Hello. ^.^ Meet my new favorite emoticon.
This has
been a fantastic week. We've been running around like chickens with our
heads cut off. I honestly have no idea how we got so much
accomplished--Heavenly Father was just kind of throwing new people at
us, and helping us do what and be where we needed to be. It's a
testament of how this is His work, not ours. : )
Monday, then. As our first P-day in Minot, we spent most of the day getting supplies, organizing, cleaning, and resting. But we did get
time to go with the 2nd Ward Sisters to Sister Nel's home, where we
got to write letters and play with her cute dogs. This is Gidget, and
she's adorable.
I've never really been a dog person, but... who knows? I may have a dog like this one day.
Tuesday
was pretty awesome. We share a car with the other Sisters and they had
it this week, so everywhere we went we either had to get a ride from a
member or walk. We've been spending every spare moment inside out
apartment, thinking and planning. That sounds like it would be nice,
except actually you start to go crazy and have to just stop and go walk
around and talk with people. So that's what happened on Tuesday, that
afternoon we finally got outside and walked several blocks East into our
area (we live in the 2nd Ward boundaries for some reason). We decided
to try Wendy, an elderly lady from the Area Book. When we got to her
home she let us right on in. Her home was covered with doilies, little
glass danglies, and was completed with a spoiled gray cat named Bella.
We had cocoa and with stale marshmallows and toast, and then we
discovered she that's not interested in the Church at ALL, she thinks we
don't follow the Bible and refuses to read the Book of Mormon. So we
just let her say her schpeel and talk about her children, then we shared
some nice scriptures and went back out. It was weird, but still very
refreshing to talk with a person, even if said person is "constantly
scanning the horizon for the coming of the Savior." She was a little
antsy! We'll probably visit for Christmas and Thanksgiving, which I'm
looking forward to. : )
That evening Mck
picked us up for a lesson at the Church. May I just throw in my thought
that I love getting rides from the investigator. ^.^ So we met up with
Barbara, a recent convert from Brazil who's preparing to serve a mission
this coming year, and we had an awesome discussion about feeling the
Spirit, praying, and reading the Book of Mormon.
Wednesday morning we had an unprecedented Bridge Call with the whole
Zone listening in--we worked with the Zone Leaders to explain all the
changes that are being made in how this mission is run. We expected an
hour minimum would be needed to answer all the questions, but the
expected uproar never happened--everyone just took notes and understood
and it only took 15 minutes. I was impressed that the missionaries would
just take all the changes in so readily without protest. Most of them
were very welcome, however, which could be part of it. But then we spent
the afternoon helping Dusti, the new investigator who just moved over
from Grand Forks, to move into their new apartment. Since her car was
full of stuff she had one of her taxi friends come pick us up. Behold!
Our first taxi ride ever! On the inside it was really just the same as a car ride. Just more expensive for Dusti.
We
ran into a Less-Active sister named Elaina while we were there--which
reminds me, we should give her a call. That was pretty cool. She hasn't
been in contact with the Church while she's been in North Dakota, but
we'll help her get back in the loop. : ) Also, we had an awesome dinner
on the Air Force Base with McK. Once again, she gave us a ride
over. It took us about half an hour to find the base; fortunately, the
visitor's center check-in only took about ten minutes this time, so we
were only a little late to dinner. April, one of the security guards
we'd invited to the Halloween Carnival, said she had actually been
planning on going but had to do an extra training. I'm going to make
sure I bring a card for her next time! The Ashs fed us a mean
lasagna as requested by Sister Cl, and our message was just having
each of them share how the Book of Mormon has helped them gain a
testimony of Christ as our Savior. It was great. : ) McK had a
good time, I think.
Thursday was Weekly
Planning. Stuck. Inside. Planning. Sounds like pinkwashing to me. But we
did take a good afternoon break to go walk around our area and try
potential investigators and less-active members (within walking
distance). And on our way Sister Cl said we should try the referral
the Spanish Elders had texted us about the night before, so we walked
over and went up to the 15th floor, and Alex was home! We didn't have
another lady with us so he just pulled a chair up to the doorway and we
had a lesson right there. He said he's not looking to convert, but he's
open to learning more. : ) So we're hoping to get him to read the Book
of Mormon and pray about it. He's letting us come back, which is a good
sign. The Nels picked us up for dinner, and we had an awesome visit
with them. They really enjoyed Sister Cl and I singing for our
supper.
Friday was sweet. We had District
Meeting, ate cake for Sister R's birthday (Sister Cl and I
didn't even know about it, which was not so awesome, but she frankly
forgave. ^.^) Then we had the Sisters drop us off at the University
library so we could do media hour and look up videos and talks for
lessons. Then we had a nice walk back to our apartment, finally ate
lunch at 4:00, planned for an hour, then were picked up for dinner by
the Rosks. After an awesome meal they dropped us off at Barbara's
home where we watched Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration with
her and McK. It was great!
Saturday morning I had a momentous personal study:
right off the bat, when I went to grab my scriptures, they slipped and
my pages fell completely out of the binding. The impending doom has
finally come! Scripture destruction! Oh the horror! I paused everything
and taped a page back in, gave it some thought, and this is what I came
up with: I wrapped a fine thread through the pages and around the
binding. It ended up being a pretty solid semipermanent binding job.
Hopefully it will last for another 5 months....
Saturday night we had our first official lesson with Alex. Sister
Nels came with us (you know, it seems like we saw her every day this
week!), and she was able to help with a lot of his questions. He
committed to come to Church.
Sunday morning
rolls around, and at 6:30 he texted Sister Nels to say that he was far
too tired to come, but he'd try next week. Well, at least he woke up,
right? It was too bad he missed Church this week, though, because we
ended up enjoying an amazing Primary program all about the Savior.
Sister Cl and I were also able to attend Ward Council, which was
great, after which Bishop Jac listened to our request for blessings
of comfort and counsel, and it was great. We both cried, of course. Like
you do. : ) Bishop Jac is awesome. That afternoon we kicked off our
member visits by stopping at the Hal family home and helping them
create a family mission plan. We had the car by that point--we switched
after Church, and we'll have the car all this week. Hooray! We had an
AMAZING dinner with the Ride family, they just moved here from
Bismarck about a month ago and they're SO missionary minded. We watched
Mountains to Climb and talked about the Atonement and they were very
excited to share the Gospel with their neighbors--apparently they're
already working with some of them. : )
So we
ended up getting some good things done this week. We didn't really plan
out most of them, but in his mercy Heavenly Father just made everything
work out this week. Next week everything should be more settled; we're
going on our first exchanges this Friday.
Thanks for the emails and prayers!
Love,
Sister F 
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