Hello everyone!
A wonderful, crazy week!
News
update: we got the phone call this morning while doing laundry at the
Wielands' home. I'm getting transferred to Minot to be a Sister Training
Leader with Sister Clark, and Sister Robinson will be training a new
Sister here in Beulah! I honestly broke down crying when we got the call
from President Hess--I love Sister Robinson so much, and I don't want
to say goodbye to everyone I love in Beulah. : ( But I know it's where I
need to be, and I'll soon learn to love everyone in Minot as well. We
were just getting comfortable... "No growth in the comfort zone, and no
comfort in the growth zone."
Well, Monday. : )
Monday was beautiful! So we had scheduled with Sister Schellenberg to go
make an ice cream cake together for P-day. Sister Schellenberg loves us
and sharing the Gospel so much that she also invited us over for
chicken salad lunch sandwiches, and she invited her next-door neighbor
Richard over as well. I found myself being a little annoyed to have to
teach a lesson in the middle of P-day, but it went well and looking back
it was awesome. I want to be as cool as Sister Schellenberg when I'm
post-mission. Our sandwiches were delicious, and we also had a lot of
fun making the ice cream cake. Turns out we needed three people to get
it to fit in the freezer, so I'm glad we were all there together. We all
had a good laugh when I tried to figure out the best way to crush Oreos
for the filling--turns out it's a little crazy with a potato masher.
The Johnsons had signed up for dinner. McKayla picked us up from our
apartment, and then we chatted mission chat--she enters the MTC on the
28th! We had an awesome authentic German/Swedish dinner of rice with
anise-spiced meatballs and topped with dill pickles (surprisingly
delicious!). And then we sat on the couch while Sister Johnson showed us
her new missionary wardrobe, and we oohed and aahed and helped calm
their nerves hopefully. It's so surreal to be on the other side of
leaving to go on a mission. I remember how scary that was, not knowing
at all what to expect, only know that everything will be different.
After we had a nice chat about how great the temple is, we took a family
trip to Cenex for icecream. We all sat in a booth, at f'reals, and then
eventually we had to go. McKayla took us back home. She's going to be a
great missionary. : )
Tuesday was awesome! Sister Billman texted us the night before and
asked if we'd come with her to visit Becky and Britney, and of course we
said yes! I love visits organized and initiated by someone else! So
that morning she drove us around and we had a great time, she got to
meet those two sisters and now she knows what she can do to help as the
Relief Society President. And now we also know more of each of their
concerns about Church and testimony and stuff like that. You have to
know what's wrong in order to know how to fix it.
I
got a nice letter from Camille during lunch (yay! Mail is going well!
Keep up the great work! : O ) and we had a good visit with Ashley. We
explained the Restoration to her and invited her to really read and pray
about the Book of Mormon. And then we had STL call, but when Sister
Mansell and Sister Steiner called they said the President and Sister
Hess were movin' and shakin' the mission. We heard last week that we
won't be using our leadership binders anymore, we're just going to base
everything off of PMG and the missionary handbook (as it should be). So
what this means is that we no longer text our STL at night to say we
made it in, and we don't have a weekly Sister Call. Crazy! But so so
good. : )
We had a good visit with Luke,
following up on reading the Book of Mormon, and we got to bring Liberty
with us to teach Ariel. We taught him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ,
about how the way we come unto Christ is by having faith in him and His
Atonement, repenting, being baptized, receiving the gift of the Holy
Ghost, and then enduring to the end. He really understood it well, but,
he said, he'd already been baptized as a baby. He didn't think that was
good because it hadn't even been his choice, but he didn't understand
why that didn't work. So, we had him teach himself--talked about how
John the Baptist had the authority to baptize Jesus, and how we all
needed to follow that example. And then he read the Resto pamphlet's
section on the Great Apostasy, and then we asked him what he'd learned,
and he said that his baptism wasn't with the Priesthood. Bingo! Teaching
is so awesome! So now all Ariel needs to do (and he'll really be doing
it with real intent and a sincere heart now) is read the Book of Mormon
and pray about it, and come to Church. Then he'll know that the Gospel
of Jesus Christ has been restored to the earth, complete with the
authority to act in God's name. : ) It was great, and I'm glad we
finally did a real lesson with Liberty there!
Our
dinner was the Relief Society's Heel Your Sole activity, with a fun
skit we got to be in. I practiced afterwards for the surprise musical
number for Wednesday's ZTM. Also, we got a phone call right at 8:50 from
Sister Cavey in Belle Fourche/Sturgis saying that they'd been locked
out of the apartment and didn't remember the code to the garage. Good
thing I remembered it! It was fun to hear from her. : ) Also to say
hello to the Hanhardts. : )
Wednesday morning
Sister Lee picked us up and drove us to Bismarck for ZTM. I sat in the
back with my journal in the hopes of getting caught back up, but to no
avail, her conversation was so interesting to listen to! The musical
number for ZTM went well, I did an arrangement of Be Still My Soul and
just played the Soprano line in with the accompaniment. Our training was
basically a redo of MLC's awesome day on Our Purpose & Planning, so
we all recommitted to plan the Preach My Gospel way. We can do it!
Sister Lee then took us out to lunch at La Carretta's, which was so
nice, and then we were back in Beulah. Of course we'd planned a Halliday
day, so we hopped into our car and drove to Faye's house where
we had a good lesson on the Gospel and the Atonement, conveniently what
we'd just been trained on! We had planned to talk about why we have the
Word of Wisdom, but this seemed like a bigger concern to take care of.
The Axtells fed us dinner--well, Brother Axtell was still at work, but
we had a good visit with Sister Axtell. She always makes several amazing
dishes, and usually a few of them are Philippino and they're ALL
delicious! It's been fun getting to be good friends with them as we
figure out how to work in Beulah together. They're great mission
leaders!
And then we also dropped off our old
tippy dresser at Amanda's house and swapped for a very heavy upgrade. It
took all three of us to carry it into our car. On the drive back home I
was pretty nervous about how we were going to get it up to the third
floor, but of course we in our Sister pride refused to call anyone for
help. We parked the car, opened the back door of the Jeep, and spent 15
minutes just getting the dresser out of the car. It was in a weird
cardboard box which left almost no grip. We ended up rolling/pushing it
over and over itself almost like a wheel across the parking lot, and
then right at the first stairs a friendly neighbor Ryan came out and
offered to help us out. Whew! He coulda' been an angel send from heaven!
We got it up together (but mostly him) to the top floor, and then he
disappeared like a dream in the night.
Thursday we planned and it was not the most fun thing, but Thursday
night was amazing. Sister Schellenberg fed us a last-minute dinner, and
when we got there she'd also invited Richard and her friend Tiffany
(plus Tiffany's family)! We had an awesome visit with Tiffany and she
ended up giving us her number so we could come teach her family, and
then Richard stepped in from being outside with the kids and we taught him some
more about the Book of Mormon, and then everyone was finally gone and
we took a quiet moment to eat the ice cream came from Monday. It was
delicious. : ) Sister Schellenberg showed us the cute pictures she'd
done recently, and then we headed to the Cranes' home for a lesson. We
weren't 100% sure what we were going to teach them, nothing ever came
together in studies, but we just went for it. The Scheers were also
there--high stakes! Not a solid plan and members coming with! Heavenly
Father had a plan for us, though. : ) When we had been in about 10
minutes, who walked in but their friend Dan! He expressed a ton of
interest in us as missionaries! He said he's actually walked up to the
Elders before and asked them about what they're doing! Every time the
conversation got sidetracked, he'd redirect back to missionary work and
the Gospel. He is SO interested in learning! So we explained what the
Book of Mormon is and how we can know it's true, and then we got his
phone number and he said to definitely call in a couple weeks when he's
got work off and he'll schedule a time to meet with us. : ) Wahoo! It
felt like new investigators were just getting thrown at us! We got home
pretty late, but in the parking lot there was someone else we needed to
talk with--Tony had just gotten back from being at the bar, and he was super down
and he's not even sure if he believes in God anymore. We had an intense
visit, and we gave him two pamphlets and a Book of Mormon. I hope he
reads them.
Friday can be explained by this quote from Sister Robinson;
"Sometimes you're not supposed to be somewhere--you're supposed to learn
something." We spent the whole day running around trying to figure out
where we should be, and nothing was working. All our appointments fell
through, and to just face it, we were not having a good day. The lesson?
At the end, we stopped by Lauri's house and talked about what was going
on. Sister Robinson helped me realize that I needed to be honest and
recognize that things weren't going well. You can't just grin and bear
it, you've got to admit you need help in order to find it. I don't like
admitting defeat. It seems pessimistic. But we went for it, and I
explained to her that the day HAD been hard, and then the moment I did
that, I was flooded with relief and hope. By refusing to admit that
nothing was working, I was taking responsibility for that and it was
faked optimism. When you refuse to admit that you have "a broken heart
and a contrite spirit," you never let the Savior in to heal and lift
you. But the minute you acknowledge your absolute need for help, He's
there to lift you. I'm learning how to be self-aware! The day didn't
work out amazingly after that, but because we both had an open attitude
that made all the difference. We did get to have a nice dinner with the
Koehlers, and then Luke made it home so our cancelled lesson with him
got to happen. We watched Because He Lives from Easter, and now I'm
pretty sure Luke and Camren both know that Jesus Christ lives today.
That's a good takeaway. : )
Saturday we had a
surprise lesson with Kenny--we were in the neighborhood, and he wasn't
home when we got there, so we walked around and tried everyone else. It
was weird because it felt like we needed to be there, but no one was
home. What's up with that? But then right when we were about to pull
out, Kenny pulled back in from work and yelled "Sisters!," waving his
arms all excited-like. : ) So we closed the doors and walked back over
to his trailer and sat at the lawn chairs. We shared Ether 12:27 and
gave him a Book of Mormon so he could gain a stronger testimony of
Christ, and it was awesome!
Yeah, no show. We walked around for a few minutes, left them a few
voicemails, then decided they weren't gonna' be there. What were we
going to do about lunch? Everyone in the Branch was at the temple
because youth temple trip and McKayla was getting her Endowments. Tricky
tricky! We tried Faye but she was busy, so then we just went to the
Youngs' home for an early visit. We found out she's never actually read
and prayed about the Book of Mormon--being from Utah, it's easy to
coast. So we talked about how awesome it is to know the Book of Mormon
is true, and then at the end I felt a strong impression that if I didn't
ask for food that was our last chance for lunch that day. So, I humbled
myself and did it. I asked for food. *sigh* She was happy to feed us
some deep-fried burritos. : ) Being a missionary, though.
Well,
we were pretty sure we were done in Halliday for the day. Driving past
Dodge, we thought we'd stop by the Hortons' home. We didn't actually
know where they lived, so we just drove to the old school to take
pictures with the weird statues. But when we hopped out of the car, I
saw a family out on the porch, and I felt like we'd better go talk to
them. Sister Robinson wasn't super excited about it, but I knew we
needed to go, so she reluctantly agreed and we walked over. Turns out we
totally needed to be there! It was a family reunion, in a way--grandma
Norma, daugher-in-law Tari, neice Charlotte, then sons (grandsons?)
Kendall and Trigg. Tari's husband Kendall was also home. Charlotte is
from Montana and she has an LDS friend and went to Church with her once,
but she didn't have a Book of Mormon so we gave her one, and then she
gave us Costco muffins. Mmm! Haven't had costco since Utah! And then
Tari said she wouldn't mind us coming to do service, and then she showed
us a video on her phone of a brother (?) grabbing his duck out of a
pond. So we're in!
At Hazen we found Erin, who we're excited to get to know more when she
doesn't have the flu. And then we had dinner with the Lees--we were
there longer than normal, but Sister Lee's aunt Renee was there, and
she's not LDS, so we had an awesome chat. She'd actually just gotten
back from Rome, and she showed us all her cool art history pictures.
She'd even gotten about 5 feet from the Pope, and got several cool
pictures of him kissing and blessing babies. : ) I'm not sure what the
Pope does all day but he seems like an amazing man.
Sunday was great. : ) Sister Robinson spoke in Sacrament Meeting, I
played piano since Sister Phillips (the Branch pianist) was out of
town, and McKayla did her farewell speech about the role of women in the
Church. : ) She cried and I cried watching and it was amazing. Our
appointments for later in the day also fell through, so we just walked
around knocking on doors in Beulah and met a few cool people, and then
we went to Hazen and the first door we went to was opened by Michael.
He's in stage 4 cancer, has an awesome dog named Harley, and he said
he's really looking for a foundation. He accepted a Book of Mormon and
we're already good friends. It was great to really listen to what he
loves and is worried about, and then to share what's helped us in life.
I'm so glad Sister Robinson taught me how to be real (or at least how to
start that process, I'm sure it will take a lifetime of learning). I'm
so glad the weather was nice enough to talk with people outside.
Dinner
with the Scheers was super fun. I love their family, it reminds me of
being home. : ) Sister Scheer thinks they're embarrassing but I just
love it! And then we did a Pipenger stop-by and we had the best
discussion we've ever had (mind you, it's only the second...)! Brother
Pipenger talked about all his concerns with finding faith and a Church
and also people being awful to others and Sister Robinson shared a
spirit-slap example of how she went through the same thing, but once she
knew the Book of Mormon was true it all got better. A testimony isn't
something you can learn; it's a gift from God, and it only comes when
you read the book and pray about it. Seek and find. That's how it goes.
Ahh. I love missionary work. It's the best thing.
Thanks for reading!
Love,
Sister F 
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