Monday, July 20, 2015

Week 46: Your Life's Not Falling Apart, It's Falling Into Place!

5 Questions--
1) Did the package get to you from Amazon yet?  Or is your meeting this week still?  I hope that you get it at your meeting.  The tracking shows it was attempted Saturday but the office was closed.  It should be redelivered tomorrow sometime.
2) Guess who came by with a box for us to store for you?  Check out the photo...they are wonderful!!!
3) This week, Nickelle Monson got her mission call to Resistencia, Argentina (leaving Dec 2nd) and in her Facebook feedback Sister Lucas mentioned Cassidy and I replied asking her how she was...in the course of the our "FB convo" she mentioned to tell you hi for them.  Not really a question, but you know....
4) So you work with the Spanish branch and the English branch in Rochelle?  Sister Walters said your English needed help; when you were asked to pray you wanted to do it in Spanish.  Love that!  She also said your Spanish is fantastic!  :)
5) Pam Naugle is heading to visit her kids in Bollingbrook--and will be bringing you a birthday box.  Hopefully you will get that one in time too.  Will you please let me know?


1. Not yet. Our meeting is tomorrow, so hopefully it was delivered today (I know the missionaries in the office are there today so I'd imagine they'll get it) and I'll get it tomorrow. Thanks!

2. haha cool! They're so great. President Walters said he likes my Spanish because I don't speak too fast and I speak clearly, so he can understand--he served in Brazil so he speaks Portuguese.

3. Wow, December 2nd? That seems like SO far away...but at the same time it's hardly any time! And cool. Tell Sister Lucas hi for me too.

4. In Rochelle, it's just an English branch. The branch here is a year old (we're celebrating our one year anniversary on 1 August) but we have a Spanish group (several members that speak Spanish with varying levels of English). We translate the meetings--except Sunday school because we just have a Gospel Principles class in Spanish--so it reminds me a lot of my first area (except the church  unit here is tiny compared to three wards....haha)

5. I will let you know when I get it, yes. I would imagine it'll be August 4 or 5 though because that's when the next meeting is (transfers). Tell her thanks for me!

For this week's funny story...
While walking down the street, knocking doors, there was a man outside spraying fertilizer on  someone's lawn. He was just finishing up as we got nearer so we got his attention and I asked if we could give him a card. He said "Sure" and then walked away. (We were super confused). He goes to his truck reaches in and kind of rummages around for a minute and then comes back. With a card. For the fertilizer business. (Uh, okay....haha) Then I said "here's one for you" and invited him to look at the website and he said "it's better if you call than trying to do it online", talking about his  card....okay.....haha oh man it was kind of hysterical. So now I have a card from a fertilizer business in my journal. haha so great. I love talking to everyone.

The same day, a little later, on a different street, there were three people sitting outside because they were having a garage sale and we weren't sure how to contact them (because we didn't want to appear like we were going to buy anything) so I asked if I could use their bathroom. They kind of counseled among themselves for a moment and then one lady said something but we couldn't hear so we asked her to repeat it and she said "We'd rather you didn't". .....okay. There was no response to that....so odd. We probably should've tried harder to give them a card, but I wasn't feeling very charitable at that point and I gave in to the temptation. So...yeah. That was fun. (In order to think nicer thoughts of them, I told myself maybe their home was recently broken into or something like that. So they're just paranoid.) It's kind of crazy how many people we try to talk to that are just scared of us. But I think a lot of the time they confuse us with another religion....ah well. They're missing out on the truth.

For this week's spiritual story...
We've been working on talking to anyone and everyone about The Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith (I'm happy to say it's going well) and part of our zone's focus this month is talking to everyone, but first setting a goal to contact a certain number of people the night before. So one night we set the goal to contact 12 the next day (we were still working on talking to everyone.) and we felt good about it. It would stretch us but we also felt it was achievable. The next day, we'd contacted 13 people and we still had 2 or 3 hours of finding to do. So we decided to set it ten higher; our new goal was 23  people. We were doing good all day but eventually it was about 8:30 or so (maybe 8:45) and we hadn't met our goal. But, we needed to buy gas so we went to the BP in town and decided we would talk to someone who was pumping gas and to the cashier. But there was no one else pumping gas when we pulled up so we went inside to use the bathroom. Lucky for us it was only a single so while Hermana LaBonte was in the bathroom, I talked to one worker and while I was in the bathroom, she talked to a customer. (It worked out very well.) We were still missing one person in order to meet our goal, though. As we walked back to our car, a car pulled up and the driver went inside before we  could even register he was there, but the passenger took longer so we walked up to him and waited for him to get out so we could give him a card. And we met our goal!

Now, this may not sound like a very spiritual story, but I know that if we are truly committed to a goal (and it's an inspired goal), God will provide a way for you to achieve that goal. Because He wants you to reach your goals and to reach new heights. So if we follow the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which we will do (1 Nephi 4:6-7) God will provide a way. That is one thing I'm learning day after day in the mission. For which I am so grateful.

I know the Gospel that was restored by God through Joseph Smith is true. Whether or not we accept and follow it, it continues being the truth--the only truth. I love being able to share what I know is true because I know it's the one thing I cherish the most in life--because through the Gospel, all the other good things in my life have come. Because of the Gospel, I know I will be with my family even after death. Because of the Gospel, I know that God is my Father in heaven and that He loves me. Because of the Gospel, I know that the Church of Christ is built upon prophets and apostles--always has been and always will be. Because of the Gospel, I have the hope of eternal life (Moroni 7:41). I  am so blessed to have all of this knowledge, along with the capacity to know infinitely more. And I know that each one of us, as children of God, has the capacity to know all that God knows--if we will but ask.

Con Todo Mi Amor,
Tu Hija y Amiga,
Hermana DeBuck

P.S. The best investigator in the world is finally on date! And he chose 21 August all by himself. Man I love this guy.

Fotos:

 1. Haircuts! And we gave our hair stylist a Book of Mormon! (:

2. The weekly corn photo, of course

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