Fw: Step by step

 

 

 

 

Hola! Como estas?

 

...

 

And that pretty much covers the Spanish I know...

 

Sister Peacock and I got frustrated at spending the last hour of the day doing language study when we feel like we should be out working, so we've just decided to go out and do the work, despite the fact that nobody is awake at that hour. But I've been reading El Libro de Mormon during any spare time I have like in the mornings when Sister Peacock is taking a shower or when we're eating food or something. It's been helping me to recognize vaguely what's going on in the story which helps me to somewhat piece apart the meaning of different words, but most of the time it just feels like I'm reading gibberish. I'm praying and hoping that the gift of tongues falls on me and the words will miraculously make sense and I'll suddenly be able to speak Spanish, but so far that hasn't happened yet. :P

 

But we did see a different miracle this week! :D

 

So we've been seeing this one investigator, her name is Angela, and she's been a pretty strong investigator so far. We had a scheduled appointment with her, so we were trying really hard to get a member to come with us for the lesson. I had also made peanut butter fudge the previous day to hand out to people, so we were going to member's houses to give them fudge and then to see if they could come out with us to the lesson. Three consecutive people weren't home, and these were some of the members who we can normally get to come with us for lessons. Well, the time for the lesson was coming up, and we still didn't have a member to come with us. But then I remembered that one of the members in the area, Sister Grayson, had been sick with serious migraines the previous week, so we wanted to give her fudge to make her feel better. We stopped by and she was not only feeling better, but she already knew Angela! She agreed to come out with us, and it turned out to be perfect in every way! Angela was going through a hard time with her 4-year-old daughter and needed some parental advice, and Sister Grayson is the mother of seven children and understood what Angela was going through. There were a lot of concerns that were brought up that Sister Peacock and I couldn't have answered, but Sister Grayson not only knew the answers, but had actually --on a whim-- been studying those very things just the other day! The Lord had really prepared this specific member to come out with us for this specific lesson. It was truly a miracle! It was awesome. And we would have never thought to have brought this member with us, but the Lord had prepared a way that we would know to stop by the Grayson's home. The week before I had felt inspired to stop by the Grayson's house, but Brother Grayson had told us that she was down with a migraine and turned us away. At the time it was like, "Well, great, so the Lord sent us here only to be turned away..." But if we hadn't known she had been sick, we wouldn't have made peanut butter fudge for her, and she wouldn't have come with us to the lesson. So, food for thought, the Lord works in mysterious ways.

 

It's sort of ironic that not only did I get sick, but apparently Darcy did, too. This week, I was feeling better for Monday and Tuesday, but on Wednesday, I did something silly. Sister Mayne had made us eggs at 6:30 a.m. but we ran out of time to eat them. So those eggs sat on the counter. At lunch time, I looked at the eggs and went, "Awwww, the eggs got left out! Now they're all rubbery and bad..." But then I didn't want them to go to waste, and I figured, surely they can't be that bad, can they?

 

Ok. For those taking food handlers classes. Don't. Eat. Food. That's. Been. Left. Out. EVER.

 

I spent the rest of the day throwing up. Good job me.

 

For those of you who are asking about my knee, it's still messed up. I can still walk on it, and stairs don't hurt anymore, but I can't run, and morning exercises hurt if I bend my knee too much. I figure I can ignore it for now, but I promise I'll get it checked out one of these days. It's just sort of a mess to go through the mission president's wife, then the mission office, then the doctor's office, and so I'm procrastinating having to deal with that.

 

Moar stories! So this week we had exchanges on Thursday with the Sister Leader Trainers, so Sister Encarnacion was my companion for the day. She has a very strong personality to accompany her strong accent, and all it did was make me feel like I'm a bad missionary, which I've been told is untrue, but I feel like I don't have quite as much drive as some of the other missionaries do, so then it made me feel bad.

 

On Friday, though, while we were tracting, we came across this guy who was like, "I'm not part of your religion, but I know some members, and though I may not agree with your doctrine, I respect your church and your members and all that you do to live your religion." We gave him a card and sometime after we left, we get this phone call from him, and he was like, "I was just calling to say how proud I am of these two exemplary young women who came to my door today sharing their belief in Christ." It was definitely a feel-good moment.

 

One more thing I wanted to mention for this week, this Sunday was stake conference. And that was well and good, but the stake President said something a little interesting. The stake President, during his address, stated, "By the end of this winter, your faith will be tried." It's not horribly often that you get such a direct warning from the stake president, so it makes me wonder what's going to happen. It's going to be interesting because I know that I'm going to end up being in the middle of it.

 

Anyway, I think that's all for the week. I actually have a package I want to send home, so hopefully I'll get that out to you guys soon. I love you all! Have an excellent week!

 

Oh! I did want to say something. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOSH! It's a little late. I meant to send that last week, but I forgot. But I got it in this week, so I think I'm safe. :P

 

~Sister Richelle Nicole Jones