We found the Great and Spacious Building!

Oh familia. I just miss you. But, when the Lord calls, you GO. I can't believe it's been a year this week since I've seen you! I'm glad to hear you continue to get good reports from the big dogs...I retain that they say nice things about everybody, but hey, I'll take it :)

 

So we found the great and spacious building this week. It was beautiful. And terrifying. We were in Charlottesville for a doc appt for Sis B and the University of Virginia is down there, and since we got permission to work the whole stake, we figured we'd hit up all the college campuses around and find the deaf people there. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into when we drove up to the world's most beautiful college campus! Google it. It's gorgeous. I don't even know how to capture with words all of the experience we had there...after a real struggle to find a parking spot and trying to weasel out of some non-responsive college students where we could park and where the administration building was, we were pointed to a sort of disabilities center to inquire about the deaf population on campus. They gave us a map and some rather sketchy directions...no one told us that "The Lawn" was an actual place and not just a yard somewhere or that "The Grounds" was code for the entire campus (apparently they have their own lingo there.) It took us an entire HOUR to find this building after stopping about 7 times for directions. I have felt out of place many times on my mission- and quite frankly, you would expect a missionary to feel out of place in most locations where they spend there time, but WOW. More than the dumpy trailor parks, more than the drug deals happening in front of me, more than the rednecks swearing things to me that I couldn't even understand, UVA's campus was the place where I have felt it the most. I haven't really been around kids my age my whole mission and so to be around thousands of them, thousands of very wealthy, very worldly kids my age was just insane. As we began trying to find the building we were hunting for, we knew we had to find a particular street. We had our maps out, were sweating, and clearly lost, and so we decided to just ask. It must have been between classes because there were tons of people out and about and so we wandered up to a bus stop were there were about 25 people waiting. Seemed like our odds were pretty good. Sis B steps in front of the group and says, "Can anybody tell us where McCorkmick street is?" And to our everlasting horror, not a single person responded. There were literally individuals turning around so as to not have to respond. I just stared at this group of people, who were intentionally looking away from us, in SHOCK. So, we just stood there awkwardly. Because we're missionaries and not afraid of some awkward silence, and because we just could not even believe it, we just looked at them, holding them accountable for how mean they were. Finally, after at least a full minute, this kid pushes his way to the front of the group and says in kind of a hushed tone: "You're actually on it." OH MAN. I prayed so hard for blessings to be poured out upon that young man who helped two servants of God who are clearly a little slow! He pointed us in the right direction to the disablities center (which was just so seemingly appropriate for the situation!) and spent the next hour being gawked at, run over, and wandering around. Yes, I always knew my shoes were ugly and my clothes don't fit right anymore and I don't have an ipod and I'm walking around with a nametag- and we felt so outcasted...it was like Lehi's dream and we had been looking at the building from time to time, thinking, "it's not that bad..." and maybe from time to time missing some of those wordly things we left behind and we were thrown right into it and felt a little of that "ashamed"ness that the people who had already tasted of the fruit felt when they were mocked. Moral of the story: God taught me a big lesson that day. All of that longing for wearing cute clothes, listening to fun music, being with friends, going to school...he let me have a little taste of it. And he said, "Is this what you wanted? Is this how you remembered it?" And I have never been so relieved to drive away from it and realize that I was still a missionary. I was sharply rebuked for where my heart was and got a better understanding of how much more preparation I need to do in the next 6 months!

 

We got to eat Venezualan food this week! There is a less-active lady who had us over to eat and it was mostly delicious! Sis B and I have since been trying to re-create empanadas...which has ended up mostly a huge fried mess! It's lead us to some tiendas where I again got to see the look of complete shock on the faces of those little hispanic men to see a huge white girl speak spanish- which is ALWAYS hilarious.

 

Guess where we did our weekly planning this week? The BAPTISMAL FONT!  hahaha, we figured it might inspire us.

 

We LOVED the general RS meeting this weekend! We were invited to a "Deaf Night Out" for the same night at the same time and we had some serious struggles about whether or not to go to that. We hardly ever see deaf people, let alone get invited to their stuff, so we could just watch the broadcast later OR go to the broadcast and miss another opportunity to get into the deaf community. Now maybe this seems like an obvious choice, but we were just boggled as to what to do! We had already turned down that man that invited us to something else once before because of a scheduling conflict and we were just so nervous that our ONE deaf contact would stop inviting us if we didn't go! (It felt suspiciously like dating actually, the little games that you play...it was terrible. I miss that about 0%) And ultimately I was hit witht the realization that it was like paying tithing or your bills. You know that if you don't pay your bills, the electricity and heat go, or you can't feed your kids, or the house goes under, but you know that you need to pay tithing because it's a commandment...and so you decide how much faith you have. Do I have faith that God will provide? That I will go against what I should logically do and do what Jesus wants me to do? I'm happy to announce that we decided to pay our tithing and go to the broadcast and have lots of faith that God will provide another way for us to meet deaf people. It was wonderful and got us even more PUMPED for conference! Really, conference on the mission is more thrilling than Christmas and we CAN'T WAIT!

 

In terms of numbers and finding and teaching things are quite slow. We're working hard, but living the stereotypical missionary life of lots of closed doors. It's clear though that God is teaching us some other really important things! I love the updates on how things are going and all the adventures you are having. I love you all!

 

Hermana Sinclair