Week 23: Eres Un Enviado de Dioses

5 Questions:

1) Did the boots get to you yet?  Please let me know when you get them.

2) Same question, different package--the Valentine's package from me. I think it was supposed to be there Wednesday.

3) I finally found a copy of the study guide for Jesus the Christ. Did you want your own copy?  Or just access to the family's?

4) Have you ever noticed the descriptions of Pharisees and Sadducees (especially in Jesus the Christ) sound like they could be describing political parties--especially in Utah?  Maybe it is just me....I couldn't get the thought out of my head as I read that chapter this week.

5) When will transfer week be this month?  Any sense of going or staying?  Just curious.

1. Nope. But we've got zone training tomorrow (so might get them tomorrow if they got to the office today) and exchanges this week, so I could ask the Hermana Training Leaders to watch for a package for me.

2. Nope. Same answer as above.

3. Yes! Is it via electronic device...? Or what? But yes, I would love that.

4. Also, yes! And the only thing they have in common is that they don't like Jesus....crazies. [I love Jesus the Christ though. It's amazing.]

5. Okay so here's what's happening: due to some meetings on internet proselyting for mission presidents that will be held in Salt Lake, President will be in Utah the first part of next week--which is when transfers would be. But, since he won't be here, transfers have been moved to the end of next week, I think to the 20th of February. So our next P-day will be a Thursday, about ten days (?) from now, so don't expect an email from me until then. Regarding what's happening to me next transfer, I'm pretty sure I'm going, but that's just the vibe I'm getting.

Awesome! Tell Maddie & Brytni congratulations for me! They're going to be fantastic full-time missionaries.

Speaking of Mr. Wilcock (our fantastic choir teacher at the high school), we had dinner last night with the Thayn's, in Bloomington 1st, and Sister Thayn said that she grew up in the same town as Mr. Wilcock. I don't know what her maiden name is, but she said she was good friends with his sister....so that was kind of random.

Also, the Thayn's are awesome. Their two girls, who are 8 and 11 I believe, LOVE Harry Potter. It was so fun, and I just felt like I was at home. It was great. They went to Harry Potter World over Christmas break; I will admit I am slightly jealous....but it sounds like they had a blast (and drank plenty of  butter beer. which is a necessity.)

Hna Grant has a goal to sing all of the Spanish hymns, so we sing one every morning at the beginning of companionship study, and guess what today was: Love at Home. I expressed my dislike of the song to her yesterday, so you can imagine what the kniving woman put me through this morning....in case you can't imagine, this is what happened: as we read in the White Handbook, she inserted "love at home" at every possible segment. Needless to say, I was not "feeling the love" afterwards--JK, we were pretty much dying with laughter by the end.

So this week was pretty bad numbers-wise, but we first-contacted a boatload of people. Seriously. 18 people two days in a row, and then 6 on Sunday (when we had only been out for 50 minutes). So I'm pretty happy with that. Plus, Saturday, we actually made an effort to switch every door/person and it wasn't deathly terrifying! And I survived! So it turns out I am capable of talking to people. So that was great. I officially have a testimony of tracting. Even if we didn't really get any new investigators (or lessons, for that matter) out of it, it just felt so good to fulfill that part of our calling, to talk to everyone. Oh, it was awesome.

The reason we were so on top of it is because of our zone's focus this month: "forget yourself and go to work". As a part of that, they've kind of created something called Peoria 10/7, which means that the Peoria (East) zone is going to contact 10 people every day (per companionship), seven days a week. And they did that math: it figures out to approximately 2070 people contacted in the month (or what was left of the month when we started). So it's gonna be pretty epic. We're stoked.

Saturday, Bishop Goodman asked us to give talks, so we did that yesterday.... I was assigned Charity (from the Christlike attributes chapter in PMG); Hna Grant had Hope. The Elders had Patience, and Knowledge. Man, I had forgotten how much I dislike talks. But it was cool for me to study it because I've been doing this Charity Project thing (trying to anyway) where I broke down Moroni 10:45 in order to improve my own charity. The approach I took for my talk was how developing charity is part of our baptismal covenant, and how it relates to "the greatest commandment in the law", and "the second" (see Matt 22:35-40). So that was fun. What was funny was this: in Hna Grant's talk she said, "no good talk is complete without a food analogy..." so in mine I said, "Since no good talk is complete without a food analogy..." [I related it to neopolitan ice cream] and then in Sunday School, the teacher, Brother H, began by saying, "Since I learned today that no good talk, and therefore no good lesson, is complete without a food analogy..." haha then later someone in class said, "I bet Christ used food analogies." Someone else, "He did, all the time." One of the Elders, "'I am the Bread of Life'." hahaha oh man. Hna Grant and I were cracking up.

So here's something that I realized this week that I love about my companion:

- she doesn't mind when I tell her that she does something that bothers me. We just get it out in the open, figure it out, and move on. and it's totally okay! I love it. So I've determined to be like that my whole mission, and then we can avoid a whole lot of miscommunication.

- in every single finding/teaching opportunity, she invites them to do something that will bring them unto Christ. Which is what we're supposed to do, so I'm beginning to get in the habit. It's awesome.

- we laugh together, and have fun. We may laugh at really stupid things that no one else things are funny or even mentionable, but we have a good time. One of our goals this week from companionship inventory was to "strive for joyous dignity" because we don't want to be silly but we don't want to be somber.

Funny story for the week: On Saturday, we were doing some tracting in this apartment complex called the Arbors, and we met this guy and asked if we could give him a card, he said sure. When we asked if he'd heard of the Book of Mormon, he said yeah, it was a great musical. (or something to that effect). So we were like, "well the book is even better!" Anyway, we asked if he had much faith in Christ and he said not anymore, so we asked why that was. his response: "Look, can we just skip this part so you can go and I can go?" Oh man. It was so funny.....he was super polite about it, so it was just comical. We asked him to at least look up the website on the card (mormon.org) and he said, "I promise". So weird. But so fun. Tracting: you meet the greatest people.

Now to more spiritual matters: so I made the goal to not mark the newest challenge Book of Mormon during personal study (because I'm trying to be better at studying for my investigators) but I still read the first challenge, so I've been reading recently in Alma, the war chapters. And because I love marking things, I came up with a scheme to mark more things during these chapters (remember, I'm marking for the Doctrine of Christ, the Atonement, and Missionary Work). Here is my cast for the war chapters in the Book of Mormon:

- Moroni = a mission leader (i.e. Assistant to the President, Zone Leader)

- Helaman = a mission leader (i.e. Zone Leader, District Leader)

- stripling warriors = missionaries serving under Helaman (as Zone or District Leader)

- the People of Nephi = members

- the Cities of the Nephites = converts/members

    - when the city is taken by the Lamanites = less-actives

- Pahoran = a ward/stake leader (i.e. Stake President, Bishop)

- Lamanites = Satan/opposition in general

So, the war chapters are pretty blue in my Book of Mormon...haha but it's really cool because it's actually SUPER applicable to missionary work. The chapter I read this morning, Alma 60, I related to trying to work with ward leaders. Sometimes we, as missionaries, feel like they're not supportive or anything and we're just going at it on our own, which is so much less effective. However, as we know, Pahoran was just dealing with his own problems. So, sometimes as missionaries, we don't see everything going on in the ward that the Bishop has to deal with. I mean, do we ever see everything going on? yeah, probably not. But yeah, so that's cool. I love the Book of Mormon.

Okay, is anyone doing the marking challenge? (other than Hermana Emily Israelsen) If not, at the very least I hope you all are reading the Book of Mormon....

Well, that's it for me. I love you all and I hope you're doing well. Can you believe it's February? Cause I sure can't. That means I've only got just over a year left on my mission. Now that is just insane, and totally not okay.

Con Todo Mi Amor,

Hermana DeBuck

6996 - washed the car today. we look so awkward (all the time)

6993 - I am just so buff that I ripped this jacket....

003 - one of our Bishops sent this to us. He's the greatest.

009 - one day, sitting in the car after talking to this lady who told us she keeps telling us not to come but we (missionaries) keep coming, and I saw this event, and the following conversation occurred, amidst roars of laughter; I was crying.

Trying to take a picture for Facebook, as it still had to do with Christmas, and I made a face at just the right moment....this basically exemplifies me, but I decided it was better not to put it on FB

Hna Grant had Chick-Fil-A for the first time. man, Canada is missing out....

There was this giant melting snow man for beer bottles as eyes...he looked like Jabba the Hut, so of course we had to take a picture.