Early, Often and Bold

"Oh no! here comes another mission story..." . This is what I thought of as soon as I started thinking about what to write this week, the thought came to me because of this reflection on my mission; It was a hot day in Gilbert, South Carolina, and I had only held the calling as trainer for about five weeks. My trainee had already started with another missionary, but had strong negative feelings toward her. That's where I came in.

I remember looking my self-entitled "broken missionary" in the eye, urging her to role-play some part of a lesson we were going to teach later that day, but nothing could come out of her. She sat there, and looked at me, then sat there and looked some more. Finally after even the clock seemed impatient, she exhaled, "I just can't do it! I couldn't in the MTC, I can't now! I am a broken missionary!" 

I stared back and asked; "how much did you role-play before your mission?"

"never"

"so, you've never had practice?"

"no."

"I told you last week that I can't make cookies like you can, what did you tell me?"

"That you just need to practice."

"but, every time I make cookies, they turn out terrible!"

"you just need to do it more"

"so what did you just teach me about role-playing?"

At this point she and I both learned an important lesson. There are going to be things in life that are just not your beginning forte, Moroni said that God gave us weakness, so we can develop strength; however, that strength can't be developed without struggle and without the pain of failure. The more times we do it wrong before we do it right, the more we will know in the future not to do it.