First off, a BIG, HUGE, GIGANTIC thank you to everyone who helped make my "midway day" so special!!! I got the package and loved it, and have since looked through all the pictures and read all the notes about 1,899,473,543,543.57693 times. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!! OBRIGADA MUITO!!!
Monday: "It was a fabulous day!" says my journal. We got our caricatures drawn by Angelica, which was SUPER fun and now we have them up on our wall in our apartment.
Then, something tragic happened (and by tragic, I'm just being overly dramatic). FHE was country swing dancing!!!! Why would they do that to me??? It was super rude, because I love dancing, but I couldn't, it made me Brayden (my swing dance partner and brother who's going to CHILE), they made US (the missionaries) DJ, and had us play country music. Is that even allowed? I dunno. I pretty much just bemoaned my fate the whole time. RUDE.
Oh well, I'll just dance all I want in 9 months.
Ew. That's not too far away. Yuck.
Tuesday: Sister King had MLC so I had another Sister Training Leader's companion as my temporary companion for the day. It was fun because she's an Hermana, and she's training, so I got to do some training (for the first time ever!) and we had a good hour for language study!! Halleluyer! We were supposed to have an appointment with a member, but she had to cancel, so we drove around trying to find some new move ins. No luck, it was cold, and we ended up at the church because the new sister was kind of struggling (in general, not because of me) so I could give her a pep talk. Which I did, and hopefully it was what she needed, and hopefully it was awesome!
Then I got Sister King back! Halleluyer! We prepped for our lessons, and headed out the door to dinner at Francisco's. Delicious! We had a really good discussion about repentance, and the Spirit. Before we left he wanted us all to sing "I Am a Child of God" together so his parents (who aren't members) and his sister (who is a member but is really struggling) could feel the Spirit in their home more.
And it worked. The Spirit was super strong when we left. :)
After that, we had an AWESOME lesson with Erick!! He's progressing towards baptism really well :) He is really starting to understand repentance, the Atonement, and the importance of baptism. And his prayer was so amazing and good and I was just super happy when we left. :D
That night, we exchanged with the Magnolia First sister missionaries, and Sister Schellhous (shell-house) was my temporary companion in my area! Meaning, I was left in charge of the area for a day. That was pretty fun.
Wednesday: We went to "The Mission" again at Lonestar, and Sister Schellhous thought it was pretty fun. We handed out a bunch of flyers for our fireside, and everyone seemed pretty excited about it. One of the leaders, Stewart, prayed for us. We all put our hands on each others shoulders (me, Sister Schellhous and Stewart) and then he prayed for us. It was very sincere and nice, and we definitely appreciated that sincerity.
After that, we visited a member named Victoria, who is pretty fun and sweet :) We had a good lesson with her and her siblings, and then had to jet out.
We then had a frustrating lesson with Frank. He told us that we're too repetitive, and that we talk about Jesus Christ too much. However, we ended on a good note, and he committed to stopping coffee and alcohol altogether. So that was good!
We were supposed to have a dinner appointment, but it didn't work out, so we grabbed some Chick Fil A and headed back to Magnolia 1st area to exchange back.
Back with Sister king, we met up with a recent convert named Luis at the church building, and gave a quick, mini church tour, gave him a few flyers for the fireside, and asked Luis if he knew anybody that would like to have a church tour like the one we'd just given him. He said he'd think about it and get back to us, and that he has a few people he'd like to hand out the flyers to. Halleluyer!
After that, we got some ice cream at DQ to celebrate because...
IT WAS MY HALFWAY MARK!!!
Now Sister King and I can both say that we're halfway through our missions. Its kind of a bittersweet feeling. She and I will go home at the same time, which is super weird to think about.
Thursday: My journal entry went something like this;
"Dear neighbor who decided to shower at four am,
NO. Just no.
Sincerely,
Sister Shell
I dunno why our neighbor did that, or why it woke me up, but it did. Oh well. What's done is done."
Yeah, I was kind of annoyed about that.
Anyways.
We were supposed to do another member church tour with Jacque, Jacob and Dallin, but Jacque couldn't come because she was in the middle of cutting people's hair, so we ended up just having a lesson with Dallin and Jacob outside about the sacrament, and they committed to inviting some friends to the fireside. Halleluyer!
Oh wait. Back up. Before all that, we went and visited Jen's sister Alison, who has some of the same medical issues as Jen but on a smaller scale. Alison told us she was giving a talk on Sunday, about Joseph Smith the Prophet, and asked if our investigators had any concerns about him that she should address in her talk.
I almost lamoni-d. Seriously, nobody ever does that! I've never even thought of doing that! But if every member does that, it would make missionaries happy. Like, super happy. So, I've decided that that's what I'll do for my homecoming talk. I'm gonna get my topic and ask the missionaries that same question that she asked us. Alison is going to the Celestial Kingdom for sure!!
Okay. Fast forward again. We visited Angelica (the member who drew our caricatures) and had a really good lesson about "Deep Beauty" (see the talk by Elaine S. Dalton or watch the Mormon Message) and it was fabulous.
After that, we had dinner with Becca, who served her mission in Russia. We had a fun time talking about missions, and committed her to inviting people to the fireside. She's so awesome!!!
After that, a miracle happened. Well, they happen all the time. But a big one happened! We stopped by a recent convert's house, who we haven't been able to get in contact with for a while, and she opened the door, saw us and said, "I'm so glad y'all stopped by! I thought you guys forgot about me!! My phone broke and I just got a new one!"
So that was a pretty neat miracle. Now she has our number again, and we're setting up a ride for her so she can come to church when she comes back in town after spring break.
Then, we stopped by another girl's house who is YSA age. Their twins, actually, named Destiny and Faith, and they have an awesome little sister named Hope. They are pretty much pros at meeting celebrities. Seriously, they've met like 56 people (like Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez, and Demi Lovato like 6 times, and a bunch of other people that I don't remember but that are awesomely famous like One Direction). Serious, they are PROFESSIONALS. Its almost scary how good they are at meeting them at hotels, airports, or gas stations. Yeah, not just at the meet and greet things. We're talking about "randomly" meeting them in public. Its almost like they stalk them.
Then, they told me this thing.
Hunter Hayes is going to be at the rodeo next week.
And I almost lamoni-d again.
HUNTER HAYES, y'all.
They told me they'd meet him, and get a signed picture for me. I almost died. And then they said they'd try and get him to sign a Book of Mormon for me, but I was like "NO! Just give him the Book of Mormon!! I'll take the picture!" They also said they'd help me meet him after the mission. Is it bad that I really just want to give him a church tour while he drops into town? Gosh, I'm such a missionary. #yoso
#lamoni
.....
Okay, I've recovered. On with missionary life!
OH YEAH. Here's what happened next. So we set up an appointment with the elders for Erick, and there was a bunch of mis-communication, and next thing you know, Erick thought the elders weren't gonna show up at the church for the lesson and left. AHHH. And we texted and called him and heard nothing back. We felt pretty crummy, and thought maybe we'd ruined it for him.
Friday: We had Zone Meeting which was pretty fun. Elder Wible may have gotten his visa!! (He came out to Texas with me) to my mission! I asked him because his status online (last I'd heard) said that it was ready to send out. So I asked him, and he was like, "Uhh, I'm not supposed to talk about it..." So I'm taking that as confirmation that he got his visa. I'm super stoked for him, if that is the case!!
Then, we were supposed to go volunteer at NAM, but Sister King and I were feeling very overwhelmed. We made a list of why, and then did things to prevent us from getting even more overwhelmed. Hence, we called about 40 people to tell them about the "Why I Believe" fireside because somehow NO ONE in our ward seems to know about it, despite us announcing it in sacrament, it being posted on the Ward Facebook page and it having its own event page on facebook! So we were telling everyone about it on the phone, and committing them to inviting their friends.
Then, we went to a burger place called "The Counter" with Kevin. It was possibly the fanciest, yummiest burger place ever! It was so good.
Saturday: We went to the temple grounds cleanup service project! Sister King and I were both wearing our college t-shirts so we thought that was pretty funny.
We shoveled some dirt- excuse me, I mean soil- and cut up grass, moved it, and then moved it back again, and yanked up some tulips that looked perfectly good to me but were apparently going to die in the next week.
Then, we had lunch with Patrice, Michelle and Jessica at some Greek place and it was reallllly good. Especially after that long service project!! We needed it.
Then, WE GOT PACKAGES!!!
I got my "midway day" package, and loved it. I read through all the little notes from everyone with the dorkiest, happiest grin on my face that stayed while I looked through all the pictures. Thank you sooooo much, everybody!! I loved it!!! Thank you, obrigada, thank you! I won't ever be able to say it enough.
Also, I got some yummy cookies, some Hershey's kisses, and some Kit-Kats. So now we have a lot of food, because that is ALL that was in Sister King's package. Thanks for taking such good care of us y'all! :D
Then, we called everyone and their mom, and their mom's dog's cousin's sister's fiance's owner's brother's niece about the fireside again.
We also got in touch with all the Bishops in the stake, the stake publicity people, each ward mission leader, and each ward bulletin coordinator about the fireside. Yeah, we pretty much run the show here. We felt pretty accomplished and awesome.
Then, we visited Kristin and watched part of the talk "His Grace is Sufficient" which was amazing, just like every other time I've listened to/read that talk. It truly is amazing.
Sunday: I woke up SUPER tired because we all lost an hour of sleep, and SUPER sore because of the temple service project and because I'm out of shape. There, I said it. I'm out of shape. Ugh.
Then, during personal study, I found this quote that I absolutely love. Here it is;
"Nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our Father in Heaven and how familiar His face is to us!"
-President and Prophet Ezra Taft Benson (emphasis added by me)
Then, we went to part of PEC because we're missionaries, and they needed our input. We talked a lot about the fireside and how we can pull that off, and I had a bit of revelation that I shared with Sister King. Here it is: as our stress level rises (depending on how we deal with it) our capability level also rises. So, there you have it folks. So when you're stressed, rise above it, and next time, you'll be capable of so much more.
Then, Frank came to church! And so did our other investigator Lauren! And it was PERFECT because Alison did an AMAZING job on her talk, and it was just awesome. Member missionaries are the best!! But we still hadn't heard anything from Erick and were sort of freaking out.
But, Frank came to our mission council meeting thing after church and gave us some more ideas for the fireside (from a nonmember perspective) and our ward mission leader (who knew we were struggling with Frank) helped us set a baptismal date for him! Since he's waiting for his friend to come back from BYU, it'll be on May 3. FRANK HAS AN OFFICIAL BAPTISM DATE, Y'ALL!!
Then, we were discussing Erick and what we should do, and lo and behold, there was a Christmas miracle, and he texted us!!! :D He said that he's been super busy working but asked if we could meet up this week. Halleluyer, of course we can meet with you this week, Erick!!! :D
Then, we went back and quickly ate some dinner and headed out to watch the Joseph Smith movie with Lauren. After the movie, we were able to powerfully testify to the truthfulness of the gospel, that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, and that she can come to know this herself.
Then, we went home and called in our numbers. They've temporarily gone a little down because we've had to do a lot of the grunt work for the fireside, but it will really pay off in the long run.
Fun little spiritual thought in case anyone is having a hard time today. Psalm 30 verse 5 says, "...Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."
Just remember that even though its rough right now, it will get better! It has to, and Heavenly Father will make it happen for each of us.
Eu amo voces muito!! Tchau for now!!
com amor,
Sister Shell
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