I'm not sure I told the story of our deaf homeless buddy Jack very well last week, but man oh man was it a thrill! I never thought of it like you put it dad, that that is something that would have been SO outside of my comfort zone before, but now I view it as a miracle! You know how hard it is to see your own growth when mostly you just see how far you have to go. I'm so grateful I have my whole life to become a great missionary, because I have so much left to learn and apply. Turns out he wasn't there for the appointment we set up this week, so that was a bummer, but God provided other miracles...
So I went to leadership training this week, which I'll detail in a bit, but I requested from the missionaries I was riding with that on the way home we stop by and try to see that deaf family I found in Chesterfield. (Do you remember them? How we pretty much hunted them down and she was from honduras and the whole family was hispanic and they were deaf and I was just the happiest missionary alive? Them.) After that one lesson I had with them months ago, I literally tried to contact them probably 10 times, but they were always at work or something. So I knew it was a shot in the dark, but being the only one who can communicate with them, I figured I needed to give them another shot. Morally obligated, you know? I should have role-played what I wanted to say..."Hey...remember me? From months ago? Remember that movie we watched? Remember how you never came to church or kept our appt? How have you been...? Want to be baptized?" So I knocked, Hispanic man answers. I asked for the deaf couple, he goes in to get them. I begin to sweat. I DIDN'T role play this and I definitely DON'T know how I'm going to effectively communicate much of anything. He shows up and I didn't even recognize him- (could have been the missing ponytail!) And I just stumbled through as much small talk as I could figure out how to sign...the man's singing was RAPID FIRE and I just did my best...I was like, "Heavenly Father! I don't know what he's saying right now! He's busy? Wait...he's BEEN busy... ok, wait, what do I say to that? Ask if he's been to church? Ok, I can do that..." And so on. So after a few minutes of this I tried to introduce the Book of Mormon and bear broken testimony of it...Moral of the story: He said he would read it. Not sure if I was quite able to communicate much of anything effectively, but it was again a testimony to me that God just LOVES his children. I had been praying all week that whenever I could get to his house, that he would be there so that I could give him a Book of Mormon, so that he would have the opportunity to understand the gospel, and he WAS. Of all the times I'd tried before, it wasn't the right time, but this one time I was back, months later, he was there. So typical God ;)
We also got invited to a deaf Christmas party!! I know, right?! Our deaf contact from forever ago (that we thought gave up on us) shot us a text an hour before it started! You better believe we dropped everything to make sweet potato casserole and go! We are becoming more familiar faces to some of what seem to be most of the core group of the deaf community here! People recognized us and said hello! PROGRESS. FINALLY. There are deaf people that live in our apartment complex that we have never been able to figure out a way to introduce ourselves to in a non-stalker way, and they were there! Knowing that God was giving us an opportunity to make up for the ones we'd lost in the the past, I waltzed right on up to that deaf neighbor and with terror in my heart and was like, "HI! We're neighbors!" She asked why we didn't say hello other times we'd seen her...I told her we were just too nervous...(the last deaf people we tried to introduce ourselves to in our neighborhood were just plain mean)...but she was SO NICE. It was just GREAT. While there we found out that in addition to their sunday services, they have a bible study every sunday afternoon! And everyone is invited. SHA-BAM! You better believe we're gonna be hitting that up! We are going to the Deaf School's homecoming basketball game this week and hopefully make a few friends there as well. The guy who has been inviting us to all this stuff is just the nicest, so patient with us awkward hearing girls. We told him we really appreciated it and he said in a classicly deaf way: "Yeah. I should have been getting paid..." HAHAHA So with all these new avenues popping up, our hope in Deafdom here is renewed. Which probably means not getting new of being transferred this week, but I'm glad we're getting some new hope for our task here :) I'm ready for a change- REALLY ready, but I'm going to try hard to trust that God knows better then I do and he will put me wherever in VA I need to be.
Our amazing investigator is officially set for baptism on Dec 31! I wish you could meet him. You wouldn't even believe the things he says. And MEANS. He just tells EVERYONE about the gospel. He's a better missionary than any member I've ever met I think. Such a blessing to know him.
Our one other investigator that we'd been teaching for a few weeks...he died. Kind of a shocker. He was the one that could never hear Sis H and one time she taught and bore this beautiful testimony and he just stared blankly at her for a minute and was like, "I wish I had a battery...For my hearing aid." HAHA Every time we walked in we thought we might blow up because there were signs everywhere that said: "Warning. No smoking. Oxygen in use." Yep. He was on oxygen AND smoked over a pack a day in the house. Such a funny man. He was only like 58, so it was pretty unexpected. He had bad health...but we didn't think it was THAT bad...we teach his brother who is a homebound member, and he called and said, "You don't need to go see my brother today- he's dead." Oh man. I'm sure he's being taught on the other side now, we just prepared his heart a little bit :)
Leadership! Leadership was great. It was inspiring and a good breather. I got to meet a lot of newer missionaries and have some sweet trainings by the assistants and Sis Perry. President is having terrible back trouble so we just saw him briefly the last day...poor guy just gives us everything he has! The sisters had dinner at the Perry home one night and by accident I was alone with him in the kitchen just briefly and he turned to me and gave me that look and asked that fateful question: "Are you doing ok?" AH! I think I need to do a deep self- evaluation to see if I really AM ok...he just stares into your soul and he is just so in tune with spirit that he would probably know better that I would! I know how dad has a hard time going anywhere, because people always need something from him, and I never want president to feel that way about me! I know missionaries are just breaking down left and right and he's dealing with so much right now. But even still, he seeks after the one. Such a great man. So anyway, he's down in the back, but still staring into souls. I got to do Spanish work with some hermanas, and WOW my Spanish is even worse that I remembered...it's truly horrendous. I mean just plain BAD. That was humbling. I got to eat delicious Hispanic food though, Mmmmm. I nearly punched an elder during a role play we had during our meetings...it was a bit of a mess. Turns out I still have a LOT of sassy in me still- maybe someday when I have more time I'll regale you with the tale of how I ripped him to shreds and he tried to rip me to shreds...(all done in a very subtle missionary way of course ;)...and how right after that he did a role play as a missionary in front of the whole group of missionaries and was so cocky about what a great inspired-question-asker he was that he got to the concern in 7 minutes or whatever...and so then when they asked for sister missionaries I volunteered and put his question asking to shame and nailed the concern in 30 seconds...oh my pride...I repented, don't worry, but it sure made for some good missionary drama ;)
Well, I sure love you! Keep on keepin on!
Also, tell everyone about Jesus.
Hermana Sinclair
No comments:
Post a Comment