I have yet to share anything about my mission on this blog, and I figured it was about time.
At one of my interviews with my mission president he asked me if I was happy. Happy? Ha, that's a good question. I'm pretty sure that day, since most days were pretty the same, we had contacted in the cold rain and probably got rejected a lot. That was hard day after day. So, I wasn't particularly happy at that moment of time. He then went on to teach me something I have never ever forgotten.
He said, "Sister Smith, happiness cannot be measure at specific moments of time. We have to look at happiness over a period of time. Most of the time life is hard and a lot of work. But! There are wonderful moments scattered here and there where we learn a valuable lesson or the Spirit gives us a boost of strength or we feel God's approval of us or when we understand why something has been so hard for us. When we do this, we will see that we are actually very happy despite the little things every day that can cause us so much frustration."
That short conversation has changed my life and helped me to see what happiness is really made of. For me my mission, and even "normal life," is a series of hard, difficult days. But as I look back, even though I was going through something difficult, I remember being really happy over most periods of my life. I guess I realized what makes me truly happy is not ease, but the process of being stretched and pushed because that is the only way that I can obtain what I really want. Ease only makes people fat and lazy, and who really wants that?
And those are my thinks on happiness.
