Springtime in the Northwest
Okay, it literally feels like
I just barely hit my four month mark, and now all of the sudden I'm a third done
with my mission?! Wow! It's actually pretty exciting :) And sad at the same
time. I'm starting to understand the whole wanting to be in denial about how
short of a time you have left in the mission thing. I'm starting to really,
really love being a missionary, and really want each day to last as long as
possible!
This week was AWESOME.
First of all, thank you so much to everyone who has been writing me for my
birthday! It seriously means so much! It's so fun when I open my P.O. box to a
bunch of letters. Thank you specifically to Jaina, Sis. Rogers, Noemi, Gma and
Gpa, Candi, Jessy, and Katie! I also got a package from my mom this week, and
am expecting one from my dad today!
Birthday Package!!!
My companion made me birthday breakfast!
So we started off the
week with a challenge from the Hood River Elders to try to get 50 OYMs (open
your mouth and talk to someone new) the way you do that is either talking to
someone on the street, at the store, knocking on their door, etc. It counts as
an OYM if you introduce yourself, get their name, and tell them you are a
missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints. In my past
areas it has been very, very hard to get even 20 in a week, just because it has
been cold and winter, and nobody was out! And in Royal all the houses were
really spread out, so we spent a lot of time driving. So we worked really,
really, really hard this week at talking to literally every single person we
could possibly see, and got 40!! We were so close! This week we are going to
shoot for 50 again. I think we can do it!
We met so many cool new people this
week, including a girl named Kira. She actually walked up to us! (that never
happens) and asked, "Hey are you guys church ladies?" and we were
like, "Well, yes, we are missionaries.... etc., etc." Then she was
like "I have never grown up with any religion or anything, but I believe
in God, and I have been searching for the truth for a long time. I saw you
ladies and your name tags and just had a huge urge like I NEED to talk to you."
It was INCREDIBLE. We are teaching her tonight, and I am so excited! We also
got a new list from the Executive Secretary of the ward, of part-member
families and found an awesome new family to teach. The Merrills' mom is a
member, but none of the 4 kids or husband have ever been baptized. We are also
teaching them today, and I'm excited to see how they go!
Park where Kira found us
Tuesday was my
birthday! Woo hoo! I already talked about that a little, but something also fun
that we got to do was do some service at a thrift store, and we got some free
clothes! And then for our member dinner that night, the Kings (AWESOME COUPLE)
took us out for dinner at this delicious local pizza and sandwich shop. We had
these amazing sandwiches (I love, love, love sandwiches) and tons of extra
pickles! Unfortunately no one makes fried pickles here, which is a birthday
tradition. So that was sad, but I got some Tillamook ice cream. I guess that
makes up for it. :)
Wednesday we had a
really good day filled with tons of companionship bonding. I finally got to
meet Erin, an eternigator (investigator for eternity) that has been being
taught in this area by missionaries for nine years! My last eternigator, Ana,
just got baptized last Saturday, so I'm excited to crack down on this one too!
It's funny because everyone's so afraid of offending them or hurting their
feelings or something, and I'm just like, what have you got to lose?! They're
not progressing anyway! I believe in being bold with people, it’s the only way
things get done! There's an awesome quote that I heard from a missionary who is
super inspiring to me: "The difference between being bold and being
overbearing is, overbearance is boldness without love." How true is that?!
It's like the difference between tough love, and just being mean. So anyway,
I'm excited to start working with Erin.
Companionship bonding!
We also got to meet
the most interesting little kid, James. He is only ten but is SO smart! We met
his mom a couple days ago and shared our message with her, and she asked if we
could come over and share it with her son, too because he would be very
interested. When she said he was ten we were like, hmm that's kind of weird,
but okay. Then we got there and met him and holy cow! His vocabulary was
insane. We asked him what he would like to get out of our meetings and he said,
"I would like to have enlightenment and knowledge about my purpose in
life" We were like ............. wow." So anyway, I'm very excited
for him, too.
Thursday we stopped by
the church for a meeting with our bishop for a while to talk about the work in
the area and saw a bunch of the youth going in and out of the gym with a bunch
of random supplies and ladders and lights and stuff. So we got curious and
followed them in there and found them decorating the gym for a stake dance like
Harry Potter themed!! IT was so cool! It looked just like the great hall in Hogwarts. Thursday night we had an awesome member dinner with
the Rogers, a cute older couple who actually went to Utah State! My comp, Hna.
Marble, is from Logan and wants to go to USU after she gets back, so it was
really fun to be around a bunch of Aggies! (We even sang “The Scotsman”
together. It was so fun!)
Harry Potter dance--You walk through
the brick wall at platform 9 3/4--get it?
Friday night we had so
much fun because we had a ward barbecue. At first when they said barbecue I was
like, "Yeah right, it's probably just hamburgers and hot dogs on a
grill... it's a grill-out." But then to my pleasant surprise it was
legitimately a barbecue! A brother in the ward brought his Traeger and made
pulled pork! It was so, so, so delicious and refreshing! I think he was using
maple pellets, or maybe cedar. It was also really fun because our investigator
Tyler (who is on-date for baptism, btw!) brought his non-member parents, and a
non-member friend, Aaron! It turns out that Aaron ended up getting his hands on
a Book of Mormon a few years ago and actually read it and has been having some
questions for a while. But he never knew how to get a hold of the missionaries.
SO anyway, that was a miracle.
Legitimate barbecue!
Fun at the ward barbecue
I ate cactus!
Friday we had a lesson
with an almost eternigator (it's been two years), named Dory. Her issue is that
she has a ton of questions about deep, deep, deep doctrine that we can't
answer! I don't know if anyone can answer it but God himself! She is just
studying literally everything she can get her hands on. We’re not sure where to
go moving forward with her, so if you could pray about that it would be great!
We could use some inspiration. We also accidentally knocked into a less-active
named Juan. It turns out he hasn't been to church for 20 years, but he never
stopped believing. Now he has a heart disease and can't go out. It was so sad!
He told us his conversion story, and I was almost crying by the end of it. I am
so glad we found him and can start helping him now!
Saturday we got to go
over for lunch to a less-active’s home and have Mole Verde! I had eaten mole
rojo a lot before, it's a really common dish, but never verde! It was really
good. I'm not a huge fan of mole, but now I really like it. I also ate cactus!
It was surprisingly not that bad. It just tasted like a not-ripe-yet cucumber.
I also ate Aloe.... very strange.
Hermana Marble eating Mole Verde
Saturday in the day we
drove up to Carson to contact a referral. Carson is a little town on the very
edge of our area, and it is SO gorgeous up there! I have tons of pictures. Something
kind of funny is that on the way up there, we were winding through tons of
mountains, and I got soooo carsick. I was about to throw up... so we stopped at
a gas station to grab some Dramamine for the drive back (it's about 45
minutes). I took a Dramamine but totally forgot that they make you really
drowsy! So ha ha, when we got back that evening, I was totally falling asleep
during the member dinner! I was so drowsy the rest of the day.
The drive to Carson
My favorite quote from
church yesterday: "Who you are is good enough, don't be so hard on
yourself! Keep going, keep trying, keep progressing."
My favorite thing I
learned this week: "Restauracion= Restoration AND restitution, in Spanish.
How perfect is that?!
Welcome to Washington!
Welcome to Oregon!
Her last name is Marble! Hee hee!
These cute vans are everywhere
I LOVE this street sign!
Strange sign we saw
Everything about this town is so cute and woodsy.
Even the post office looks like a cabin!
Bridge over the Columbia River
Beautiful scenery around White Salmon
No comments:
Post a Comment