Monday
After emailing, we got a call from President Schofield saying that we needed to be in Bothell at 4:30 to pick up Sister Hamon and be her companions for 1 week. Whaaaat. Craziness. So, we go and get some ice cream really fast...as a result of trying to eat it fast while walking down to the river beach, I dropped mine on the trail. It became rocky road/full of gravel instead of Chocolate PB cup :( And then we got another call saying nevermind, be in Bothell at 8:30. That was a relief, but I regret dropping the ice cream. But anyways, yes, I was in a trio with Sister Hamon for the 3rd time! As we were picking her up, we found out that a main road was closed. The GPS wanted us to go out of mission to get there, so we just drove around until it found a different route. And then, on the way back home it took about 45 minutes. So we got home late. it was weird to be having to worry about night construction.
Tuesday
District meeting and the RZAs! District meeting was huge because we combined 2 districts. It was basically a zone training. There were 14 missionaries in there and so each companionship got up and accounting took forever. Almost a whole hour. Then we had a training where they had us throw a hacky sack at a mad looking guy (he represented a mad bible basher at a doorstep or something) and then they took away his picture, and there was a picture of Jesus behind it...so the lesson was that everyone is a child of God, of course, and when we are rude or annoyed by these people, we have to remember who they actually are. Sister Anderson always says that if we knew everything about everyone, we would love everyone unconditionally. If we understood their perspective and their situation.
Something that the Redmond Zone does is the RZAs (Redmond Zone Awards). All of the district leaders stand up and present each missionary with a certificate. Elder Jacks got up there and basically said "This missionary is from Alabama and she like boiled peanuts" well, that's obvious. Then, I made the whole zone try boiled peanuts. Most of them tried to eat the shell too...it's really sad that they haven't had this experience.
We had a lesson that was really long, but also enlightening. It's interesting when people actually understand that God will answer, and because they know that...they're a little bit scared to ask. They know that a big change will come into their life if they receive the answer that the Book of Mormon is true, and they think they aren't ready for that change or that trial.
Wednesday
I said that last week was service week, but I just think that every week is service week in Duvall. We always go to the food bank and clean the City Hall and Visitor's Center and help a recent convert and then something else always comes up. We poured out gallons and gallons of chunky expired milk. I've enjoyed being out in the sun and working hard, but it's exhausting! We had a member lesson where we role-played the Restoration; the spirit entered the room almost immediately and confirmed to me the truthfulness of the simple message that we take so much for granted.
Thursday
We had dinner with a member family and their inactive grandpa. We had a really good conversation with them. They both talked about how they found the church. She was a convert and then helped him the quit smoking and alcohol. Sister Anderson shared Alma 19:6 "...the light of everlasting life was lit up in his soul, yea, he knew that this had overcome his natural frame and he was carried away in God." It really touched them. We were in an ADD lesson on the beach, and I was flipping through the BofM. The guy we were talking to was just randomly like "what's that verse?" and I read it and he was like "whoa that applies to me so much" which was awesome just to see how much the BofM is so personal.
Friday
Our whole district came to Duvall, and Helen told us exactly what to do. She gave us all jobs and advice like always. After 2.5 hours of that, she took us (in our sweaty/stinky clothes) to a really fancy sandwich shop where we sampled fancy bread dipped in oil and vinegar. We drew the plan of salvation on the sidewalk right next to some girls doing a bake sale for their church...awk...and then we wrote the quote "We may not see the silver lining on our clouds, but God can and He has a plan." -Holland & wrote our number. No one has called yet though. Another cool experience..we prayed and Sis Anderson felt like we should go to the gas station, so we were getting gas and I wash washing the windows and then we struck up awkward conversation with the guy next to us. Not always something we do. He didn't become a new investigator, but we were able to increase his faith. It's always a victory to follow a prompting.
Saturday
We had a lesson with a member couple and us 3. 5:1 is a weird ratio, and it's hard to get things done because everyone wants to talk at once. But, our investigator really liked the members..that might be the most I've ever laughed in a lesson. Russian class was interesting; Sister Hamon, Sister Christensen, and I worked together to do some role-playing and it was just like old times. Super weird. On exchanges (I swear I go on 100s of exchanges...), we needed to leave in 10 minutes, but we knocked on one more door and then that turned into a 45 minute discussion. Basically, this guy was just talking about how there are so many differences between our religions. So we tried to highlight the similarities, but he wasn't having it. One thing that he said, I thought was interesting. So he was taking about how it's weird that we believe in the Bible because if we believe that the church became corrupt after all of the apostles died, then why would we want to read a book that was assembled by a corrupt church. (So I guess that the Bible was assembled by the Catholic church, after the apostles all died, according to him). But anyways, the point is, he was trying to dissuade our testimonies with all these random facts, but when he was talking about the Bible, it just strengthened my testimony so much in the Book of Mormon! He's right, we can't 100% trust the Bible. It's not 100% correct. It's been changed. Yeah, it was originally written based on what the apostles wrote, but..the Nicean Creed happened...We need the Book of Mormon. We need that clarification. We ate some cheese. We were so excited. We put it in our mouths, and it tasted so gross. Then, we looked at the package and it expired on June 25. I don't know how we didn't get sick or die.
Sunday: So we went 54 days without rain here. On Sunday morning, we realized tht it was raining! It's a miracle! The drought is over..and maybe some of the horribly hot weather as well! At church, I felt a strong prompting to focus on the baptismal covenant of "[comforting] those who stand in need of comfort." No idea why, but I decided to think about that during the sacrament and afterwards. We got transfer calls and Sister Hamon will be leaving us, and Sister Anderson got some sad news as well...let's just say that I got to follow the prompting of comforting. It was seriously an answer to prayer. God was actrually preparing me for something that would happen just a few hours later. I was a little awestruck based on the fact that he cares so deeply.
This is incredibly long.
Hope it's enjoyable, though! Feel free to skim :)
Love you all
Cectpa Jenne"
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