to have charity toward ourselves--pure Christ-like love. And guess what? When you learn to love yourself that way, it's a lot easier to love everybody else that way, too. 

So there's my thoughts on self-esteem. It doesn't mean I've gotten to that point of loving myself yet, but I'm working at it. Thanks to all you psycho people who took the time to read this thing. I hope it makes sense and I hope it will help you to look in the mirror and be a little bit kinder to the person looking back at you. 

Monday, October 27, 2014

I'm Still Alive

Remember that time I recommitted myself to taking care of my blog a little bit better?

Yep, that clearly didn't happen. 

In any case, I'm still alive and well! Sorry I haven't been great at keeping everyone updated on my life in the MJM. I tend to myself that more than likely no one's reading this thing anyway, so why bother? But to those of you who have been keeping up with my blog, I apologize for my neglect. 

So in a nutshell, here's what's been going on in the life of Sister Glenn! 

I'm still in Meridian, currently serving with Sister Harr! She'll be going home after this transfer though, which means I'll pretty much for sure be staying here till after Christmas, making this the longest area I'll have on my mission. We have a lot more sisters going home than are coming out currently, so Sister Harr and I are now the only sisters in our district! That's a first for me! It's pretty weird, especially when it's time to sing at district meetings o_O but it's a new adventure. Pretty sad to see some really good sisters going home, but that's life on the mission, I suppose! 

Well, that pretty much sums it all up. I'm not gonna try to get any more detailed than that. But here's how this week went! 

On Monday we went to see our investigator, Cynthia. Elder Zwick came to visit our mission a couple weeks ago and told us that if we had appointments every Monday evening our baptisms in this mission would double, so we've really been trying to fill our Mondays up and I can already see the blessings coming from it! Cynthia is awesome; the other sisters met her tracting and when their area was taken over by elders me and Sister Harr got to keep her! She's very humble and knows the gospel is important, so she's making it a priority. Unfortunately she and her family suffered a great loss last week, so Monday was very hard for her. We returned with the elders the next day and she received a blessing. The Spirit was very strong in the room and I think it made a difference. We've come back to see her a few more times this week and she seems to be doing better. 

We had the fall festival at the church on Saturday! It was so much fun, and Cynthia and her whole family made it!!! It made me so happy. They seemed to have a blast, too. Sister Harr and I came as elders...but a lot of people that we were trying to be students at Hogwarts! Ha ha, I guess that works too :P 

 

Oh, and this was my favorite costume of the night! This little guy came as a temple worker. His parents were going to dye it yellow and have him come as the Man in the Yellow Hat from Curious George, but the fabric wouldn't dye, so they did something different! 

Monday, September 15, 2014: Sometimes Doing What You Don't Want to Do Is the Best Thing for You

Good morning! 

I'm going to apologize in advance. This things is going to be long! But there's just so much to say about this week! I don't even know where to start! 

So first off, I hit my year mark this week! Woot! Pretty crazy that an entire year has already flown by. I got lucky because we had interviews that day, so we brought cake with us and got to celebrate with President and Sister McDonough! It was tons of fun. It's always so good to see those two. I feel very lucky to have the mission president (and president's wife) that I have. It has made all the difference on my mission. 

Just a few days before interviews, President had decided to change the music policies in our mission. Before, we were allowed to listen to anything uplifting that invites the Spirit. Now, we have been asked to listen to only what has been played in general conference--so talks, or what the Mormon Tabernacle Choir has sung, as long as it was sung in general conference. To some people that might not seem like a big deal. To me that's a huge sacrifice! I struggled to accept it when I first heard about it, but Sister White and I talked about it and both agreed we needed to be obedient, believing that if we were, the blessings would follow. 

Along with that, we left interviews with a renewed determination to find people to teach. We decided we needed to exercise our faith by making sure to get our seven hours of tracting in for the week. By Sunday we had two hours left. About a minute after we got dropped off in our area I turned to Sister White and said, "I'm not going to lie, I have no desire to tract right now." She said, "Me neither" but we didn't exactly have a way out of it with no vehicle (we'd loaned it to the other sisters for the day) and we were determined to get those seven hours in, so we continued on. 

We weren't very far in when we reached a nice, large house with a glass door. The man inside motioned for us to wait for one second. I don't know why, but when I saw him I thought, "This man is going to listen to us." I wasn't trying to convince myself, I just knew he would. He returned, opened the door for us, and before we even said anything invited us right in. Unfortunately we couldn't enter without a woman home, but he allowed us to share our message on the porch. The Spirit was so strong. We briefly shared the message of the restoration with him and then told him about the Book of Mormon. He said, "I need that book. How do I get a hold of one?" We told him he could have to one we were holding. Then he said, "It's interesting that you came today, because I was just praying to God to give me some direction in my life." We promised him that the gospel of Jesus Christ could give him that. And then I just opened my mouth and invited him to be baptized, and he said yes! I'm pretty sure I walked away from that door with my mouth on the floor. Of all the doors we've been knocking since I got to Meridian and all the people we've met, Timothy is absolutely the one we were meant to find. He's so prepared!

I think that experience alone taught  me a lot. First, it taught me to have a little more faith. Sometimes it's hard to tract in wealthy neighborhoods because I just think, "There's no way these people are going to listen to us anyway." But we found him! He seems to be pretty well off but he was humble enough to listen, anyway. Second, I learned that sometimes, we have to do things we don't want to do. I didn't feel like tracting right then. But I think that's Satan's way of trying to stop good things from happening. If we'd decided to skip it and just go home for a long nap, we might never have found Timothy. One of my favorite companions, Sister Parsons, said that her trainer would always say something along the lines of, "I don't want to _______. You know what that means? We have to _______." I thought of that as I was walking away from Timothy's door. It's completely true! Of course Satan is going to step in right as you're about to find the person you're supposed to find. 

 

Third, obedience always brings blessings. This brings me back to the music thing. I did not want to put my music away. Actually, sometimes I don't particularly want to go to bed at 10:30 or back my companion out of the parking lot or keep lunch under one hour or any of the rules we're asked to keep. But when we follow those rules, somehow, even though it might not make sense, it makes you happier, and it brings blessings! We committed to not listening to our music and we committed to seven hours of tracting and in return God gave us one of the most prepared people I have met on my mission! 

 

Sometimes, it seems like my mission is going by very slowly. It's times like these when I feel like it's going by way too fast! It's been a hard journey at times, but I'm going to be very sad when it's all over. 

Me with my "birthday" cakes! I looked at the picture afterward and was surprised--I thought I was seeing an older version of my sister Ellen!

A nasty spider we found while tracting. I couldn't seem to get a very good picture, probably because I wasn't about to get close to that thing! I thought it was really neat how it stitched its web up, though.

One day we woke up, and something very strange was happening--it was cold! Happiest day of my life! Cardigan weather! It was such a momentous occasion we had to take a picture. It's warmed up again since then but I'm looking forward to it cooling down soon! The worst of it is over!

Monday, September 8, 2014: Miracles

I'm convinced. We have found our golden area. 

It's not that we're finding a million baptism-ready investigators, per se. It's just that the people we tract into are just SO nice. It actually makes us excited to go tracting because we can't wait to find out who we're going to run into next! 

Here are the three biggest miracles we experienced this week. First, on Tuesday we went and knocked some doors. The third house we got to was a nice, big house with a gardener working outside, who directed us to the "woman of the house". We knocked on the door and an older lady (probably in her 60s) opened up. Well, in my head wealthy and old means there's no chance of getting let in, so I introduced ourselves and our message, expecting her to turn us away, but to my surprise she let us right in. Her husband was sitting in the front room and he welcomed warmly while his wife (Mrs. Thomas) went to get us some water. We sat down and had a good conversation with them. We talked a lot about their values and beliefs and about how the most important thing you can do in this life is love and serve your fellow men. That was a perfect lead in to the Book of Mormon for me--I opened up to my mom's favorite scripture, Mosiah 2:17, and talked about how when we're serving others, we're really only serving God. Then we shared with them what the Book of Mormon was and briefly summarized the restoration for them. We had to leave quicker than I would have liked because they had a repairman coming and he had arrived, but before we went Mrs. Thomas left the room, and returned with a carton of eggs from their own chickens, a loaf of homemade pear bread, and--my favorite--a loaf of homemade banana bread. She and Mr. Thomas said how much they appreciated us coming into their home and how we were doing wonderful work and we were a blessing to them just by knocking on their door. So nice! Who just gives complete strangers a whole sack of food? I was planning on leaving the Book of Mormon on the couch for them because I didn't want to push them to take it too much--but to my surprise Mrs. Thomas asked if she was going to get to keep it! Needless to say, Sister White and I left with our sack of goodies thinking, "Did that really just happen?" 

Second, here's the second half of the story I told in my last blog post. Remember the lady we left the familysearch card with and offered to come back and help organize her new home? (I'm going to call her Janet in this post) Well, on Thursday we returned, and it turned out to be her birthday! I was kind of surprised she didn't ask us to come a different day. But in any case, we arrived and she took us to McAllister's for lunch (that place is so good!) We ended up just talking with her for a good two hours! It was so sweet because she said we were her birthday gift--and she was the one paying for our lunch! She was just so happy to have us there with her. What was cool was we didn't really do any preaching since we already knew she wasn't interested, but when we got up to leave she said, "I feel so happy! It feels like I've been to church!" It's pretty neat that she can feel the Spirit just by being around us, without us even saying anything. It makes me think of the quote, "Preach the gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words." 

 

After that we went back to her house and helped her dejunk a bit, but really most of our time there was just spent talking, and I think more than anything that was what she needed! No worries, we will definitely be going back to help again sometime very soon :) 

Last miracle! (Sorry, I know this is forever long) On Wednesday we were tracting (still the same neighborhood) and we started up a driveway to another large house. I realized when we almost got there that the house was actually on a different street and we were going in through the side door, so we were about to turn around but just before we did a 16 year old boy (We'll call him John) came outside. Well, I always feel awkward talking to teens, for multiple reasons. So I quickly said who we were just to say it, and he started asking questions. A lot of them. We were there for probably an hour answering questions. This kid is crazy smart, and curious--which is good! After all, where would our religion be if a 14 year old boy had never thought to ask a question? 

What was cool too was his parents came outside a couple of times. I was waiting for them to tell us they'd found Jesus and shoo us away before they corrupted their son (one of the reasons I feel awkward when teens answer) but they just said "Hey" and told us we could go inside if we wanted to. Then later John said, "My family's not the traditional southern family, my mom claims Christian, Buddhist, and Hindu as their religion and my dad was a southern baptist, but they just think it's important that we have some sort of spirituality. What I'm saying is, they wouldn't care if I came to you church--and I want to learn more." Oh my heavens. My jaw must have been sitting on the floor! It seemed way too good to be true! Unfortunately I didn't have a Book of Mormon on me (I'd forgotten to replace the Book of Mormon I'd given to the Thomas family and I try to pack light on walking weeks) so we promised we'd come back and give him one. 

 

And we did! And his parents gave us some gatorade (which is a relief since I'm pretty sure I was gonna pass out) and we had another good talk with him about the Book of Mormon and the power it holds. I think he's more curious than anything but it's a really good start! He wasn't able to make it to church this week unfortunately but I think he will soon. 

I think sometimes I just have to have a little more faith! Lately I've been approaching doors expected to get rejected but this neighborhood is definitely showing me I can hope for more than that!  

Janet and I at McAllister's

Monday, September 1, 2014: Moving, and the Nicest Street I've Ever Found

Good morning! Happy labor day everyone! Aka, Happy (unhappy?) No Mail Day everyone...not that I mind having to wait an extra day for mail or anything... 

This week Sister White and I moved into our new apartment! I was sad to leave our townhouse--it was so nice--but being in a smaller, not quite as nice apartment will be worth it if it means we can be closer to our area. It was cool too because we'd only texted Brother Pierce about helping us move, but when I answered the door Saturday morning there were three or four priesthood holders there with their trucks, ready to help, as well as the elders, so moving didn't take very long at all. It's just kind of amazing to me how that works. It made me think of the times that my family has had to move, and how the ward has always been there to help us out. It's comforting to me to know that I have that support system, so if I ever needed help I would always have a group of people to turn to. 

We had kind of a cool experience this week. As I've probably said before, most of our area is more wealthy neighborhoods, and can probably guess how well tracting in those areas goes--so finding people can be pretty difficult. So I've been trying to think of some different finding ideas, and this week I decided to try something new. I ordered some family history pass along cards from the media center and planned to use them in place of the usualmormon.org cards we use. I figured they might not be interested in our message of the restoration, but what rich family wouldn't be proud of their heritage and want to learn more about their ancestors? At least we'd be able to spark their interest in something! 

 
And this was the result of my new idea! We went up to this pretty nice looking house and nobody answered the door so we started walking away, and my favorite thing of all time happened--the owner pulled into the driveway. That's the worst! So awkward! The lady rolled down her window and said the usual "Can I help you?" and we told her who we were, and she quickly turned us down. So then I mentioned the family search card I had left on her door. Immediately her interest was sparked! She said, "Oh yeah, you Mormons are all over that kind of stuff, huh? I would love to take a look and see what's on there!" And we just started having a really good conversation with her! We found out she'd just moved in because her husband had passed away and her other house was just too big for only herself and she was still working on dejunking her things. We offered to help and she accepted! Then she said, "If you ever need anything--call me. If you need a ride or you need food or anything, let me know!" She was totally serious too! Crazy, right? It was a pretty big turn around. So we're going back to help her on Thursday. I'm excited to see how that goes!

A few days before that, we had knocked on the door of a man who had already met a few elders before. He offered to let us in and give us some water, but there wasn't a woman home, so instead he let us sit on his porch and he brought some water to us. We had a good chat with him. He told us he had gone to medical school with Dr. Cronin, a man who just so happens to live in my last area! He said he knew he was a Mormon and he was always such a good guy and stuck to his standards no matter what. I had the same thing happen a few times in Clinton thanks to the same Dr. Cronin. He probably doesn't even realize how much of a difference he made by being a good example, but it made a difference to me! Even if they aren't interested in hearing our message right now, they at least know what Mormons are really like and that in itself is an accomplishment. 

In short, so far that street has been one of the nicest ones I've found on my mission, which I wasn't expecting! Can't wait to see who we meet next!

New Mailing Address

As of September 1st, this will be my new address! Love you all! 

3830 Poplar Springs Dr Apt D53

Meridian, MS 39305

Monday, August 18, 2014

Pioneer Children Sang as they Walked...and Walked...and Walked...and STILL Walked...

Oh. My. Heavens. I don't think I have ever done this much walking in my entire life! 

 

No-car weeks really do a number on you! Every day Sister White and I walked from the other sisters' apartment to our area, spent the day walking around that area, and then walked back. And then we'd wake up and do it all again! One thing's for sure, I slept really good this week! You know that phrase, "I was asleep before my head hit the pillow?" Yeah, that can actually happen if you're tired enough! 

But here's a little story to show how aware of us God really is. One day we were walking down the highway, coming back from working in our area, and we were both just dead tired. We'd tried calling everyone we could think of who might be willing to give us a ride, and none of them had answered. Just when we'd accepted the fact that we were going to have to suffer through and drag ourselves all the way back to the other sisters' apartment, a car stopped and the lady driving said, "Can I give you a ride? I'm a member, I just don't come to church because I always work on Sundays." We happily piled in and she took us home. She said she'd been driving the other way but she saw us walking the other way but she just had to turn around and get us because she knows how hot it gets and knew how tired we must be. We're pretty lucky she saw us! 

 

But besides all the walking we did this week, we also had zone conference! Woot! I got to be reunited once again with my dear sweet Sister Dailey! *sob* I miss that girl so much! Who knows when we'll be seeing each other again. I also got to hear the goodbye testimonies of some very good friends. I'm getting to the point where a lot of my mission friends are starting to go home. It's happy but so sad too! That's one of the hardest things about a mission. You think the goodbyes stop at the MTC but that's completely untrue! You're saying goodbye to more and more people you've grown to love all the time! But I suppose when it comes down to it, it's all worth it. Your heart just keeps learning to get bigger and bigger to make room for all the new people you're growing to love. That's a good feeling, and it (almost) makes up for the goodbyes. 

Oh! And I finally got to go Mugshots this week! I heard about it from Sister Parsons way back when I was in Picayune. They've got this HUGE burger there where if you eat it in 12 minutes, you don't have to pay. Yeah, I didn't try it. But I did get the Kahuna burger! It was a hamburger with fried pineapple and barbecue sauce on it. It was so good! 

Here's a picture of the Kahuna burger, as well as a raccoon that came to a member's house we were visiting to get some food. (Yes, she feeds the raccoons--I was pretty surprised myself) the pictures not very good which is too bad cause we could see the little guy really well!