Hi!
Sorry I didn't get to email yesterday. We were asked last minute to
help a lady in the ward unpack her home- she is 9 months pregnant with
three kids under 4 and just moved to Haymarket area from Thailand and
she needed our help. We decided it was best to sacrifice our
Preparation Day to help her out. We planned on helping for 1-2 hours,
but her shipment didn't come in when she was expecting it, so we were
there for four hours! Man! We got a lot of work done though! She's
almost all moved in! :)
This week was one of the crazier weeks of my mission. There were
plenty of fun stories. I'll try to remember the good ones- the rest
are written down in my journal to share for later :) Our car was in
the shop from Tuesday to Saturday so we couldn't drive anywhere. We
had a set of elders that serve in the Haymarket ward with us, and they
were kind enough to let us use their car when we had appointments that
were super far away, but we didn't want to leave them carless so we
decided to walk everywhere. Wednesday and Thursday we didn't have any
appointments, so we walked all over the planet. It made me really
grateful that I was not a Mormon pioneer trekking to Utah. It was
really great to be outside though!!!! We talked to SO many people! It
was the greatest. We talked to every single person in our path and
didn't let a single one pass us by. I even stopped a guy who was
talking on his phone and he said we could come over in a few weeks
when he gets home from vacation! That's been the bulk of our week.
When I got here, we decided to clear out our investigator pool because
none of them were progressing. We have put a TON of time into finding
people to teach.
So here are some stories for you!
-The night that the Elders let us borrow their car, we lost their
keys. They had the car key on a carabineer (sp haha) with their set of
house keys and mail keys. We came in for the night and parked the car.
We handed them the carabineer with the car key on it and thanked them
for being kind enough to help us out. They were like....uhhh where are
the rest of our keys?.... so we went back outside and looked
EVERYWHERE for them!! We spent a good 20 minutes outside looking- we
even crawled around on the grass looking. No luck. It was actually
really funny- I thought the whole night was hilarious, and Sister
Lamborn was freaking out. She felt SO bad that we had lost the Elder's
keys. She thought it was all her fault. Silly sister. You know me, all
I could do was laugh. I called the Elders and apologize and they said it
was fine and that they wanted to come out and look. They walked to
where the car was parked, looked around for two minutes and found the
keys. I wanted to die of embarrassment. Leave it to the two crazy
Sister Missionaries to lose the keys and struggle finding them. Oh
well. I hope we gave the Elders a good laugh.
-We were outside checking on some people that had said we could come
back later with not much luck. We were about to head in for the night
when we pass by some people a ways off who were sitting in lawn chairs
and smoking together. There was a man and a woman and I knew I needed
to go out of my way to talk to them, no matter how awkward it was
going to be. So I did and started talking to them. I asked them if
they had ever seen missionaries before and the man said, "Why yes I
have. In fact, I have a Book of Mormon in my apartment." my natural
response was excitement. So I said, "No way! How great! Have you read
it?!?!!?!?!?!!!" He looked at me for a few seconds and asked in all
seriousness, "Are you high right now?"
Hahahhahahhahahahhahahahahahha
together. I told him that of course I was NOT high, but I was just
really excited because I love the Book of Mormon and I know that it is
true! He wasn't too interested in us coming back, but as soon as we
walked away and got into the car, I DIED laughing. It was so great.
-We found a new investigator! Again, he was out of our way and it
could have looked like we were creepers by talking to him, but it was
a miracle! He was playing basketball at the neighborhood court we were
walking by. He had his headphones in and was shooting hoops all by
himself. I figured it wouldn't hurt anything by at least giving him a
card, and he put away his basketball and went and sat down on the park
bench to listen to us. We taught him the whole restoration right on the spot! Miracle!!!! His name is Nolberto! He's so great. He is 19 and
his dad has cancer for the second time :( but he loves talking about
Jesus Christ, and he was interested in everything we had to say!
-We found another 19 year old guy to teach from Egypt named Bishoy. He
was kicked out of his house at age 15... poor guy. Anyway. We went out
of our way to talk to him (I'm seeing a pattern here...I need to go
out of my way ALL the time!!) he was leaning up against his car
smoking and we started talking to him. He is Coptic Christian. We gave
him a Book of Mormon and made a return appointment with him!!! :D
-We met some born again Christians. They let us in and started
quizzing us on our knowledge of the bible. I didn't want to answer all
of their questions because I didn't want to feed the fire. I kept all
my answers inside. I did NOT like it. As we walked away, I could feel
my body relaxing. I didn't realize that I was literally shaking the
whole time we were talking to them. It was bad. They want us to come
back so they can talk at us some more. :( It makes me so sad that some
people find so much "joy" in proving us wrong. The worst part was that
the lady we were talking to was arguing in such a sick sweet voice
with a fake smile and hard eyes...I would have definitely preferred it
if she had screamed at us and kicked us out. That would have been SO
much better!
-We also got to knock down a wall! We did service for an inactive
member and his nonmember wife -on Saturday. It was sweet. They are
redoing a wall in their kitchen and we got to tear down the drywall. I
have before and after pictures. :) It was so fun. Then we got to go
and build bee boxes because they have their own little farm and are
raising bees for honey. We built the actual boxes the bees will live
in, and we also built the sheets where they will build their honeycomb
off of.
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| Before demo |
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| After demo - Nice Job! |
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| Julie - Hulk Smash! |
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| Sleeping in the car. Different clothes, not sure if this was the same day, but she looked bushed! |
-In the Haymarket ward, there is a family that has three foster kids.
The dad of the family is one of the bishopric counselors, so he can't
help his wife out when his kids get rowdy during sacrament meeting.
There are a few people who sit with the family to help them out, but
the kids are still really loud. They sit on the right side of the
chapel facing the front. On the left side, there is a woman who is
completely deaf - this ward has an interpreter too! Pretty cool. I feel
right at home. I don't know her name, but she walked across the front
of the chapel and picked up one of the kids when she ran away and took
her back to her family and sat down with her on her lap and
entertained her for the rest of the meeting. Sister Lamborn and I were
talking and we thought it was funny how the rest of the congregation
pretended to be deaf and ignore the situation, but the one person who
actually is deaf was the only one who got up to help in the moment of
need. It was a great example of Christ like love and service. It really
helped put things into perspective for me.
I love my mission. It's a lot of fun. The mosquitoes are out, and
that's not as fun...but I still enjoy being here! So long as I don't
have bedbugs, I'm great! Have a great week. I'm glad to hear that
everyone's been busy!! Dayle's eagle project looks awesome! I'm so
glad lots of people showed up to help. That makes me happy!
Again, I'm sorry I haven't emailed you yet this week. It's been a
crazy couple of days. I love you!! Have a great week!
Love,
Sister Anderson
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