It's so good to have a mother that loves me...it would be so depressing not to get any emails on mondays! Thanks for the great package too!! That pumpkin butter is DELICIOUS. You are the best :)
I loved being a missionary this week. But lesson learned: Miracles are not for the faint of heart. Turns out they require a LOT of hard work! This week we got to reap some blessings of months of work...
Thanksgiving: Was nice. We spent way longer than anticipated with the family that had us over, but hey, we were making memories. We squoze in a tiny nap before we went over, which was good because there wasn't any time after. Why? Because we watched "It's a Wonderful Life!" Seriously the highlight of the day. I laughed hard and cried harder. Not sure if the movie if actually that funny and moving or if it's just been so long since I've just been entertained...but I just loved it. So nice to suspend my life for a minute and pretend I was George Bailey! So happy to have had that tender mercy. I could've watched it 12 more times and loved it probably! I thought of Dad a hundred times as I remembered quotable quotes: "This is a very interesting situation..." I could hear his voice and it made me even happier :)
SO...let me now detail for you a saga that I'm sure will be one of those missionary stories that I tell from pulpits for years to come...
Let me take you back to 4 months ago right before the transfer call that I was coming to Staunton. President had decided, well, received midnight revelation, that ASL sisters needed to be here. Sunday of transfer calls rolls around and the elders in Staunton receive a media referral from a deaf man who needs ASL missionaries. Said elders call President panicked because they don't know ASL...President reassures them that God is way ahead of them and prior to this referral had decided to put ASL missionaries in Stuanton. Pretty amazing. We show up and try to contact this referral, who we'll call...Jack, terrified, but ready. The address he has listed is a homeless shelter, so we go and try to contact Jack- he's been kicked out. Come back in 30 days. So we go on our merry first month in Staunton searching out other deaf people with minimal success. We checked back in 30 days later. He's gone again. Dang it.
Flash forward another month-ish. Missionaries in a surrounding city get a referral from a deaf man who wants ASL missionaries. A deaf man named Jack. They go try to contact him, he's not there. They call us with the news that a deaf man somewhere wants the gospel. We freak out upon discovering that it's the same man from Staunton...if only we could find this mysterious man who clearly wants the gospel!
Come with me to the wednesday right before Thanksgiving. We get a call from the Spanish Elders in a surrounding city were at the library when they look over to see a man on mormon.org. Requesting missionaries. Kind of a miracle in and of itself, right? So being the stellar missionaries that they are, they go right on over to give this man what he wants! They try to get his attention and he turns around finally and motions to them, "I'm deaf." They get his information and immediately call us. Guess who? You got it: Jack. Name and address at a local salvation army there where he's staying. Bingo.
Not wanting to lose this man AGAIN, on friday right after Thanksgiving we make the 40 minute trek to the Salvation Army. We pull up and there is a man standing outside. We tell him we are looking for someone specific...to which he responsibly replies that he can't give us any information. We already figured that, but didn't drive all that way and use all those miles and go through 4 months of Stuanton to lose him again! So, in my charming way, I asked, "Can we ask you a vague question that you don't have to answer...? Is there a deaf man here?" During this time and man had walked up behind us that we hadn't even noticed and while the first man hesitated, he said, "Yep. Jack." AHA! We were like, YES, we KNOW, he NEEDS us! So they let us in and went to find Jack. A man comes bursting through the door and motions to his ear, "I'm deaf." Be still my happy heart, as we started signing to him, his whole countenance changed! Yes, we know, you requested us, we are here for you! Sis B rocked most of that conversation while I just voiced it for Sis H who was just really confused by the flying hands. We left still not knowing how he found out about mormon.org, or why he requested missionaries, or really any of those important details...BUT he committed to come to church! WE FOUND JACK!
Sunday rolls around and we have worked out a ride for a member in that city to pick him up, we'd meet at the Salvation Army, then head to the ward up there. We had called the night before and left a message for Jack that we'd be there at 8:30am, so we showed up right on time, sweating bullets about what would go down. Disappointment is NEVER something you get used to in missionary work, even though you are always feeling let down by people. But we were so nervous about how he'd be received at church and how our interpreting would go...so we show up and the worker goes to find him. No sign of Jack. Are you serious? We are just staring at the clock: 8:35, 8:40, 8:50...I asked the worker, could you just go look one more time, please?, he should know that we are coming! So we are waiting and waiting and people are coming through the doors and our hearts just stop every time- is that him?! Nope. And I'm helping this woman in crutches and a pack of cigarettes come through the door and she looks at us and says, "I'm a mormon." WHAT?! Sis B in all her shock says, "Seriously?" hahaha. Yes, indeed, she's going to a church right across the street, but she hates it and has been thinking very seriously the past few months about changing her life and finding a mormon church again. God taught us a VERY valuable lesson in that moment: "I told you to be patient. I had someone that needed to talk to you!" Why do I only see the tiniest parts of the plan when I KNOW God sees the whole thing? There are NO coincidences! What a miracle. Got her details, passed them on to the missionaries there. God just loves his children!
So it's 9 and church is starting and we are feeling so sad that Jack flaked when we hear the loudest bounding down the stairs that could only belong to a deaf man that can't hear them! He comes out of the door, shirt and tie, still with toothpaste on his face: "I didn't know you were coming! Sorry I'm late! I didn't get any message from you!" God used a total Salvation Army employee blunder to bless lives. Typical.
We show up at church and try to get to the front row as inconspicuously as possible, which of course, was VERY conspicuous and set up our chairs for interpreting. Now Sis B and I had been panicking a little bit on the drive over...it's so nerve-wracking to want to help someone perfectly and know that you have such an imperfect offering! She was more nervous that I was though, (not because her skills are bad at all- she's taken ASL for 6 years and is in college to become and interpreter, I just have a few college semesters, so she's WAY better) I think because God has just put me in so many terrifying translation situations in my life where I have just had to give it my best shot and wait for him to make up the difference! So that's exactly what we did. For the whole block of meetings, we just switched back and forth and gave it all we had. Jack was so nice about it...and so hilarious in only a way deaf people are. We just kept saying, "I can't believe this is happening, I can't believe this is happening..."
The ward there is AMAZING. I swear every single person came up and tried to communicate with him! Such a blessing to have members who do that! We got to go to Priesthood, which was a first...I guess in addition to lots of other firsts that day! I was able to use signs and grammatical principles that I had long forgotten or just recently learned that I've never used before. I still butchered it, mixing up "program" and "principle" and "service" and "offering" like every other time they were used...and at one point when the Priesthood were giving their announcements and were describing their activity they started talking about a lot of things I didn't understand like potato guns and muzzle-loaders? I gave up finally and was like, "I have no idea what he's talking about. Man stuff..." haha, we got a good chuckle out of that! He enjoyed church and set up an appointment for during the week. I'll be gone at a leadership meeting, but I can't WAIT to hear about it!
Moral of this story? I have no idea why it took 4 months and lots of intense prayers of utter confusion about our purpose here to get us to Jack. Maybe he wasn't ready? Maybe we weren't ready? Maybe we had to wait for the lessons of Preach My Gospel to be online in ASL? (They weren't when we got here! But now are! I saw the Restoration for the first time in ASL this week! Tears were shed...) Who knows! Well, God does. I was reminded of that in a very big way this week. GOD KNOWS. If you are being obedient, you can just TRUST that your life, and the lives of everyone around you are being led so that everything is perfectly weaved together. So that in that moment, that perfect moment when it's God's time, it comes together. WHAT A MIRACULOUS WEEK! We were finally able to contact the man we were sent here to find :)
In other great news, our other investigator is just the most amazing investigator I think the world has ever seen. I learn from HIM every week! I got a little weepy during our lesson when he invited us to his baptism I was just SO FULL OF JOY!! It's true what they tell you in your call letter, "more joy that you have ever felt awaits you as you serve faithfully..." Amen.
Yesterday we were talking to a less-active man and his wife who are hilarious and feed us so much food I usually feel like dying afterwards who live in the "ghetto" of staunton. It's the nicest ghetto I've ever seen. But, they do tell us some crazy stories...in the middle of one of those crazy stories she got up off the couch, pulled up the cushion and unveiled what turned out to be a 44 magnum. Now, I have NO IDEA what that means, but it was a SERIOUS gun! hahaha...then she walked over to the grandfather clock, reached up to the top, and pulled out a little tiny gun she likes to carry with her...hahaha...oh the things we see...
We visited with my favorite old man- the one who hugged me last week? This week he asked if we knew the 10 commandments in order. Sis H was like, "Uh...yeah...I think so..." Code for: I could probably figure them out. He whips out his "10 commandments card" and asks her what they are. Her tender self begins and messes up the first one. This poor man is just deaf as a doornail and can't hear a thing, so I pulled out my scriptures and hid them from view and just fed them to her as she yelled them into his huge ears...tears were streaming down my face I was laughing so hard by about commandment 6...afterwards he said, "Now that's right! There are so many people who claim to be good Christians who just can't list those like you just did!" HAHAHA
Sure love ya'll and happy 14 months tomorrow!
Hermana Sinclair
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