1)
About the boots, when I went to order the shorter, more traction
boots--they didn't have then in a size 8. How about these? Will these
work? If you like them, I'll order then Monday. (Kamik Women's Vienna2 Boot)
2)
If I am putting a little box together for you is there anything you
would like me to include? You haven't mentioned anything, really, so if
you don't. you are at my mercy to send tings I think you 'll like.
Just saying.
3) How are your investigators progressing?
4) Do you even know why the ward has "trust issues" with the missionaries? That is so weird to me.
5) Do you hear from anyone regularly besides me and Dad? Just curious.
1. They didn't come in a size 7.5 did they? If not, no worries. Those look like they'll work just as well. Thanks momma. Also, I do hope you're using the Christmas money you and dad gave me. Because you should. Seriously. Do it. Okay? Okay.
2. Actually, if those white cap sleeve undershirts are still being sold at Costco (the brand says Heirloom), could you send me a couple? Mine are still wearable but I've got three from Down East that are just stretched out I think so they're a little difficult to work with. Oh, this may sound weird, but will you send me a little 3 ring binder from Deseret Book that says "Missionary Journal" on the front? The one I have right now is pink--and it's going to be bulgy pretty soon. Once I have filled it I'm going to send it home but I'll need another binder thing...I know, it's weird. But I've got more papers than will fit in the one binder well, so....yeah. Did I tell you that missionary CD? I can't remember...sorry. Mi mente se fue...Also, I will probably be sending some stuff home soonish because I don't want to have so much stuff to transfer with me...the problem is that I can't send winter stuff home because I'm going to need it again next winter, which is a little frustrating, but I'll deal with it. One more thing regarding this, so I was debating about buying a suitcase that's bigger than the small one I've got because the small one is just barely too big to be a carry-on which means I could have more room...(weight isn't my problem, it's space). But I wanted your opinion first. Plus, I'm not sure what I'd do with the small suitcase if I got a larger one to replace it... This isn't pressing or anything, but I was thinking that would help me out for transfers because last time I had two boxes of stuff that I can't just get rid of (study supplies and whatnot) but I don't wanna lug two extra boxes around the mission. Am I making any sense? I'm not sure... sorry.
P.S. What's the best way to send stuff home, specifically paper stuff? I know that weighs a lo and I'm not sure if it would be better to use a flat rate or just find a random box...
3. Well, currently we only have two progressing investigators (Angelina and Mary) and they both want to be baptized, but they've got a bit of a hold up--obviously, or they would've been baptized already. Angelina just doesn't feel ready, though she basically is; we've taught her almost all of the lessons. She's so cute though. And then Mary was baptized before but had her name removed from Church records--through headquarters. So we're not exactly sure what needs to happen nor what is going to happen. So we're working with her and Bishop Eames (he's Australian) to get it figured out. All of our other investigators aren't technically progressing because they don't come to church. We've been going through the process of figuring out who is actually interested and who is just too polite to say no to us. That's something Hermana Grant is really good at. So it's a little sad to drop people, but I just have to keep telling myself that they're just not ready right now, but eventually they will be. President says there's a statistic from the Church that the average person hears the message six times and rejects it before accepting it.
4. No, I don't really know. Either no one actually knows or no one will tell us. Elders Campbell and Johnson told us what they know which is that there were issues with the meal calendar about a year ago because the Hermanas were just kind of doing their own thing and didn't really belong to anyone (or something like that) but still wanted to be fed which pulls from the Elders' meals so that's not
really fair and blah blah blah. I don't really know. It all seems a little strange but we've gotta deal with the ill effects either way. Ah well. We met with Bishop Goodman this last week and had a good talk
about our role in his ward and what we can do to help, and our ward mission leader said Bishop sent an email that spoke favorably of us and our meeting so it must've been a success. The problem is
(apparently) that we work in all the wards so we don't actually belong to anyone. So we're still figuring out what we can do for all of the wards, but since the sisters were taken out and all the wards have one set of Elders now, we have informed them all that we are more than happy to work with English people, specifically single sisters in the wards, less active or not, in order to built up Zion, as that is part of our calling as stated in Preach My Gospel. So the wards have pretty much embraced that and given us names of sisters to stop by, and we've already seen some success there, so that's really fulfilling. Brother Ames, one of our ward mission leaders, told us that his goal, or his vision, is just to get people in the Church in order to grow the wards--whether it's convert baptisms or reactivation, it doesn't matter. And I feel the same way. Of course missionaries want to have baptisms, but bringing people to Christ is the ultimate goal.
5. Yes, Chris writes me every week, as well as Kate, pretty consistently. Marina and I have been emailing back and forth a bit because we're both pretty bad at writing letters. I've heard from Hermana Israelsen a few times too, so that's fun.
One question for Grandma and Grandpa Boomgaarden, do you remember an Elder Lowe serving in Gilroy? One of the families in one of the wards, the Lowe's, their son comes home this Wednesday and he has served in Gilroy so just thought I'd ask.
So this week was really good for key indicators: we had seven member present lessons. Woohoo! We were thrilled with that. And, one of the standards of excellence is to have a member out with us every day and we had five of the seven--we would have had six out of seven except that because of the weather yesterday we weren't allowed to drive anywhere....but yeah! So that was awesome. And there was one day we had five or six lessons in one day. It was great. We really are seeing so many miracles here in Bloomington-Normal. It's fantastic.
So, funny story: in district meeting this last week, the Pontiac Elders led a discussion and did a practice about teaching the First Vision, and we talked about how Satan will do just about anything to
stop us from saying the First Vision because it invited the Spirit so strongly. So we were talking about experiences we've had with that--one was that just as they were starting, the dog walked into the
room, threw up, and walked out. haha oh man....too funny. The one I shared was that just as we were beginning to talk about Joseph Smith, the guy in the room who was asleep woke up and started ranting about something in Spanish but he's extremely hard to understand and then he was crying while ranting so he was even harder to understand. SO weird. haha but funny, looking back. haha.
Anyway, so then they did their practice, the Elders, and just as they were starting the First Vision, the church phone rang. No joke. So Elder Hamman, who was the investigator, "picked up" the phone (using his iPad) and pretended like he was on the phone--Elder Campbell responded in kind, using his
iPad, and they had a "conversation" on the phone. Afterwards, when we were talking about the practice, Elder Hamman thought Elder Campbell had called the church phone but he said he hadn't. Then, later, we did a big group practice and Elder Campbell volunteered to be the investigator (a 90 year old man named Gerald who "Just loves Jesus"....oh my) and just as we were starting the First Vision, someone called the Bloomington 1st Elders' phone--and Elder Campbell had it. hahaha. Oh my goodness. It was hilarious.... Satan is real! No joke. Oh man, it was such a funny district meeting. We have an awesome district. I admit, I thought it would be weird to be the only sisters, and it is, but it's also entertaining. But then, maybe it's just this group of Elders. haha either way, always a laugh, every week.
On Saturday we were going to put Angelina on date for 14 February but she told us she doesn't feel ready. After we talked about it for a bit, she told us to invite Jimmy ass well....so we did. haha his
response: I'd only be baptized in a warm month! So we ended up inviting him to pray about being baptized in July, which he said he'd do.
I've been practicing the piano a bit--no one in our district can play well enough for us to sing to--and I am seriously wishing I had stuck with it. I know, momma: you told me so. However, it's been fun to play periodically (only about once a week because it's P-day). I hadn't realized how much I like it. I also put some sheet music on my iPad so I can play songs wherever I am--including the Mutual Theme Song for this year, "Embark". I was worried at first because it's 10 pages long but you basically play like 10 different chords the entire time. So it was actually pretty easy. Anyway, maybe when I get back I'll be able to play the hymns well enough for people to sing to.
Yesterday, they cancelled/moved church so we just had sacrament meeting at 10; everyone was saying that we'd get 6-12 inches of snow basically overnight. Yeah, we got maybe 4", in the deepest
spots....but ah well. Hermana Grant and I walked to church, since we live 1.5 miles from the church (not kidding; 1.5 miles is accurate). But it was a fantastic testimony meeting. The youth had a Book of Mormon read-a-thon this weekend and so various youth, leaders, and parents bore testimony and shared stories from that. And, since we didn't have to be at the church super early, we got to do personal study before church. I studied faith, and it was awesome because Brother Winsor bore his testimony about faith. Mm, it was so good. I love meetings like that.
Basically, being a missionary is the hardest thing I've done and I think it may be the hardest thing I ever do, but I wouldn't trade this experience for anything. I am learning so much--about the Gospel,
about people, about myself, about my Father in Heaven. SO MUCH. It hit me this week that January was ending, which means in one month it'll be March which means I've been a full-time missionary for 5 whole months. Excuse me?! Yeah, not cool.
Well, that's about it from me this week. I hope everyone is doing well. Oh, if you're reading the Book of Mormon and marking it according to this reading challenge I extended to ya'll, let me know. I wanna hear how it's going!
Con Todo Mi Amor,
Hermana DeBuck
Fotos: 2. Actually, if those white cap sleeve undershirts are still being sold at Costco (the brand says Heirloom), could you send me a couple? Mine are still wearable but I've got three from Down East that are just stretched out I think so they're a little difficult to work with. Oh, this may sound weird, but will you send me a little 3 ring binder from Deseret Book that says "Missionary Journal" on the front? The one I have right now is pink--and it's going to be bulgy pretty soon. Once I have filled it I'm going to send it home but I'll need another binder thing...I know, it's weird. But I've got more papers than will fit in the one binder well, so....yeah. Did I tell you that missionary CD? I can't remember...sorry. Mi mente se fue...Also, I will probably be sending some stuff home soonish because I don't want to have so much stuff to transfer with me...the problem is that I can't send winter stuff home because I'm going to need it again next winter, which is a little frustrating, but I'll deal with it. One more thing regarding this, so I was debating about buying a suitcase that's bigger than the small one I've got because the small one is just barely too big to be a carry-on which means I could have more room...(weight isn't my problem, it's space). But I wanted your opinion first. Plus, I'm not sure what I'd do with the small suitcase if I got a larger one to replace it... This isn't pressing or anything, but I was thinking that would help me out for transfers because last time I had two boxes of stuff that I can't just get rid of (study supplies and whatnot) but I don't wanna lug two extra boxes around the mission. Am I making any sense? I'm not sure... sorry.
P.S. What's the best way to send stuff home, specifically paper stuff? I know that weighs a lo and I'm not sure if it would be better to use a flat rate or just find a random box...
3. Well, currently we only have two progressing investigators (Angelina and Mary) and they both want to be baptized, but they've got a bit of a hold up--obviously, or they would've been baptized already. Angelina just doesn't feel ready, though she basically is; we've taught her almost all of the lessons. She's so cute though. And then Mary was baptized before but had her name removed from Church records--through headquarters. So we're not exactly sure what needs to happen nor what is going to happen. So we're working with her and Bishop Eames (he's Australian) to get it figured out. All of our other investigators aren't technically progressing because they don't come to church. We've been going through the process of figuring out who is actually interested and who is just too polite to say no to us. That's something Hermana Grant is really good at. So it's a little sad to drop people, but I just have to keep telling myself that they're just not ready right now, but eventually they will be. President says there's a statistic from the Church that the average person hears the message six times and rejects it before accepting it.
4. No, I don't really know. Either no one actually knows or no one will tell us. Elders Campbell and Johnson told us what they know which is that there were issues with the meal calendar about a year ago because the Hermanas were just kind of doing their own thing and didn't really belong to anyone (or something like that) but still wanted to be fed which pulls from the Elders' meals so that's not
really fair and blah blah blah. I don't really know. It all seems a little strange but we've gotta deal with the ill effects either way. Ah well. We met with Bishop Goodman this last week and had a good talk
about our role in his ward and what we can do to help, and our ward mission leader said Bishop sent an email that spoke favorably of us and our meeting so it must've been a success. The problem is
(apparently) that we work in all the wards so we don't actually belong to anyone. So we're still figuring out what we can do for all of the wards, but since the sisters were taken out and all the wards have one set of Elders now, we have informed them all that we are more than happy to work with English people, specifically single sisters in the wards, less active or not, in order to built up Zion, as that is part of our calling as stated in Preach My Gospel. So the wards have pretty much embraced that and given us names of sisters to stop by, and we've already seen some success there, so that's really fulfilling. Brother Ames, one of our ward mission leaders, told us that his goal, or his vision, is just to get people in the Church in order to grow the wards--whether it's convert baptisms or reactivation, it doesn't matter. And I feel the same way. Of course missionaries want to have baptisms, but bringing people to Christ is the ultimate goal.
5. Yes, Chris writes me every week, as well as Kate, pretty consistently. Marina and I have been emailing back and forth a bit because we're both pretty bad at writing letters. I've heard from Hermana Israelsen a few times too, so that's fun.
One question for Grandma and Grandpa Boomgaarden, do you remember an Elder Lowe serving in Gilroy? One of the families in one of the wards, the Lowe's, their son comes home this Wednesday and he has served in Gilroy so just thought I'd ask.
So this week was really good for key indicators: we had seven member present lessons. Woohoo! We were thrilled with that. And, one of the standards of excellence is to have a member out with us every day and we had five of the seven--we would have had six out of seven except that because of the weather yesterday we weren't allowed to drive anywhere....but yeah! So that was awesome. And there was one day we had five or six lessons in one day. It was great. We really are seeing so many miracles here in Bloomington-Normal. It's fantastic.
So, funny story: in district meeting this last week, the Pontiac Elders led a discussion and did a practice about teaching the First Vision, and we talked about how Satan will do just about anything to
stop us from saying the First Vision because it invited the Spirit so strongly. So we were talking about experiences we've had with that--one was that just as they were starting, the dog walked into the
room, threw up, and walked out. haha oh man....too funny. The one I shared was that just as we were beginning to talk about Joseph Smith, the guy in the room who was asleep woke up and started ranting about something in Spanish but he's extremely hard to understand and then he was crying while ranting so he was even harder to understand. SO weird. haha but funny, looking back. haha.
Anyway, so then they did their practice, the Elders, and just as they were starting the First Vision, the church phone rang. No joke. So Elder Hamman, who was the investigator, "picked up" the phone (using his iPad) and pretended like he was on the phone--Elder Campbell responded in kind, using his
iPad, and they had a "conversation" on the phone. Afterwards, when we were talking about the practice, Elder Hamman thought Elder Campbell had called the church phone but he said he hadn't. Then, later, we did a big group practice and Elder Campbell volunteered to be the investigator (a 90 year old man named Gerald who "Just loves Jesus"....oh my) and just as we were starting the First Vision, someone called the Bloomington 1st Elders' phone--and Elder Campbell had it. hahaha. Oh my goodness. It was hilarious.... Satan is real! No joke. Oh man, it was such a funny district meeting. We have an awesome district. I admit, I thought it would be weird to be the only sisters, and it is, but it's also entertaining. But then, maybe it's just this group of Elders. haha either way, always a laugh, every week.
On Saturday we were going to put Angelina on date for 14 February but she told us she doesn't feel ready. After we talked about it for a bit, she told us to invite Jimmy ass well....so we did. haha his
response: I'd only be baptized in a warm month! So we ended up inviting him to pray about being baptized in July, which he said he'd do.
I've been practicing the piano a bit--no one in our district can play well enough for us to sing to--and I am seriously wishing I had stuck with it. I know, momma: you told me so. However, it's been fun to play periodically (only about once a week because it's P-day). I hadn't realized how much I like it. I also put some sheet music on my iPad so I can play songs wherever I am--including the Mutual Theme Song for this year, "Embark". I was worried at first because it's 10 pages long but you basically play like 10 different chords the entire time. So it was actually pretty easy. Anyway, maybe when I get back I'll be able to play the hymns well enough for people to sing to.
Yesterday, they cancelled/moved church so we just had sacrament meeting at 10; everyone was saying that we'd get 6-12 inches of snow basically overnight. Yeah, we got maybe 4", in the deepest
spots....but ah well. Hermana Grant and I walked to church, since we live 1.5 miles from the church (not kidding; 1.5 miles is accurate). But it was a fantastic testimony meeting. The youth had a Book of Mormon read-a-thon this weekend and so various youth, leaders, and parents bore testimony and shared stories from that. And, since we didn't have to be at the church super early, we got to do personal study before church. I studied faith, and it was awesome because Brother Winsor bore his testimony about faith. Mm, it was so good. I love meetings like that.
Basically, being a missionary is the hardest thing I've done and I think it may be the hardest thing I ever do, but I wouldn't trade this experience for anything. I am learning so much--about the Gospel,
about people, about myself, about my Father in Heaven. SO MUCH. It hit me this week that January was ending, which means in one month it'll be March which means I've been a full-time missionary for 5 whole months. Excuse me?! Yeah, not cool.
Well, that's about it from me this week. I hope everyone is doing well. Oh, if you're reading the Book of Mormon and marking it according to this reading challenge I extended to ya'll, let me know. I wanna hear how it's going!
Con Todo Mi Amor,
Hermana DeBuck
This is what Normal, IL looked like at approximately 11:45 AM yesterday.
Walkin' home in the snow, of course we had to take a selfie, and of course I look like an eskimo.
Discovered these stickers on the desk I'm using; of course it used to
belong to an Elder, but at least he had good taste.
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