Monday, October 10, 2016

Week 51--"Don't Sweat the Petty Stuff, and Don't Pet the Sweaty Stuff"

(That was a funny quote I heard at ZTM this week!)



So this week we get to go to the temple on Thursday, which means our P-day schedule is a little different than usual. So I actually only have about an hour to write today instead! I'm gonna try to hurry and get everything in, there's been a lot of things happening this week!

Monday- P-day here in Ellensburg is VERY different. It's definitely going to take some getting used to. Instead of going to a church and playing sports with all the other missionaries in our zone, we actually went to the Institute Building with just a few other missionaries and played pool and played instruments, it was so different! Kind of nice I guess, but I'm definitely going to have to be a good motivator to get people out and exercising regularly!

Something funny/sad. I lost our house/mail keys!! I don't know what happened but I have this carabiner that I keep them on, and somehow they must have fallen off. We even went back to the store and retraced our steps looking very thoroughly for them! Fortunately, we have a couple of spare sets, but still!

That night we had a lesson with Fernando. We had a review of the Gospel. He is SO awesome! He just got baptized in August, so it's like teaching Raul. He told us he really wanted to bear his testimony that upcoming Sunday (yesterday was Fast and Testimony meeting.)

We also visited the Reina family again. We talked to them about their conversion stories and then ended up on the subject of the temple and they shared with us some pictures from when they got sealed in the temple not too long ago. It was really sweet and special :)

Tuesday we were in a trio with one of the English Sisters, Sister Goodrich, because her companion, Sister Atkinson, is a solo STL and had a mission leadership conference to go to. It was SUCH a weird day. Literally EVERYTHING fell through except for doing some weird service for some old people... We went to this one old lady's house to help her vacuum and she was watching Horror movies! The Spirit was 100% not there... then we went to visit Clemencia and she was super standoffish. It was so weird. Then we went to visit Janie and ended up meeting her friend Mitchell, who also has special needs and likes to worship Satan? He was like "I love hatred," and we were just like... okay this is a weird day.

Fortunately, Wednesday was a GREAT day, thank goodness. We actually met a new investigator, Kristina! She just got here from Tijuana about three months ago and is looking for a church to go to. She was Catholic growing up but said she doesn't like how they worship the Virgin Maria. She also said she loves to watch "videos about God," so we showed her the Mormon Messages channel on YouTube and are going to go watch the Restoration video with her today. She soaked it all up.

Later that day we went to the APOYO food bank to help out. We met a sweet girl named Emilia there, and also a girl named Imelda. Imelda is like Dolly Parton's identical twin! I really hope we can teach those girls they are so, so sweet!

We had a TAM (teaching active members lesson) with the Braxons that night. We shared with them parts the Character of Christ (aka my fave talk ever). It turns out Brother Braxon speaks Spanish! Supresa! and he gave us a referral right off the bat of some Hispanics that are neighbors with him. Sweet!

Thursday we stopped by the store again to ask the customer service people if they had any keys turned in... still no luck. Then after that we had a REALLY weird lesson with our (now former) investigator, Tayde. It started off alright, but then she went on this really weird tangent for like a half hour about Halloween and how it is the day people worship Satan, etc. So that was weird. Ha ha but then that evening we got to meet the Jameson Family and have dinner with them. It was DELICIOUS. And then we played Pictionary with prophets like Moses, Noah, Joseph Smith, Nephi, Adam, etc. and then talked about conference and what we learned from Thomas S. Monson. Thank you, Libbie, again for the Boogie Board!! It really comes in handy. They have such a cute and sweet family, and another supresa—Sister Jameson speaks Spanish too! We actually have a surprisingly high number of Spanish speakers in our wards. Awesome!

Thursday night we had Spanish correlation meeting. For some reason my Spanish was just broken that whole meeting! It was so strange. I was like, where did it go? Man. Then we went to the Family History Center with Fernando to help him do some research and try to find a name to take with him for his first temple trip this Saturday! They/we have been working on it for five weeks now and finally found him enough information to be baptized for his Grandpa! Woo hoo! Speaking of this Saturday, October 15th, guess what AMAZING NEWS I got? MAX IS GETTING BAPTIZED! Cue the Hallelujah Chorus! That means this weekend Hermana Shewell and I will be taking a trip down to White Salmon! I'm so excited for Max. I knew he was almost there! He was so close!

Friday morning, we had lunch at Bishop Shipman's company again. They made Carne asada and, holy cow, it was so delicious! We also met a new potential investigator, Omar. He has a lot of Mormon friends at work there, and has a lot of questions. We're meeting with him soon!

Eating Carne Asada!

We also had Weekly Awesomeness! It was great, and the zone leaders actually called us and asked if I would do a training (teaching the 24 other missionaries in the zone for 15 minutes) about planning in our Meeting on Saturday. I was like WOW, okay sure! They said a "little bird" told them I love planning. I want to know who it is!

That evening we met the Gibson family and the Darwin family, and a couple more potential new investigators. We shared with the Darwin family the Secret Service hearts (an activity my mom did for us once when I was little) it's where you do anonymous service for someone and then leave a little paper heart behind that says "Secret Service" on it. It’s a cute and fun way to get families closer and doing more service for each other.

 The Secret Service!



Saturday we had an awesome Zone Training Meeting. There are a lot of us who are new to the Selah Zone, so we actually went around the room and all introduced our companions, including telling everyone, “If my companion was a piece of furniture he/she would be a _______. Ha ha! It was really fun. My training actually went pretty well, too! I was a little nervous because I've never given a training by myself before. I usually play the piano for meetings, so I never get asked to do other things, and the one time I did do a training was with Hermana. Hull! SO I was nervous but Hermana. Shewell said I did great. It was a little hard getting people to participate, but oh well.

Hermanas Knight, Torman, and Shewell
at Zone Training Meeting

Sunday was my first time going to church in this new area. We're over three wards, but just attend one, the First ward. It was Fast and Testimony meeting, and Fernando really wanted to bear his testimony. Since it is a primarily English congregation he asked me to go up with him and translate! I was like *heart is beating out of my chest* "Uh, yeah, I can totally do that!" *screaming inside* But fortunately it all went well! I was super nervous being in front of a congregation where at least 10-20 people would know if I messed up. But fortunately the Spirit took over and the Don De Lenguas was muy real. Fernando's testimony was so powerful! So many people came up to us afterwards thanking him for his words, it was so simple and pure, and just awesome. Go Fernando!

Last night Hermana. Shewell and I both actually started feeling really sick. I've got a bad headache again, but this time I think it's from my sinuses, and both of us have sore throats and runny noses! Your prayers would be greatly appreciated! We want to work super, super, super hard this week to turn our area around and light it on fire, and we can't do that if we are dying! Thank ya’ll so much for your support.

I love and miss you all!

Patriotic mission cars!

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