January 15, 2013

My last transfer meeting is tomorrow, but we are actually going because

SISTER DOUGAL got TRANSFERRED!!! :(

Hello Everyone,

Yes, it is kind of a somber moment. I will greatly miss Sister Dougal. It seems like all of the companions I have for only one transfer are the ones I miss the most. Hopefully that means my last companion will be awesome, as well.  The ward will greatly miss Sister Dougal, too. There was only 1 Sunday this transfer when she didn't play the piano in Sacrament Meeting! I can't compete with that, so hopefully my new companion can play also. I'll let you know.

This week was pretty great. We had some incredibly awesome trainings from our Zone Leaders (at Zone Council, which was also attended by President Anderson) and our Two District Trainings. We are sad to be losing Elder Toeava as a District Leader, as he is transfering to another area, as well.  Plus, We will be losing our senior Zone Leader, Elder Bjorling, as he will be transferring to New York. The zone will definitely feel the loss.

This week was also kind of epic because of Saturday. We went to 2 weddings! First, Brian (a recent convert of Sister Dougal's, and the father of our recent convert Brandon) and Michelle were married at the church. They had the wedding and reception there. They asked sister dougal to play the piano as she marched in. I got to play violin, too! It was awesome to play for a wedding! They whole event was fun. Nothing super fancy, but great. And super cute! I love older people getting married!

After we helped clean up, we found out that the second wedding we were planning on, the one of the elders' investigator, had already happened! In the Bishop's office! We were bummed, and so were the Elders! So we took the party to them! We took the extra flowers, cake, sparkling cider, and food to Terence and Desiree's house and held a fake wedding ceremony for them! It was hilarious! They loved it! Elder Edwards gave them some random rings he had, and they wore them the next day! They even fed each other cake and had their first dance on the lawn.  All of this was made even sweeter with the fact that they have no electricity in their home and live in some pretty humble circumstances. They were so happy that we had come and we were glad to give them an audience.

The next day, being Sunday, we more epic than usual. The Elders had a baptism before church of a family of 4. We helped out, of course, including cleaning up the bathroom when the font over-flowed and providing assistance for the program. Then at church, no one came. Until right before sacrament (thanks to the 4 confirmations!) when Teresa showed up! (She has a crazy story that you should ask me about later. It may include someone being possessed.)

Then after church, there were 2 more baptisms! Terence got baptized, but there was an 8 year old getting baptized at the same time! It was pretty crazy to switch rooms part-way through and Sister Dougal was running back and forth between the two to play the piano and I was trying to find some way to keep the spirit while we waited for them to change and no other missionaries were around and then Bro. Morgan gave a 25 minute Welcome to the ward. It was all pretty intense, but super awesome that so many people were able to make covenants with God! yay!

And my inserted quote from my letter to president:

"On Sunday, We were really tired from all the craziness that happened with the baptisms, but we knew that we would be more blessed if we kept on going. It was getting dark and we harvested for over an hour without much success. We were determined to hit our goal and still needed one more blessing. We went to check on a recent convert who didn't show up at church, and he wasn't home. But we felt like we needed to stay in that complex, even though it had all been knocked by missionaries fairly recently. Then my companion remembered a referral received last transfer who had never been home. We decided to check on her one more time. We knocked on the door and no one answered, but we could hear music inside. So we knocked harder and Allison opened the door. We introduced ourselves and before we could even explain why we were there she let us in. She was almost crying when we said we wanted to pray for her! We left the blessing and she was so happy! She immediately asked where the church was, asked if she could give us her number, and tried to refer us to the friend that had referred her to us! It was incredible! She accepted baptism on the 27th and we are looking forward to going back to see her! It was another experience that gave us the Spiritual boost we needed to keep going. This is why I am a missionary!"

Actually, at District Training yesterday, we were asked why we are serving a mission, what we want to accomplish and how we are going to accomplish it. It was really interesting to think about those things right now, as I have such little time left, but it really helped me to remember why I am here. Sisters serve for 18 months for a reason, so that last month has got to hold some incredible blessings, right? Otherwise I would have gone home a while ago, when I was young and foolish and thought I had accomplished enough. Silly me. We never stop learning. We never stop growing. There is always something more we can learn about Jesus Christ. There is always more we can do better to become like Him. Whether we are serving full-time, part-time, all-the-time, or only occasionally when we are impelled to do so, there is always something we can do to more deeply understand and apply the power of the Atonement in our lives. I hope all of you can find something to do today that will help you to more fully receive the blessings of the Atonement.

Need some ideas? Write to me, I'll give you some!

That's all for today! I hope you all don't freeze in that January Weather! We have to keep reminding ourselves that it is January and not June.

I love you all!

Love, Hermana Sheffield