So. Transfers. I just had no idea pre-mission life how I would stress about a stupid phone call every six weeks, but wow, the stress sneaks in about a week ahead of time, and then by sunday afternoon we're all about ready to pull our hair out with the anxiety about what is going to happen, then as 6 o'clock comes...6:30...7...7:30...10...it's one of those every-minute-feels-like-a-lifetime kind of experiences. But anyway- Hermana Borja is leaving! She's been transferred every single transfer of her mission, so it was no big surprise to her. However, I was SHOCKED that I am staying! And so is Hermana Farley! And we are getting Hermana Castle, her MTC comp! (You may or more likely may not recall we had a long weekend exchange with her this transfer and it was delightful)I'm STOKED for our new companionship!
Also, happy official 9 months this week.
So it's no secret that I LOVE cemeteries. I've wanted to go to one my whole mission, but there is just never enough time, so I'm always just driving by them, yearning to be there. This week we got to go downtown to Evergreen Cemetery and clean up a cemetery with a ton of other missionaries and members! It was AWESOME. So old, so overgrown, so cool. Also, Hna Farley and I were interviewed by Channel 6...might be an entertaining clip if you can find it online somewhere. I had my Virginia television premeire sweating in a big-bird yellow Helping Hands vest, poured into my jeans that no longer fit, wearing a missionary tag. Freaking. Awesome.
We served at the library this week- we're trying to get out and serve the community more, so we signed up to come and shelve and stuff for 2 hours every other week. It was torture. I felt like a recovering alcoholic in a bar. It's so weird how I don't even realize how deeply I really love things until I'm sacrificing them for awhile and here and there I get just enough of a whiff that I know it will taste good but I can't eat it...good thing God has even better things for me to do right now...
We went to a sweet baptism yesterday. It was for a man in Henrico that Hna. Borja helped teach for a transfer and who I taught once during leadership (which counts, right? ;) And man, baptisms make me kinda weepy now. The hermanas there told me that the lesson i had with him during that week was a turning point where they took the information we gave them and completely re-directed what they were teaching him. Feels so good to be involved in even the tiniest part of someone's conversion. And guess who I saw there?! SISTER KARI BEESON. Bless her wonderful big heart, it was the highlight of the week. I'm pretty sure God needed me to meet that family at the beginning of my mission because He knew I'd need some love. And it was just so welcome and wonderful. Such a huge tender mercy. It was great.
This week was kind of an exercise in people recognizing us as representatives of Jesus Christ, which is quite possibly one of the COOLEST FEELINGS EVER. Even the people who can't read our tags or know what we do or who we are- they KNOW. I walked into a gas station with my companions this week to get a receipt and this Indian man (dot not feather) who we've seen a few times was behind the counter. I walked in and the counter next to him was a little busy, but he was open, so over the people I just was like, "Can I get a receipt from pump 8?" And he says, "Can you come here for a second?" And I'm like, uh-ohhh, last time a gas station man wanted to have a little chat with me he ended up asking me out...kind of nervous right now...and he says, "You're church people right? Can you pray for me?" And now that I have been sufficiently humbled, I of course try get the details like his name and his concern, and he's being kind of vague with me and finally says, "I know that prayer works. So can you please ask God to just help me?" WOW. Yes, I can DEFINITELY do that. (And send the missionaries back here asap.)
And also, we have been teaching a little Peruvian family who I may have mentioned before- Gino and Jessica and their 8-year old twins. He makes DELICIOUS food. Bryson and Jackson and the Chipmans are sure lucky if all Peruvians eat that way! But anyway, we have been teaching him mostly, but her a little. I think maybe like 3 lessons total. We decided this week to set him for baptism. Last week we left him with a Book of Mormon and 2 Ne 31 (which is code for- YOU BETTER GET BAPTIZED). And so we show up and he tells us this amazing story about how he had a wretched week- he and his "wife" are in a huge rough spot because he was doing some lying about some stuff, and he just was hitting this terrible low and he wanted to die. To DIE. Seemed pretty dramatic. But I think he was being serious. And he said he came home and picked up the Book of Mormon and that all those good feelings that he has when we come over just came rushing back- the peace and the happiness. He told us that he has CHANGED HIS LIFE since we started meeting with him a month ago- slowly just dropping behaviors. He told us that we seemed so "clean" and he knew he was a sinner and didn't feel worthy to be in our presence, so he just decided to change. He told us that he is a new man and that it was "all your fault!" Oh sweet music to my ears. It's God's fault, but we got to be the instruments. So we set him! Oh man, it was beautiful. We talked about teaching his whole family and helping them follow his example and I was dreaming of the post-dinner conversation of setting her... Then his wife came home with the girls for dinner and we all sit at the kitchen table and the wife says, let's pray (which they never did before) and Gino is like, "Hey, I'll say it." And we're like, "WOW this guy is on a ROLL...sa-weeet" and the prayer goes a little something like this:
"Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for the hermanas and thank you that I decided to be baptized into this church and please bless Jessica that she will want to too and bless the food, Amen."
I was literally fearful to open my eyes. Letting his wife know via the dinner prayer that he had decided to be baptized was like setting a bomb off in church. I had NO WORDS to fix the utter madness that followed as she was like, "what the heck is going on here?! when did this happen?! Are you SERIOUS right now??" Oh he was serious. hahahahahaha, so awkward for us! Luckily Jessica is obsessed with Hna Farley's blonde hair, blue eyes, and efforts to learn spanish, so we got it more or less smoothed over :) Anyway, it was great, and hopefully we can help the whole family be healed through the Atonement and baptism!
Well family, I love you more than infinity and beyond and you can't top that so HA!
You're the best- thanks for the emails and letters and love,
Hermana Sinclair
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