It was another adventure filled week in Gretna! OK, well, not near as exciting as getting locked out of our house and the toilet overflowing, but we set a baptism date with Debbie, the wife of the recent convert that we've been teaching! It's been so amazing to see how she's changed. It seems like the real turning point was when they started doing family prayer every night. And I think that has also been the turning point for their 13 year old son. We would barely see him before; he'd just be back in his room playing video games. Then he'd start coming in and out, and now he stays and participates in the lessons and told us the other day that he is "beginning to believe" and really likes when we come over. Both Debbie and their son came to church on Sunday and had a really good experience. We were worried about how Christian would like it because there are absolutely no youth in the branch. But he actually told his mom that he was glad he came. We didn't know what to do with him, so he ended up just going to all the adult classes with his parents. When we were discussing it as a companionship before he came to church and worrying about him not having the support he needs in the branch, we just came to the conclusion, well, if the Church is true, it's true, and he will feel it and Heavenly Father will provide a way for things to work out. So who knows? Maybe Christian will be baptized with his mom on Easter! That's a great day for a baptism, don't you think?
The weather here has not been able to make up its mind. It's been really rainy and cold, and then it's 70 degrees for a couple days, then goes back to the rain. But yesterday, it was a really nice day, and we went on a bike riding adventure! You see, we are really low on our miles on our car this month, so we were pondering what our options were for the last few days of the month and what people we could see and what we could do without driving too far. Then we thought we'd give some of our investigators a call who had offered to loan us bikes, and asked if we could come over in the morning and borrow them. But instead they delivered them to our house that night. So funny, you would love these two, they are a crack up. I think every time we go over there they give us something. One time it was a bunch of old clothes in case any of it fit us and we had quite the fashion show that night...
But anyway, Bill brought over the bikes complete with helmets, and we donned them the next morning along with our backpacks, we packed a lunch and strapped it to the little platform on the back, armed ourselves with safety pins to keep our skirts from blowing up, and away we went. We thought we might be able to make it up to this area where we'd left off some tracting, but we quickly realized that biking in Virginia is not the same as biking in Arizona or California. We forgot that "this here be hill country." So we ended up walking our bikes up a lot of hills and zooming down them on the other side. It was amazing. And we only made it about halfway before we realized we had to stop in order to be able to get back for our dinner appointment that night. We did a bit of tracting around where we stopped, and then picked a nice grassy spot along side this country road to eat our tuna sandwiches and apples.
I then made some off hand comment, that I think someone should just stop and talk to us about the gospel because they felt impressed to. Then, lo and behold, we see a man walking up the street toward us. He asks if we need any help, and explained he lived in the house that was kind of across and down from where we were sitting, and he saw us on our bikes, and he wasn't used to seeing people on bikes around there and wanted to come talk to us. He then asks who we are and what we were doing and we were more than happy to tell him, and he accepted a Book of Mormon and was really interested to read it. We're going to go back and see him and his wife on Saturday, so we'll see what happens.
We then proceeded on our journey home which included riding our bike across the highway, because there was no other street that went where we needed to go. It was so nice. But I've discovered I'm not in very good shape anymore. I wasn't sore though, at all, only my behind because of the seat... I'm sure we looked quite the sight for all the Gretnans.
Maybe we'll have time to ride them more and I can get a little bit back in shape before I come home. :) But it sounds like you are still busy, busy, and happy. That's all really interesting about the common wealth school and those classes, I think that might be something I'd really like to do. But again, I'm running out of time, talk to you all later! I love you all!
~Melissa
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Snow Storm
This picture was taken the day of our big snow storm - the one that started everything off! But it was pretty. The weather is really nice today, nothing like this picture. I’m sitting in the sun outside the door of my house, listening to the train whistles and the church bells playing, “Brightly Beams.” Virginia definitely does have its charm.
I love you all! Melissa
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Interesting People
Hey ya'll!
Great Time-a Day! Sounds like y’all just keep getting busier and busier and have a full summer already! What happened to my laid-back family? But, no, I don't really have any plans for the summer - I don't really know what to do with my life, to be honest. But I really like your idea of training to teach those classes. That Pyramid Project class sounds like something I'd really love. Maybe I can teach that class for you next year :) And something I've learned on my mission is that I really do love to teach, especially about the scriptures. Only it really frustrates me when people don't want to learn.... It's so exciting, why doesn't everyone want to know the things I've learned! Something really interesting, that I learned through looking up words in the concordance and Hebrew & Greek dictionary that you sent me, almost every time the Bible mentions the word 'hell', the original Hebrew and Greek words really mean a world of spirits, a place of the departed, but not a final state. Man, if people could just read the Bible in the original languages, I think people would have a lot better understanding of true doctrine, not that there's still not a lot that's missing, but what is left would be a lot clearer.... so many people get so tripped up because of misunderstandings in the wording. No wonder the Bible is the stumbling block of the gentiles.
But, that is hilarious about Hugo! Dad is just so awesome, I can understand why Hugo wants to talk to him so much, but I wonder why it took him 20 or so years to figure it out. Neighbors really do make life interesting. On the mission, it's your investigators :) Well, actually the ward members, too. Here in Gretna, we have some really great ones. They keep us rolling all the time. Sometimes we can't restrain ourselves and just start laughing, but most of the time we try to hold it in, in case it might offend someone. For example, there's a lady in the ward who it seems, whenever we are at a dinner and she's there too, we end up on the subject of moonshine. I also never realized how big Virginia was in the tobacco industry. There are so many old ladies here that chew, it's disgusting!
So this week I got to visit someone in jail, it was a fun experience - talking on the little phone through the plexi-glass. A less-active member of the ward who wants to start changing his life, he was pretty cool. He wants us to try to get him a Book of Mormon. But the problem is getting anything to him in the jail is a process, and apparently the people at the jail don't like Mormons, so I don't know if it will ever make it to him. How sad.
We had Zone Conference and Stake Conference this week, which we had to be up in Buena Vista for, so we've been missing out on a lot of sleep and study....which is hard, but those conferences are always great. At Stake Conference I got to see a lot of people from when I served in Buena Vista. A lot of people still recognized me and said, “Hi”. I even saw ReNay! I don't know if you remember me talking about him, but he is defiantly one that always kept me laughing. I saw my old ward mission leader and all kinds of people; it was really fun. And not to mention the talks were really great. It never ceases to amaze me how, even though people prepare their talks independently, they all seem to go together. This time it was all about how we need to give our whole hearts to following our Savior. After the conference, we stopped at a park by the river that I'd been to when I served there, and had lunch with the members who gave us a ride. It was so nice and sunny, I loved it.
At Zone Conference, they talked a lot about being more bold and meek and how they can be the same thing when we use them and balance them correctly. They talked about bringing up baptism early and letting people know our purpose. Then that night we had a meeting with, Debbie, the wife of a recent convert, who we just recently started teaching, and after teaching her the plan of salvation, asked her to be baptized, and she said she would, so in the next month we should be having another baptism! We are so excited!
Did I already tell you I have to speak on Easter Sunday? Originally they were going to ask us to speak on the 26th, but I said, well, I'll have to accept for the next missionary, because I won't be there, so they just changed and had us do it on Easter.
Well, I'm running out of time, things are going great here in Gretna. I'll talk to you all later. Love you!
~Melissa
Great Time-a Day! Sounds like y’all just keep getting busier and busier and have a full summer already! What happened to my laid-back family? But, no, I don't really have any plans for the summer - I don't really know what to do with my life, to be honest. But I really like your idea of training to teach those classes. That Pyramid Project class sounds like something I'd really love. Maybe I can teach that class for you next year :) And something I've learned on my mission is that I really do love to teach, especially about the scriptures. Only it really frustrates me when people don't want to learn.... It's so exciting, why doesn't everyone want to know the things I've learned! Something really interesting, that I learned through looking up words in the concordance and Hebrew & Greek dictionary that you sent me, almost every time the Bible mentions the word 'hell', the original Hebrew and Greek words really mean a world of spirits, a place of the departed, but not a final state. Man, if people could just read the Bible in the original languages, I think people would have a lot better understanding of true doctrine, not that there's still not a lot that's missing, but what is left would be a lot clearer.... so many people get so tripped up because of misunderstandings in the wording. No wonder the Bible is the stumbling block of the gentiles.
But, that is hilarious about Hugo! Dad is just so awesome, I can understand why Hugo wants to talk to him so much, but I wonder why it took him 20 or so years to figure it out. Neighbors really do make life interesting. On the mission, it's your investigators :) Well, actually the ward members, too. Here in Gretna, we have some really great ones. They keep us rolling all the time. Sometimes we can't restrain ourselves and just start laughing, but most of the time we try to hold it in, in case it might offend someone. For example, there's a lady in the ward who it seems, whenever we are at a dinner and she's there too, we end up on the subject of moonshine. I also never realized how big Virginia was in the tobacco industry. There are so many old ladies here that chew, it's disgusting!
So this week I got to visit someone in jail, it was a fun experience - talking on the little phone through the plexi-glass. A less-active member of the ward who wants to start changing his life, he was pretty cool. He wants us to try to get him a Book of Mormon. But the problem is getting anything to him in the jail is a process, and apparently the people at the jail don't like Mormons, so I don't know if it will ever make it to him. How sad.
We had Zone Conference and Stake Conference this week, which we had to be up in Buena Vista for, so we've been missing out on a lot of sleep and study....which is hard, but those conferences are always great. At Stake Conference I got to see a lot of people from when I served in Buena Vista. A lot of people still recognized me and said, “Hi”. I even saw ReNay! I don't know if you remember me talking about him, but he is defiantly one that always kept me laughing. I saw my old ward mission leader and all kinds of people; it was really fun. And not to mention the talks were really great. It never ceases to amaze me how, even though people prepare their talks independently, they all seem to go together. This time it was all about how we need to give our whole hearts to following our Savior. After the conference, we stopped at a park by the river that I'd been to when I served there, and had lunch with the members who gave us a ride. It was so nice and sunny, I loved it.
At Zone Conference, they talked a lot about being more bold and meek and how they can be the same thing when we use them and balance them correctly. They talked about bringing up baptism early and letting people know our purpose. Then that night we had a meeting with, Debbie, the wife of a recent convert, who we just recently started teaching, and after teaching her the plan of salvation, asked her to be baptized, and she said she would, so in the next month we should be having another baptism! We are so excited!
Did I already tell you I have to speak on Easter Sunday? Originally they were going to ask us to speak on the 26th, but I said, well, I'll have to accept for the next missionary, because I won't be there, so they just changed and had us do it on Easter.
Well, I'm running out of time, things are going great here in Gretna. I'll talk to you all later. Love you!
~Melissa
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Weaving Threads
Hi everybodeee!
You all crack me up. I'm glad you enjoyed reading about my week. It was definitely an experience. Every week we are supposed to write our mission president letters and just tell him about how the areas are and how we're doing and what not, but I get tired of writing them, so every so often I'll make it fun and write him riddles and jokes (which he'll call me and try to answer), or tell my week in story form about the princesses that live in Gretna, etc. So you can be sure he got a funny rendition of the events. Sis. Bell was telling me she actually wrote about it to her family in verse. She said she'll try to remember it so I can have a copy.
But yes, I got better from being a newt. And no, I didn’t know that GWC is now GWU! I didn’t even know they were holding classes over in Monticello. Have they done any real building over there yet? That’s exciting. I’d like to be involved with it all again, it’s a great work that is going on, but I don’t know how…
But of course, this is the greatest work of all that I’m doing now – missionary work! I actually had a really amazing day of tracting (which still is not my favorite thing to do). It was raining (Still is, in fact, it’s been raining for 5 days straight now, and I’m really getting tired of it – sometimes I think I’m solar powered), but anyway, we had our umbrellas and our boots and we decided to go for it.
Rewinding a little bit first, it all started with a completely bogus media referral. We got a referral from church headquarters that a “Mrs. Howard” ordered a copy of the Book of Mormon. So we went to the address, but nobody knew anything about the mysterious Mrs. Howard – the people that lived there were the Jeffersons. They already had a copy of the Book of Mormon that they’d ordered awhile before, but weren’t really interested. So we decided we needed to tract down that street but didn’t get to it for a couple days – until the day it was raining. For the first time my whole mission, people actually let us in then and there and were able to teach short lessons – and not just one of two people, but six or seven! Not everyone was all that interested, but we got several return appointments. It was crazy. But what was even crazier was that a lot of the people down that street that we talked to were actually relatives of one of our investigators! And then as we were walking back to the car, our investigators passed us in their car and stopped to talk to us and said they were on their way to visit his relatives. Coincidence?
And another strange “coincidence” for you – I don’t know what’s with me and foreigners but over a month ago, we ran into an Egyptian lady and gave her a Book of Mormon, but never knew what came of it. Then out of the blue yesterday a member that was coming with us to an appointment tells us about this friend of hers who knows an Egyptian woman who was given a Book of Mormon, but she had a really hard time understanding it and so she gave it to this friend. So we figured it must be the same lady that we had run into – I mean, really how many Egyptians can there be in Gretna, Virginia? Then a few hours later we go to the post office, and who happens to be sitting in the car next to us when we pull up? The Egyptian lady. We go over and talk to her and she tells us in her broken English that she is glad to see us again and how she gave away our book because she had a hard time understanding it but was still very interested in our religion and asked us a couple of question about things she’d heard and told us a little about Islam. We asked her if she’d like us to get her a copy in her language (Arabic) and she was really excited about that idea and told us where she lived so we could come give it to her when we got it. Crazy.
Isn’t it so amazing when we can start to see God’s hand in all things and how he can weave the threads of everyone’s life into one big, beautiful picture? I love being able to have the opportunity to see those things. For example, I got a card in the mail the other day from the sisters that are serving in Buena Vista right now. They sent me a picture from the baptism of a girl I’d taught while I was there a year ago. I don’t know if you remember me talking about Tabitha, but she was finally baptized! It was so cool to see that! And then I get a letter from Sister Hill, telling me about this less active, part member family that we had started visiting while we were in Christiansburg, and how the husband was getting baptized. I had never even met him because he really didn’t want much to do with the church – and look what happened!
Everything has to start somewhere, and you really just never know what seeds you are planting and what becomes of them. So it’s really fun to be able to see the fruits of some of the seeds you’ve planted every now and then. We are also teaching a part member family here in Gretna now that we are really excited about. The husband joined the church last summer I think, and the wife really didn’t want anything to do with it, but now she’s meeting with us and reading from the Book of Mormon. She’s told us that she thinks we were sent here just for her. Neat, huh? It’s been a great week.
And this next week will be awesome too. We’re having Zone Conference (my last one! I can hardly believe it!), and then Stake Conference that we have to go up to Buena Vista for, so I can see everyone from there! Anyway, I better get going! Love you all!
~Melissa
P.S. I can't send pictures until Sis. Bell finds her camera cord! I guess I could try to remember to take pictures with my camera, but it's been acting funny, so I usually just depend on hers.
You all crack me up. I'm glad you enjoyed reading about my week. It was definitely an experience. Every week we are supposed to write our mission president letters and just tell him about how the areas are and how we're doing and what not, but I get tired of writing them, so every so often I'll make it fun and write him riddles and jokes (which he'll call me and try to answer), or tell my week in story form about the princesses that live in Gretna, etc. So you can be sure he got a funny rendition of the events. Sis. Bell was telling me she actually wrote about it to her family in verse. She said she'll try to remember it so I can have a copy.
But yes, I got better from being a newt. And no, I didn’t know that GWC is now GWU! I didn’t even know they were holding classes over in Monticello. Have they done any real building over there yet? That’s exciting. I’d like to be involved with it all again, it’s a great work that is going on, but I don’t know how…
But of course, this is the greatest work of all that I’m doing now – missionary work! I actually had a really amazing day of tracting (which still is not my favorite thing to do). It was raining (Still is, in fact, it’s been raining for 5 days straight now, and I’m really getting tired of it – sometimes I think I’m solar powered), but anyway, we had our umbrellas and our boots and we decided to go for it.
Rewinding a little bit first, it all started with a completely bogus media referral. We got a referral from church headquarters that a “Mrs. Howard” ordered a copy of the Book of Mormon. So we went to the address, but nobody knew anything about the mysterious Mrs. Howard – the people that lived there were the Jeffersons. They already had a copy of the Book of Mormon that they’d ordered awhile before, but weren’t really interested. So we decided we needed to tract down that street but didn’t get to it for a couple days – until the day it was raining. For the first time my whole mission, people actually let us in then and there and were able to teach short lessons – and not just one of two people, but six or seven! Not everyone was all that interested, but we got several return appointments. It was crazy. But what was even crazier was that a lot of the people down that street that we talked to were actually relatives of one of our investigators! And then as we were walking back to the car, our investigators passed us in their car and stopped to talk to us and said they were on their way to visit his relatives. Coincidence?
And another strange “coincidence” for you – I don’t know what’s with me and foreigners but over a month ago, we ran into an Egyptian lady and gave her a Book of Mormon, but never knew what came of it. Then out of the blue yesterday a member that was coming with us to an appointment tells us about this friend of hers who knows an Egyptian woman who was given a Book of Mormon, but she had a really hard time understanding it and so she gave it to this friend. So we figured it must be the same lady that we had run into – I mean, really how many Egyptians can there be in Gretna, Virginia? Then a few hours later we go to the post office, and who happens to be sitting in the car next to us when we pull up? The Egyptian lady. We go over and talk to her and she tells us in her broken English that she is glad to see us again and how she gave away our book because she had a hard time understanding it but was still very interested in our religion and asked us a couple of question about things she’d heard and told us a little about Islam. We asked her if she’d like us to get her a copy in her language (Arabic) and she was really excited about that idea and told us where she lived so we could come give it to her when we got it. Crazy.
Isn’t it so amazing when we can start to see God’s hand in all things and how he can weave the threads of everyone’s life into one big, beautiful picture? I love being able to have the opportunity to see those things. For example, I got a card in the mail the other day from the sisters that are serving in Buena Vista right now. They sent me a picture from the baptism of a girl I’d taught while I was there a year ago. I don’t know if you remember me talking about Tabitha, but she was finally baptized! It was so cool to see that! And then I get a letter from Sister Hill, telling me about this less active, part member family that we had started visiting while we were in Christiansburg, and how the husband was getting baptized. I had never even met him because he really didn’t want much to do with the church – and look what happened!
Everything has to start somewhere, and you really just never know what seeds you are planting and what becomes of them. So it’s really fun to be able to see the fruits of some of the seeds you’ve planted every now and then. We are also teaching a part member family here in Gretna now that we are really excited about. The husband joined the church last summer I think, and the wife really didn’t want anything to do with it, but now she’s meeting with us and reading from the Book of Mormon. She’s told us that she thinks we were sent here just for her. Neat, huh? It’s been a great week.
And this next week will be awesome too. We’re having Zone Conference (my last one! I can hardly believe it!), and then Stake Conference that we have to go up to Buena Vista for, so I can see everyone from there! Anyway, I better get going! Love you all!
~Melissa
P.S. I can't send pictures until Sis. Bell finds her camera cord! I guess I could try to remember to take pictures with my camera, but it's been acting funny, so I usually just depend on hers.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Wacky Wednesday
Dear Family,
“It all began with that shoe on the wall. A shoe on the wall – shouldn’t be there at all….” That’s been the theme of the last couple weeks for me. I feel like if I can just find and count all the wacky, wrong, and out of place things, than things will go back to normal. I guess I need to start back last week since my letter got erased. Let’s see…
It all really began at 3:00 o’clock in the morning two Fridays ago. I’d developed a cough the last week or so, but that morning I woke up really feeling a lot worse and coughing up a storm. I go to use the bathroom and then flush it when the toilet starts overflowing. I try plunging it and flush it again, which only caused it to overflow more and I was only half awake and not feeling good anyway, so in despair I give up and go back to bed – leaving the bathroom floor completely soaked (and of course, to make it even better the bathroom is carpeted). So that’s funny how we both had a flooding experience about the same time! Anyway, so in the morning I hear Sister Bell getting up so I go to warn her about the bathroom, and so she decides to try to fix it and did the exact same thing I had done and it, of course, overflows again. And we don’t own any towels except our bath towels so we had nothing to soak it up with except an old blanket that we weren’t using. We can’t get a hold of any plumbers or our landlord and we have to be in Lynchburg for our interviews with our mission president, so we just put a fan on it, opened the window and left it. We ended up being gone all day because we had other appointments and what not all day long. When we get home that night our house stinks and our toilet still doesn’t work so we have to drive to our church building any time we had to go to the bathroom. In the morning we still couldn’t get a hold of a plumber or our landlord and we had a baptism we needed to prepare for that morning, so again we leave it.
The baptism went great! Satan tried really hard to mess things up and get to Will, but he didn’t let anything stop him. Once he had it in his head he was going to finally be baptized, he wanted to do it as soon as possible! We saw him everyday pretty much that week and seeing the happiness on his and his wife’s faces was amazing. I ended up giving one of the talks at the baptism even though I could barely talk and I almost boiled him and Bro. Hall in the baptismal font, but other than that it was great! You see, they told me that they had a problem with the water being too cold before, so didn’t even think to check to see if it was too hot. I just kept checking periodically to see that the water hadn’t gone cold while I filled the font, not even realizing it was a bit too hot. But they said it was fine, so all was well :)
We were able to go to the store and buy some extra towels afterwards and borrowed a shop-vac and we’re able to finally get most the water up. We plunged the toilet some more – and miraculously it started flushing again…go figure.
In the meantime I had been coughing up a lung (I think I had a bit of bronchitis) and it had been raining all day long (which was ironic because we put the rugs and blanket that we used to sop up some of the water outside to dry) but we still proceeded with our day and we had dinner with a member family and they were dropping us off that night, when I realized, we had locked ourselves out of our house. It was freezing and raining and no way to get into our house. But we remembered we’d left the window open all day hoping to help the carpet dry out, but really only succeeding in making it more wet. However the window is really high up from the back. So the members drive us back to their house to get a ladder and he climbs in our bathroom window for us and unlocks our door...
The next morning it starts snowing and after sacrament meeting they cancel the rest of church (just enough time for Will to be confirmed!) and everyone tells me to stay home the rest of the day and get better. But we have appointments that we don’t want to miss, so we go out driving in the snow and slide around a bit, but were completely safe. We ended up having a snowball fight with some people we just met at the apartment complex where our appointment was and had a great time. Then all throughout the night it snows and we have the worst snow we’ve had in a long time here – we got about 10 inches. I didn’t think it would be any big deal, since we were just able to brush it off our car in the morning and go, but most other people around here got snowed and iced in and some lost electricity for 3 days. But what it meant for us was 3 days of cancelled appointments and not being able to see anyone! Because every day it seemed to get worse, not because it snowed anymore, but some of the snow would melt and then it would freeze again in the night and make it even worse for getting around! Last p-day, was very frustrating because not only did my letter get erased, but we didn’t have time to do anything else we needed to, the dryers at the Laundromat were practically all out of order, etc., etc.
Of course, now the weather is in the 80’s and it is just mocking us…. It seems like there was a lot more that happened, but I guess it’s all not important. It just seemed like to counter the amazing experience we had with getting Will ready and baptized, that we had a really bad next couple weeks. Nothing just seemed to go right. Our other investigators all seem to be regressing and not finding many new ones.
However we did run into the funniest old ladies yesterday that just seemed to epitomize small town Virginia culture. When we walked up they were just sitting in the carport reminiscing on their lives. They invited us to sit down and talk with them and they proceed to jab our ears off – about all sorts of things! We find out they are twins, in their 80’s, named Selma and Thelma and they’ve lived in Gretna their whole lives. They sit in the 5th pew at the Baptist church on the corner (the one that the bells play church hymns throughout the day), and everyone looks forward to seeing how they will be dressed on Sunday :) They told us practically their entire life stories and their problems with their children and daughters-in-law and about how nobody keeps the law of chastity. But we did end up teaching them the entire plan of salvation, and they said we could come back whenever we wanted. So funny…
Good news, though, I’m feeling all better. And, I pretty much already knew this but, I’m staying here in Gretna for the rest of my mission with Sister Bell. I can’t believe I only have one transfer left! Just 6 more weeks! Crazy! All the elders I came out with keep giving me a hard time because I’m going home and they’re not.
Anyway, I had a really great talk with my mission president at interviews and had some good doctrinal discussion. Something I was talking to him about was faith and how to really exercise true faith. He told me something that really stood out to me. He was telling me that part of having faith and exercising it was recognizing the promptings of the Spirit, no matter how small, and having the confidence to hold on to them no matter what. So I guess I need to learn to better recognize those little answers and promptings and go forward with them and not doubt. Faith is just one of those things that even though it is so simple, I feel like I could study it for a life time and still have a ton to learn.
To answer your question, no they hadn’t started working on 52nd street when I left, so I got to miss the whole thing! Ha, ha! The pictures were great! Sounds like Kristi is having way too much fun- I’m going to have to come home and tag along after her :) Well, gotta go. All the pictures that we've taken are on Sis. Bells camera and she can't find her cord, or else I'd attach some great pictures. Oh well, you'll see them eventually.
Love you all! ~Melissa
“It all began with that shoe on the wall. A shoe on the wall – shouldn’t be there at all….” That’s been the theme of the last couple weeks for me. I feel like if I can just find and count all the wacky, wrong, and out of place things, than things will go back to normal. I guess I need to start back last week since my letter got erased. Let’s see…
It all really began at 3:00 o’clock in the morning two Fridays ago. I’d developed a cough the last week or so, but that morning I woke up really feeling a lot worse and coughing up a storm. I go to use the bathroom and then flush it when the toilet starts overflowing. I try plunging it and flush it again, which only caused it to overflow more and I was only half awake and not feeling good anyway, so in despair I give up and go back to bed – leaving the bathroom floor completely soaked (and of course, to make it even better the bathroom is carpeted). So that’s funny how we both had a flooding experience about the same time! Anyway, so in the morning I hear Sister Bell getting up so I go to warn her about the bathroom, and so she decides to try to fix it and did the exact same thing I had done and it, of course, overflows again. And we don’t own any towels except our bath towels so we had nothing to soak it up with except an old blanket that we weren’t using. We can’t get a hold of any plumbers or our landlord and we have to be in Lynchburg for our interviews with our mission president, so we just put a fan on it, opened the window and left it. We ended up being gone all day because we had other appointments and what not all day long. When we get home that night our house stinks and our toilet still doesn’t work so we have to drive to our church building any time we had to go to the bathroom. In the morning we still couldn’t get a hold of a plumber or our landlord and we had a baptism we needed to prepare for that morning, so again we leave it.
The baptism went great! Satan tried really hard to mess things up and get to Will, but he didn’t let anything stop him. Once he had it in his head he was going to finally be baptized, he wanted to do it as soon as possible! We saw him everyday pretty much that week and seeing the happiness on his and his wife’s faces was amazing. I ended up giving one of the talks at the baptism even though I could barely talk and I almost boiled him and Bro. Hall in the baptismal font, but other than that it was great! You see, they told me that they had a problem with the water being too cold before, so didn’t even think to check to see if it was too hot. I just kept checking periodically to see that the water hadn’t gone cold while I filled the font, not even realizing it was a bit too hot. But they said it was fine, so all was well :)
We were able to go to the store and buy some extra towels afterwards and borrowed a shop-vac and we’re able to finally get most the water up. We plunged the toilet some more – and miraculously it started flushing again…go figure.
In the meantime I had been coughing up a lung (I think I had a bit of bronchitis) and it had been raining all day long (which was ironic because we put the rugs and blanket that we used to sop up some of the water outside to dry) but we still proceeded with our day and we had dinner with a member family and they were dropping us off that night, when I realized, we had locked ourselves out of our house. It was freezing and raining and no way to get into our house. But we remembered we’d left the window open all day hoping to help the carpet dry out, but really only succeeding in making it more wet. However the window is really high up from the back. So the members drive us back to their house to get a ladder and he climbs in our bathroom window for us and unlocks our door...
The next morning it starts snowing and after sacrament meeting they cancel the rest of church (just enough time for Will to be confirmed!) and everyone tells me to stay home the rest of the day and get better. But we have appointments that we don’t want to miss, so we go out driving in the snow and slide around a bit, but were completely safe. We ended up having a snowball fight with some people we just met at the apartment complex where our appointment was and had a great time. Then all throughout the night it snows and we have the worst snow we’ve had in a long time here – we got about 10 inches. I didn’t think it would be any big deal, since we were just able to brush it off our car in the morning and go, but most other people around here got snowed and iced in and some lost electricity for 3 days. But what it meant for us was 3 days of cancelled appointments and not being able to see anyone! Because every day it seemed to get worse, not because it snowed anymore, but some of the snow would melt and then it would freeze again in the night and make it even worse for getting around! Last p-day, was very frustrating because not only did my letter get erased, but we didn’t have time to do anything else we needed to, the dryers at the Laundromat were practically all out of order, etc., etc.
Of course, now the weather is in the 80’s and it is just mocking us…. It seems like there was a lot more that happened, but I guess it’s all not important. It just seemed like to counter the amazing experience we had with getting Will ready and baptized, that we had a really bad next couple weeks. Nothing just seemed to go right. Our other investigators all seem to be regressing and not finding many new ones.
However we did run into the funniest old ladies yesterday that just seemed to epitomize small town Virginia culture. When we walked up they were just sitting in the carport reminiscing on their lives. They invited us to sit down and talk with them and they proceed to jab our ears off – about all sorts of things! We find out they are twins, in their 80’s, named Selma and Thelma and they’ve lived in Gretna their whole lives. They sit in the 5th pew at the Baptist church on the corner (the one that the bells play church hymns throughout the day), and everyone looks forward to seeing how they will be dressed on Sunday :) They told us practically their entire life stories and their problems with their children and daughters-in-law and about how nobody keeps the law of chastity. But we did end up teaching them the entire plan of salvation, and they said we could come back whenever we wanted. So funny…
Good news, though, I’m feeling all better. And, I pretty much already knew this but, I’m staying here in Gretna for the rest of my mission with Sister Bell. I can’t believe I only have one transfer left! Just 6 more weeks! Crazy! All the elders I came out with keep giving me a hard time because I’m going home and they’re not.
Anyway, I had a really great talk with my mission president at interviews and had some good doctrinal discussion. Something I was talking to him about was faith and how to really exercise true faith. He told me something that really stood out to me. He was telling me that part of having faith and exercising it was recognizing the promptings of the Spirit, no matter how small, and having the confidence to hold on to them no matter what. So I guess I need to learn to better recognize those little answers and promptings and go forward with them and not doubt. Faith is just one of those things that even though it is so simple, I feel like I could study it for a life time and still have a ton to learn.
To answer your question, no they hadn’t started working on 52nd street when I left, so I got to miss the whole thing! Ha, ha! The pictures were great! Sounds like Kristi is having way too much fun- I’m going to have to come home and tag along after her :) Well, gotta go. All the pictures that we've taken are on Sis. Bells camera and she can't find her cord, or else I'd attach some great pictures. Oh well, you'll see them eventually.
Love you all! ~Melissa
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