Week 56: 9/8/14

September 8, 2014

Cheyenne, WY

 

Even though I emailed on Wednesday, it seems like two weeks worth of things have happened since then.  Maybe because being a missionary works this funny magic on you.  The masterful ability I had to not feel guilty while doing absolutely nothing previous to my mission has been wiped out.  Amazingly, when you don't spend time doing nothing but instead are always doing something then two weeks worth of nothing doings (and then some) can happen in 5 days!

 

Wednesday we had an awkward experience.  Ha!  Who am I kidding?  We have an awkward experience every day!  Hmm.  President Brown has asked us to email him about how we ourselves are doing, something about a progressing investigator (or progress in the area) and a miracle every week.  Maybe I should start including an awkward moment for the week as well :)

 

Okay, here I will tell you about my awkward week :)

 

Back to Wednesday.  We had tried to reschedule and appointment with T____ from Tuesday to Wednesday, but she hadn't replied to our suggestion to do it at 4.  So, around 3 we sent her another text, as if she had responded, and said great we will see you at 4!  Aren't we clever? ;) As we were driving to our 4 o'clock 'appointment' who do we see but T____, walking her girls home from school!  They are still a good ways from home, ah!  What do we do?

 

Pulling up next to them we asked if we could still meet that afternoon and she said yes, we will meet you at the house!  Woohoo!  Also, it was nice because sitting outside their house was the first time we actually got to take a deep breath and go over what we would be doing for the rest of the week.  We just hadn't stopped since Sister Grammer arrived so that was nice.  We aren't planning to stop either!  This is going to be a transfer of miracles!

 

We did have a great lesson with T____ though, and she downloaded the gospel library app on her phone which even has the scripture stories that she remembers from when she was a kid!  Excellent!  She downloaded the same thing on her daughters' tablet so they can have it too :)

 

We also tried to have district meeting on our own on Wednesday, because no one told us it had been bumped to Thursday for the week so we showed up and no one was there, but that was okay since otherwise we weren't going to have lunch time that day.

 

More awkward!  On our way home from district meeting (on Thursday) we got a message from someone who just told us he was a member of the LDS church and asked us to call him back, so we did!  And he told us his daughter needed some help in Cheyenne.  Which began a merry chase of trying to find out who the transient Bishop is and how to get ahold of him.  What did we get for asking 3 different people?  Three different answers!  Eventually it was all straightened out though and correct contact was made :)

 

We helped some people with packing and moving and did some teaching and finding and discussing and learning the gospel.  Really, if I haven't said it enough already I am so excited for this work!  I am so blessed this transfer to have a companion who is just as excited as me for the same things.  We both know that it is still going to be a lot of difficult work, but I can take that because I also know that the Lord's promises are sure.  This is for real and the more people I meet and talk to, the more time I spend in the scriptures, the more certain I become of the light and truth of the message that we share.

 

Heavenly Father really does love us and have a plan for us as His children.  He wants us to become like Him and to be happy which is why we are here on earth, to learn those things.  Our return to Him would never be possible without the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  We have been blessed with commandments and laws to keep and covenants to make (to learn, while here, some of the laws of heaven) but those would be useless if the Atonement had not been accomplished.  That is the good news, the gospel, that Jesus did live and accomplish that victory over sin and death and that he does live.

 

The rest of the story is that, since those principles and ordinances of the gospel now have meaning due to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the authority to enact those covenants and ordinances truly in the name of Jesus Christ has been restored to the earth once more by a Heavenly Father who loves us and wants us to return to Him.  Full circle.

 

What has added more to this week of awesome awkwardness (this is more on the awesome side) was being able to attend a mission conference on Saturday which was presided over by Elder Quentin L. Cook, a modern day member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.  There were a lot of great things shared in that meeting.  One thing that Elder Cook reiterated was that "you are successful when you invite, regardless of the outcome" and he said we could quote him as saying that ;) Something I thought was very neat though, was when he reminded us that we are exactly where we need to be.  He, along with other members of that Quorum, assign missionaries to their missions by revelation.  He said that often though, one of the most important parts of assigning a missionary, along with what mission they serve in, is to assign them to a specific mission president and his wife.  That is something which I find to be true, and I am grateful to be serving in the Colorado Fort Collins Mission with President and Sister Brown.  For now, there is no better place to be.

 

TMFWD (how did ThMFWD go?) shall be white this week!

 

love, Sister Emily DeFord