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| Out to breakfast with Sister McGinty, Sister Wheatley and Tammy Briggs Shahan |
Alright, time is flying by! I can't believe that in three
Monday's from now I will be sitting at the mission office waiting for my
departure interview. This is just too crazy! But I'm not letting that slow me
down any in my missionary work.
To start off, Tuesday the 20th was a good day! After studies
early, we went to a members house and did some service for them. The wife just
had a baby and they are laying a walk way in their back yard so we helped them
with that. Who knew that putting stones in dirt would take so much work and
creativity! We were there for two hours and didn't even finish a tiny section.
It was fun though!
Sister Rachel Anna Wheatley and
Tammy Briggs Shahan (Mom's best friend)
Later that day we had a lesson with our investigator
Jessica. We have not had much success when we go over to meet with her and her
boyfriend and their family. It's been hard to keep any of their attention so we
decided we better see her while all the kids are at school, this really
helped. We read Alma 32 together on faith and how she needs to exercise her
faith when it comes to baptism and coming to church. She and her family have
been taking the lessons on and off for a couple years. Sister Carrell and
Sister McGinty started teaching them again about 8 week ago and there has not
been any progression. When we went and saw her this week, things seemed good
but since we saw her, nothing. It's so frustrating, agency. I wish we didn't
have agency. Things would be a lot easier! But at the same time, if we didn't
have agency none of us would be here so I guess I have a love-hate relationship
with it haha Hopefully we get to see her this week and see how her prayers are
going and see if she was able to talk to her boyfriend and discuss where they
are at with the church. They are a wonderful family and we have a feeling
that they know it's true but they are having a hard time realizing that they
know. I think that's what is hard sometimes about being a missionary. The
people you teach know the truth but sometimes they don't realize they know and
we have to help them realize it. So I hope that this week we can do that with
Jessica!
Wednesday the 21st was such a wonderful day! Sister McGinty
and I spent a couple hours in the morning with moms friend Tammy. We had such a
wonderful time together! I loved getting to know her. I hadn't seen her since I
was like a small toddler and it was just nice to talk to her!
Stewardship Papers!!!!!
After that we spent a lot of time at the mission office
trying to get an email out to the metro people to see if we can do a finding
activity a couple times a week at the metro. While we were there, I had an
envelope from Tammy that had letters from when mom was on her mission. It was
so cool because I got to read them and I felt kind of like I was there with mom
and all those who wrote mom letters 30 years ago when she was on her mission.
It was cool because it has all come back around in a sense. I loved getting to
know mom from a different perspective through the letters.
Later that day we had a lesson with our new investigator,
Larissa. She and her husband Aaron just moved back in with his mom and sisters
after living away for many years. He has been inactive for a long time and
recently started going back to church. I think I wrote about them last week so
I won't say much but I will say this... Before we even got started with the
lesson, we asked Larissa if she had any questions for us. We thought maybe
questions from the Restoration pamphlet we had left her with but no... Her
first question was "What do I have to do to become a member of your
church?" Umm.... come again?! Are you for serious?! We were in shock! It
was so exciting! So we taught her the Restoration and gave her a Book of Mormon
and she's super solid! It's amazing how prepared she is. She has been looking
for a church that makes her feel welcomed and loved and she said that she's
found it in the LDS church in the last three weeks that she's been coming to
church. I just can't believe this miracle! We are setting a baptism date with
her this week!
Stewardship papers arrived!
My mission is seriously coming to a close!
Thursday the 22nd was a pretty ok day. It wasn't too
successful but it happens. That night for dinner we all went over to a
less-active members home and he fed us dinner. Sisters Scott and Carrell are
teaching a friend of his and he wanted to feed us. He is Chinese and so the
Sisters asked if we could have some authentic Chinese food. I have to keep this
story short but we had a hot pot dinner where there was raw food and we had to
cook it ourselves in a hot pot of water. It was really good and we were all
super excited because it was way different then anything any of us had had yet
on our missions.
Well, we had a lesson after dinner and right towards the end
I started not feeling well. We rushed home and (not to be graphic or anything)
I ran straight to the restroom and was in there for almost 30 minutes! Come to
find out that Sister McGinty was in the other restroom! I was so sick that I
just went to bed without planning. Wake up in the morning feeling a little
better but all the other Sisters were sick, Sister McGinty and Sister Scott
really bad. Long story short, it wasn't food poisoning but we sure as heck felt
like it was! I felt bad because Sister McGinty slept almost all day getting up
here and there. We had an appointment at 4pm and we had weekly planning to do
so we did it all but sadly we left for our appointment and couldn't find it so
we called the lady and she had to cancel. So Sister McGinty got up for nothing
:( But she was feeling better by then but I still felt back taking her out to
work when all day she wasn't feeling good.
Later that night we had a lesson with our investigator,
Jessica (another one...) This lesson was so good! We usually teach her with her
returned missionary boyfriend with us but he couldn't make it this time, which
ended up being a good thing! We got to talk to her about any concerns that she
may have that she didn't want to bring up with her boyfriend there. So it was
wonderful! She is still hesitant about setting a baptismal date but hopefully
soon she will get up the courage to tell her friends and family and that we can
set it soon. She knows the church is true, she studies out of Preach My Gospel,
she comes to church every week. She's super solid as soon as she tells people.
Saturday the 24th we tried something new for a finding
activity. We went down to the Rose Bowl and started playing frisbee. We wanted
to invite people to play with us but in the end it didn't really happen. Mostly
because this last Saturday they were having a 5K race so people were already
pre-occupied. We did end up playing with a little family but it didn't last too
long and then we left. We know that the Spanish speaking missionaries have a
lot of success doing these kinds of activities so we are going to try it a
couple times and see how it works.
Basically that's all that happened this last week. It ended
up being a good week and I feel a lot more better about this week then the last
few weeks. And I'm really looking forward to this coming week. We are going to
be doing this differently this week then we've done before so hopefully we will
have a lot more success in Pasadena!
I'm so thankful for this time that I have had to be a
missionary. This week we have zone conference and we are supposed to read our
patriarchal blessings and answer the question of why we were sent to the
California Arcadia mission. As I read it this morning, so many things came to
mind as to why I'm here in this exact mission. I am so beyond thankful that my
Father in Heaven sent me here. I know this is where I have needed to be the
last 18 months because I have learned so many things and it is just setting me
up for the rest of my life in so many ways!
I love you all and am so thankful for your love and support!
Love always,
Sister Wheatley
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