Hello everyone! I'm writing you from a computer in Charlottesville today- we're on an exchange and it was my turn to head on over. Exchanges are nice because you get to know other sisters better and learn from them, and it's kind of like a break- you are still doing missionary work, but it's not YOUR missionary work, so it takes a lot of the stress off. I'm with a sister I flew out with, Sis Barney, and it's going to be a fun 24 hours!
So this week was, ironically, the LONGEST week we've had in Staunton. We were kind of expecting time to fly because we were suddenly jumping right back in to working full-time, and it was the opposite. It was like rejection city, so mostly we spent hours in the car driving from house to house, knocking, getting back in, and trying to contact the next person on the ward directory. We tried a lot of our "Deaf culture in's" this week and were just flat out told no- no we couldn't volunteer at the school, no I won't help you practice your ASL, no I don't want to continue this conversation...so no, we didn't make a whole ton of progress in the Deaf world this week! We tried to have fun and just roll with it though- Sis Butterfield and I just get along great, so we just really do a whole lot of laughing. We're both so easy going that it keeps our potentially really stressful situation (being in a new area, having zero people to teach, trying to find this whole culture of people who don't seem to like us very much...) not too bad at all. We're staying positive for the week ahead...and hoping that I get to stay at least one more transfer! (I really just want to be in Staunton when the leaves change.)
By special request, we did our weekly planning in a SWEET cemetary in the middle of town. I think it's called Thornrose or something? It's SO OLD and SO BIG and looks like a big castle. We stopped by a little hometown bakery on the way, picked up an oat raisin scone and chocolate croissant and headed to do our big few hours of planning in the shadows of some really old graves. When you have zero people to teach, planning doesn't take too long, but it we made it a good time :) I'm pretty sure more people die in this area of the country than anywhere else- there are cemetaries EVERYWHERE. We stopped by one way out in the boondocks and found some sweet graves- people who died "to free the south" and a revolutionary war soldier! It was so amazing, the church was founded in 1789 or something- we just kept thinking, wow, there was no true church on the earth when this was formed...CRAZY. Anyway, I'm trying to help Sis B catch the flame of love I have for cemetaries, she's a great sport :) We also stopped by the "natural chimneys." I took some pics. Maybe they are some sort of national landmark? haha. We also hiked Humpback Rocks on p-day with the zone...this area of VA is just too beautiful!
Every week we have a district meeting and different missionaries from your district train, and this week the DL asked me AND Sis B to give a training TOGETHER because we were so "unified." Trainings are usually done alone, so it was kind of weird, but of course we were game. He gave us free reign on the topic and we had 48 hours to prepare. We spent a solid 46 of those hours praying about what the heck our training should be on...and we got nothing. We decided to go with "unity" because PPerry is ALL about unity. What we ended up doing could have been rather cliche, but because the elders don't know us very well, it just gave them a great scare! We had told our DL we were going to train on "revelation through church attendance," which was a total lie, and showed up to district meeting with the plan to appear as dis-unified as possible. (We role played this so we wouldn't crack up haha) We got up there and had the most tense little fight...in hushed tones like, "Well...are you going to start?" "Nope- this was YOUR idea." "Well, I don't have anything to say." "Should have thought about that, huh?" etc. Which ended in Sis B saying, "Whatever, I'm so done. I'm done." And storming out of the meeting. The looks on those elders faces were PRICELESS as I continued with the pretense of our topic. I shared a scripture and was just so "embarrassed" about the whole thing, and those elders were so awkward...hahaha! They just went along with me, like, well, I guess if she's still up there...so after my really uncomfortable 2 min training, I closed and walked out too. Sis B and I waited a sec and waltzed right back in as the DL was getting up to try to recover the meeting. We were like, "So...we have a little object lesson to talk about what just happened" and proceeded to do a demonstration and share some sweet doctrine about unity. The elders totally fessed up that they totally were freaking out- one elder was like, "Well, I was just really impressed that you weren't crying. Sisters ALWAYS cry!" and another was like, "I was totally writing a note to pass to the DL to figure out what to do..." ahaha Anyway, our DL was SILENT. We called him afterwards to apologize if we had detracted from the spirit in anyway or upset him or been inappropriate and he was like, "Hermana. That training...was...I'm just going to say it: the best training I've ever seen!" We just shook him up pretty bad :) Anyway, Sis B and I have been laughing about that all week :)
I loved the story of Sid! How inspiring. There are truly people being so prepared ALL AROUND us. We had dinner with a family this week who seriously shares the gospel with EVERYONE. Every neighbor, every friend's parents, everybody. I was SO impressed that even the littlest kids are eager to figure out ways to share the gospel with their friends. Sid is a perfect example of how it's ok to be bold- there is somebody just WAITING for you to tell them the good news!
So that was pretty much the excitement of the week-hopefully the coming weeks I will have some juicy missionary details to report. I just sure love you all and pray for you daily.
Loves to the fam,
Hermana Sinclair
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