Hello, All--
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Party with Swensen
and Thorum! |
What's up! It's Monday again! I think, honestly my days are so mixed up because this week was yet another crazy one, but it's always good, no worries. As you can see, I'm in my third and final companionship for this transfer, which happens to be another trio! In the title we have Sister Johnson's nickname, then Sister Anderson's nickname, then mine. We try to be creative. Well, I try, and they succeed pretty well, ha! Anyway. Lemme walk you through the insanity and miracles that made up this week.
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| Johnson (L), Anderson (R) |
INSTAFRIENDS. First off, Sister Anderson is from Gilbert, AZ, and is the 4th of 7 in her family. She did a semester at BYU-Provo and is crazy musically talented and is just a stellar human all around. Sister Johnson is from Japan, yeah you read that right! Her dad works at IBM so she's just moved around a lot, and since her dad didn't fight it when IBM asked them to stay in Japan, they've lived there the last 16 years.
She's also an amazing human, and she's super cool, and also went to BYU-Provo for a year before her mission. We discovered that I'm the glue, because I was in Provo while both of them were, except Sister Anderson (she's going home in 2 weeks) was a freshman when I was a freshman, and Sister Johnson was a freshman my sophomore year. That was cool fun fact. But they're both amazing missionaries and I'm excited to work here in Rocklin!
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| Merry Christmas I guess? |
I've learned that missionaries are just basically instafriends, and you do random stuff with random people because you're all serving, and you may as well have some fun with it. So the missionary moment of the week was at half-mission zone conference Friday. I was "backing" Sister Swensen (standing outside the car, making sure she is clear before she backs out), and I heard my name being called by two missionaries I didn't know. Elders Brown and Green called me over so that we could all take a picture, because we had colors in our last names. (Re-reading over that, it doesn't sound that interesting, but I thought it was funny 'cause I didn't actually know either of them.)
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| Exchanges in Gridley! |
EXCHANGES. This week there was Missionary Leader Conference, that Sister Thorum needed to go to. Sister Swensen and I drove up to Gridley to drop her off, and pick up another sister for "exchanges," where you trade companions for a day. I had done an exchange with her (Sister Jensen) her very first day of her mission! I looked forward to seeing how she'd changed since then.
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Christmas picture for my
third trio |
Huge miracle for the day...we were trying to knock on a former investigator's door, who didn't end up being home. We decided to knock on the next door over, and Sister Swensen knocked, so the other Sister talked. I've never been more proud and stoked in my life! This nice lady who opened her door, listened to the message long enough for us to: share a passalong card (inspirational message), play a Light The World video for her, and then she STILL listened as Sister Swensen bore her testimony of the truth of the Book of Mormon. She also accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon, and that copy had a Restoration of the Gospel pamphlet in it :)
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| no explanation |
We set up a return appointment, and she and her little son who had been poking his head out every once in awhile, each time with a new toy, are going to have the missionaries over next Tuesday. It made me so hyped to be a missionary. The past 2 weeks had been difficult. Every lesson and contact had either dropped or said no in Auburn, so finding a new investigator in Gridley was so exciting! I was so hyped, just ask Sister Thorum or Swensen!
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I got to see Natalie's dog
before I left Auburn! |
CHRISTMAS SPIRIT. Saturday (I was in Rocklin at this point), there was a Lighting of the Trees in downtown Rocklin. All the Sisters got together and tied candy canes to pass along cards, and prepped about 150 or so to pass out. Between the 7 sisters, it didn't take too long. And I know it sounds so cheesy to put candy canes on cards, but honestly I've just embraced being a sister missionary.
It's weird if Elders give someone cookies, but we're sisters so we can. People appreciate it, and I may as well use it to my advantage. Anyway, we were able to hand out all of them! The only sad part was the number of people that said No to "can we offer you a candy cane and a service challenge?" (Guys, it's Christmastime--just get pumped to serve people!) It was fun and a little overwhelming, but as they say: "No growth in the comfort zone!"
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You thought I wouldn't get my
shoulder pic with Sister Thorum...
nice try |
REUNION OF SORTS. The other big thing this week was Zone Conference, and just Friday in general. So not only did I get to see friends serving in the southern half of the mission (only happens twice a year or so), we were lucky enough to have Elder Dube come and teach us at conference. He had so many amazing tips, and he talked about a lot of important points.
FAITH. One thing that I wanted to focus on was the importance of having faith in our Heavenly Father. Often times, we don't know where that line is, between being faithful and being realistic. As we push ourselves to trust him, and believe in the plan that He has for us, then we'll come closer to Him and our goals can become reality.
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| Awkward family photo |
When we focus on Him and do our best to set goals that He knows we can achieve, then we'll be able to achieve that potential we have. It's hard to give everything to Him. I still haven't been able to yet, and I've been on a mission which is gospel 24/7 for almost 7 months now. It's hard. But that doesn't mean we can't incrementally work on ourselves every day to work toward that potential we each have, learning to fully trust Him and have that faith that it will work out how it needs to, will make our goals a reality.
I hope this week is filled with Christmas cheer, and singing loud for all to hear, and glitter and all the Christmastime-y things. (Kidding about the glitter...honestly, I don't know why that stuff exists?! It gets everywhere. But it's Day 4 of the Light the World calendar! Go help out a neighbor! Good luck :)
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| trio life is exhausting |
Sister Whitesell
teresa.whitesell@myldsmail.net
For now, we'll keep my address the mission office, because transfers are in two weeks and who knows if I'll be staying here.
8583 Watt Ave
Antelope, CA 95843
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