January 6, 2014
Longmont, CO
Funny
thing about weather. If it snows too much, then we get a snow day as
missionaries. Snow day, woohoo! (you are thinking) Did you build a
snowman with a carrot for a nose? Not so much, a snow day on the mission
means that our car gets a break and we get to our appointments by whatever
means possible. You know what else is cool about a snow day? Your
loving Heavenly Father, who knows that you will have a snow day, even when you
don't, can help prearrange your day so that time will be spent well and rides
will be had and walking in the snow is minimal. Not that I am expecting
this every time, I am sure there are things to be learned from snow days, but
on Saturday I was very grateful.
So Happy New Year! I have
the privilege of looking forward to 2014 and knowing exactly what I will be
doing every day! To quote scripture, I will be serving "with all
[my] heart, might, mind and strength...with an eye single to the glory of
God"! Not to covet is one of the 10 commandments, so any of you are
certainly free to adopt this as your life plan for the next year as well, I
don't want you to be jealous ;) The work is wonderful and there is no other way
in which I would want to spend the year.
It certainly gives one a
different perspective though, starting out a year. It seems like a long
time to spend all of a calendar year on a mission. However, when you look
beyond and see that at the end of this year I will have just over one month
left as a full-time missionary, the time seems incredibly shorter. Have
to make every day count along the way!
Also, thank you for birthday
wishes, I am no longer a teenager! For those of you who are familiar with
my habits, I did, in fact wear a crown for most of the day. All during
studies in the morning, took a break to go out contacting, but put one back on
for service at the OUR Center which seemed an acceptable place to wear a
crown. As well as when we ate cake with the missionaries (because I have
the best companion) and blew out candles (because I have the best mom). I
removed it once again for dinner, but the Merrills had a birthday hat for me
for the evening :) We had a great night of fondue and games, before our early
missionary curfew.
But we were done when we had to
be home? No, we ate a lot of junk food as we watched 17 Miracles, awesome
movie. Went to bed before midnight and slept very happy. For maybe
the first time in my life, I did not watch my birthday leave. Strange.
At our ward correlation meeting
this week we came up with a code name for our ward mission plan, which is that
we are going to work with Anti-Nephi-Lehi families throughout the year.
(Again, to prevent jealousy, feel free to use the name, it is from the Book of
Mormon)
It is hard to share all of
the miracles which may occur in the life of a missionary, but here is one: we
walk up to an apartment building which is normally locked, but hope
for the side door to be open. It is! A woman from the ward
lives here, but we have never met her before. We knock on her door and
there is no answer.
(There was no answer the
night before either when we visited with our awesome Relief Society president
Sister Madsen who was a lifesaver this weekend! Another missionary
miracle is to get to meet and work with people like her)
We wait for a few minutes,
Sister Carbno is telling me a story. Then, at the opportune moment, we
knock again and the woman answers the door! We have a great visit, she is
a wonderful lady and not until the end do we find out that she had music on all
day, and had just happened to turn it off or she never would have heard our
knock.
I am telling you, there is
a plan for each one of us, no doubt about it.
There followed other miracles in
the evening as we were able to have lessons with several other people who we
never catch at a good time.
And speaking of wonderful
people to work with and inspired situations, we took Sister Merrill to what was
supposed to be a lesson with Maria. Long story short, apparently Maria
doesn't want to talk to us anymore, but we were able to sit in on the wonderful
lesson which Sister Merrill had with Angelica, in Spanish.
Sadly we are now down
another Maria, and will probably never catch up to how many the Spanish sisters
are teaching, which I believe is now at 12.
But miracles happen!
If there is faith on earth, there are miracles also (see Mormon, chapter 9)
love, Sister Emily DeFord
p.s. We have made a goal
as a district for a certain number of baptisms in this transfer, please keep
our investigators in your prayers.
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