Fw: Pixie Dust

 

 

Dearest friends and family,

 

This week, it got cold. Really really cold. I mean, last week, it got a little bit chilly and it was cool seeing spots of yellow appear on the mountains around us, and some of the trees were changing colors, and it was the basic change into fall, but apparently fall lasts for about a week here and then it goes straight into winter. Just kidding. But all the same, we've got snow already. It's cold. Apparently the weather doesn't normally get this cold this early in the season, but it did this year. Most of the snow has already melted, but there's still a distinctive nip in the air. The snow looked kind of cool when it was on the ground because it just barely dusted everything, so it's nothing heavy just yet. Just a bit of pixie dust. But that doesn't stop me from switching to long-sleeves, jackets, gloves, and scarves.

 

By the way. I would love it if I could get some nice gloves that will actually keep my hands warm. Thanks.

 

So the story for this week is that I got sick. On Tuesday, I was working despite a heavy headache, but while driving, I realized that I couldn't focus on the road and it was to the point that it was unsafe for me to drive. So we actually had to call up the zone leaders and temporarily switch driving privileges to Sister Peacock for the day. The headache subsided mostly for the next few days so I could ignore it and get back to work, but it fired up in full force Friday night and all of Saturday and Sunday.

 

During Saturday, Jeffery R. Holland's entire talk seemed to speak of the problems I've been having since being on my mission, including the severe headache I was facing that day. His solution was to not run faster than you have strength. His words, "If we do not take time to be well, we will most definitely take time in the future to be ill," kind of struck a chord. But I just kept thinking, "But there's missionary work to be done! I can't wimp out! Not because of a headache!" So after Saturday conference was over, I pushed myself and we drove to go visit a less-active. They weren't home, but I felt deeply impressed to stop by one of the nearby member's home. They invited us in and offered to feed us since we didn't have a dinner appointment. But food wasn't ready just yet, so they had us do crafts with them and play games with their two little daughters until food was ready. We ended up spending far too much time there mostly because we didn't have much choice if we wanted food. At the end, as much as we enjoyed ourselves and I was able to ignore my headache while there, Sister Peacock and I felt really bad since we're told to not spend too much time at member's homes. But then, after assessing the situation, we realized a couple of things. First of all, I had such a headache that I was not in a state where I would have been beneficial to the missionary effort anyway, even if we had gone out tracting as we had planned. So the time spent at the members was kind of the Lord's way of saying, "Take it easy. It is not necessary for you to run faster than you have strength," because apparently hearing it from an apostle of the Lord was not enough. Second of all, we did that member a great service. Sister Dodds explained to us that she was running on about two hours of sleep and would probably have been unable to properly care for her two very energetic daughters while her husband was at the priesthood session of conference. Even though we were playing games and having a good time, we were doing a great service for them.

 

So the lesson to be learned is that God works in mysterious ways. We didn't go out thinking to ourselves, "Hey, let's go spend three hours with the Dodds so we can have fun!" but the Lord sent us there because that was what we needed at the time.

 

Sunday I still had a headache as fierce as before, so Sister Peacock forced me to go to sleep after conference was over. I awoke briefly at nine to help Sister Peacock send in our numbers for the week and then slept till morning. I'm hoping that the rest I got will help me function better for this week, but I still feel a little bad. I mean, yes, I was sick. But still.

 

I'm out of time, but I'll talk more next week. I'm hoping I'm better by then.

 

~Sister Richelle Nicole Jones