What Did We Even Do This Week?

My one and only Sister Hood: holy smokes I miss
her so much! Honestly this is the picture that best
describes our companionship and friendship

That's my question every week before I write this email. Also, I think I mentioned at one point that Sister Johnson and I are very similar, in that we both enjoy having pictures, but are terrible at taking them. So here we have it, I finally accidentally went a full week without taking a single picture...life gets crazy, okay? I've still got some old ones though, don't worry it's not just words this week.

Sister Wright, need I say more?

I'm just doing throwback pictures this week, to remind everyone of the amazing companions I've had so far :) I tried to find pics that best represented each companionship.
Anyway...Hey again! Hopefully you've all survived another week, and done more good than you thought.

Sister Thor (um?) #littheworld 2nd time trio
with Sister Swenson :D

PROGRESS FOR THE WEEK. One thing I love that we do at the end of each week before one of our meetings Sunday is type up a progress record or weekly report. We put down all the contacts we tried or successfully had, as well as all the lessons, and basically everything we got around to doing that week, and it's helpful for me to see that we actually do a lot of work! Granted, a lot of it is hard and sometimes you don't want to do it but of course it's all worth it, and you learn a ton every day.

Sister Swenson, Kikel and I tried
to figure out this picture for awhile.
Yo no se

MAKE YOUR BED BEFORE BED. Sister Whitesell moment of the week...we all know that usually we should make our beds in the morning. With my routine, I can manage to do that 95% of the time. Then there are apparently weeks where I just can't even do that correctly. So there were a few nights this week where I made my bed at 9:20 p.m. because I forgot to do it at 6:30 a.m. At least it was made eventually, right?

I think all my companions gave
me that smirk look of "you're
ridiculous" but I only got
Sister Hatch's on camera

Best rejection of the week: we went to the apartment of someone who we didn't know. They're just a name on a list right now, and we don't know where they're at with the church, or anything about them. That's one of the things Sister Johnson and I have been working on a lot is going through a bunch of the YSA (Young Single Adults, ages 18-30) and getting to know them, making some sort of contact with them, seeing where they're at.

Well, we knock on her door and she opens it, so of course we ask if she's Jennifer. The response? "No thanks," and she quickly shuts the door. Guess we know where she's at then! Yes, when people who used to have a relationship with God and then show that they've distanced themselves since then, it's heartbreaking. But sometimes you have to find joy in the little things too; plus we did what we could to help.

Trio for life, party in Rocklin YSA
with Sister Andersen and Johnson!

COOLEST THING from this week was...actually we had a ton of cool things, but this one probably tops the others. Sister Johnson followed some chain promptings. Just feelings that we have or things we think we should do that then lead to another idea, until you eventually end up where you're supposed to be at the time you're supposed to be there.

For some reason this became our
companionship defining pose

Well, we jumped around to about 4 places where we talked to an investigator from last week, offered help to a lady waiting outside, got told by someone that the family that lives there isn't home right now, and to come back later even though you could hear them all in the background, and then knocking a few doors and getting told to leave the complex by an older lady, and then finally, we ended up where we needed to be.

We knocked on a member's door from our huge list and instead of the girl we expected, a guy named Dakota opened the door. Suddenly we were just having this easy, normal conversation on the doorstep! It was so nice to immediately feel comfortable talking about the gospel as well as getting to know him; he's super nice, and is willing to have us back next week! We'll see how it goes, but I just thought it was amazing how easily we could talk.

We go to the same church building
as some of the elders, and overlap
church hours by a bit. Since we arrive
after them, we decided to make it a little harder
for Elder Clarke to get into his car (he's 6'6")

HOW ABOUT SATURDAY? We also had exchanges Saturday and this week, every single lesson got cancelled or pushed to Saturday. While I was with Sister Trammell, we had 4 lessons, back-to-back! Fun but exhausting. It was a stellar day though!

Miracles happen all the time, and every day we just have to be looking for them. We're given so much in this world to build our faith and make life better and easier, we just have to have our minds open to it!

He did eventually have to climb
through the passenger seat

The longer I'm out the more I'm able to see just how much He does for us. I would not have the strength to do any of what I have on my mission without His help because it's hard work. There are hard days and months, and yet somehow I'm able to keep going because of the trust He has in me to help bring others closer to Him.

Look for the little things this week, and you'll find God's hand in so much more than you'd think. Keep it real and of course thanks for all the updates!

Sister Whitesell
teresa.whitesell@myldsmail.net

751 Central Park Dr. #321
Roseville, CA 95678