Monday, April 21, 2014

Apr 21...13 months

So this week was transfers and Sister Wang was transferred to American Fork and so for PDay we went bowling at BYU then for dinner some awesome members took us out for Chinese food. And then the rest of the night and all of Tuesday was spent saying good byes and packing.
Wednesday morning we went to the transfer chapel and I got my new companion. Her name is Sister Lani, she is from Vanuatu, which is a small country near the islands of Fiji. She is the oldest of 6 kids and their family is the only members in their whole village, minus her dad who is not a member yet. She is so tall, about 5 foot 11 inches. I finally have a companion who is taller than me! She is awesome and full of energy and she speaks 6 languages. I can tell this transfer is going to be wonderful because of her and also my district is amazing! We had a member come pick us up for transfers and she came out of her car to help us load stuff and her car got locked behind her with the keys in the ignition and her phone was in their too. So she tried calling her husband but he works night shifts so he was sleeping so we called her neighbor to go wake up her husband and her boys were getting out of school and needed picked up but we were stuck for about 30 minutes. Then we finally were able to get in because her husband came and we went and picked up her boys.  We had a little while for Sister Lani to start unpacking and we also went and got her some grocery's.
Then we decided to get to work and we went and contacted one of the media referrals that we got a few weeks ago. It was in this building that you had to call up to the person for them to let you in. So they let us up and then we got to the door and they only spoke Spanish. Sometimes I wish I even knew a little Spanish so I could understand what they are saying to me. Then we went and taught one of our investigators about the law of tithing. She is struggling to know whether or not Joseph Smith was a prophet or not. Then we went and read the Book of Mormon stories with our recent converts. For our lesson with the Petersens that night we were talking about the law of chastity and we decided to use For The Strength of Youth. I am so grateful that we have a book full of the standards we should be living in life.
Thursday was super crazy. For some reason a lot of our appointments were not put in the calendar from last week and so we were running around crazy because I would all of a sudden remember an appointment we had, so we would have to hurry to get there. Since Sunday was Easter we went around to less-actives and showed them the new "Because of Him" video. I think it was a good reminder to them that He has done everything for us, so we need to show Him that we love him by doing the best we can. We also got a new investigator, he is 9 and his grandparents take him to church every week. He said he has been trying to be baptized for awhile but since his mom is not active they haven't been letting him. So we are teaching him the lessons and I hope we can get his mom to join us so she can become active again. But I think he has really great support from his grandparents. The missionary coordination meeting that night was pretty sad. Only two of the five ward mission leaders showed up. So I guess it was nice that it ended up being pretty short.
Friday was a great day. Our district training meeting was fun, we did introductions since there is one new person per companionship. We also talked about how to recognize and follow the spirit. Then after DTM we went and had a district lunch at Sammy's. They have amazing burgers and shakes and the great thing is that it is half off for missionaries. My district has decided they are going to try and teach me Spanish since me and Sister Lani are the only ones who are English speaking missionaries. I am excited to learn!  Usually every Friday we do our weekly planning but we had no time. We had temple booth at 2:00 and then a lesson at 3:30, which she was a no show. Then Sister Lani wanted a blessing so the Elders came to the chapel. Dinner was an interesting story. I had called them earlier to remind them and the voice mail said to text because it was faster, so I did and never got a response. So we went to their house and we rang the door bell a few times and knocked and no one answered. After waiting for almost ten minutes and then we decided to call some one else and see if they could feed us. We ended up calling the Petersen's because they said to call if anyone ever cancels. They couldn't feed us until 6:30 so we decided to go and see how Sunny and Avery (our recent converts) were doing with reading the Book of Mormon. They hadn't been reading so we read with them again. Dinner with the Petersen's so so good! Brother Petersen is a cook for a restaurant or something and so the food he makes is amazing!
 Saturday went by so fast. In the morning we had temple booth and then we had to do weekly planning since we didn't do it on Friday. Then we had dinner at 3:45 instead of 5 because we all had stake conference at 6:00 and wanted good seats. There was some families in the ward that were having an Easter BBQ and so we joined them. The new bishop of the ward was there and it is so cool, he is the guy on the cover of the February ensign of this year. And now he is one of the bishops I get to work with. We got to stake conference early and the youth choir was practicing and it was a small group and they asked us and he elders to join them. I am so grateful that the stakes around here are focusing their Saturday session on hastening the work. The stake presidency gave some really good advice to the members.
Sunday was an interesting day. My companion's four front teeth had been hurting since Wednesday and when she woke up her whole upper lip was swollen. So I told her to take some medicine, drink lots of fluids and go try and sleep more. I called Sister McCune to ask what I should do, and also the mission nurse. The nurse came over and brought some antibiotics. The members were so nice to us. We had two dinners delivered to us and also the sister training leaders and zone leaders came over so she could get another blessing. All day we watched church movies. Like Joseph Smith and the Restoration, Legacy, Mountain of The Lord, and so on. I guess you could say it was a relaxing way to spend Easter! And it was my 13 month mark! I can't believe I am at that point. Everyone keeps telling me that my flight plans are going to be coming this transfer which scares me now. If you would have asked a few months ago if I was excited to go home I would have said yes. But I am at the point now where it is bitter sweet. I really love serving a mission but holy cow I miss my family! I guess I will just keep working hard.
This week was so wonderful being able to tell people about the true reason we celebrate
Easter. It's not for the eggs and candy, it is because of Him. Jesus Christ's atonement makes so many wonderful things possible. It makes it so that when we die, we will see our families again. It makes it so that we can have chances over and over again to become better. I know that the atonement is so real and it is important to use it every day in our lives. I am grateful for everything that Christ has done for me and because of Him I am serving a wonderful full time mission for His church.





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