5 Questions:
1) Have you met your new Mission Pres yet? What do you think?
2)
Did you get the message about what type of iPad you have in
Mahonri--exactly which model???--so we can order the right
case/keyboard? (PS--I saw a"lost" set of scriptures in the church today
that was printed "Mahonri Moricanumer" on the front cover. Made me
laugh.)
3) Did you get the first package yet?
4) What kind of meeting did you have on the 7th that you might get the package? I can't remember.
5) It is weird to you that friends you graduated with who are already coming home from missions?!?
1.
Yes. haha he's so funny! So President Griffin is originally from South
Carolina (if I'm not mistaken) and so he has a southern accent.
Basically the first thing he told us is that we can be obedient AND have
fun. Nowhere in the scriptures does it say we have to have long faces
while we're enduring to the end. So the obedience in this mission isn't
going to decrease (it should increase in all honesty) but we are going
to try to have more fun, I suppose is what he basically said. President
and Sister Griffin are definitely different from President and Sister
Fenn, but I wouldn't say one is better than the other. I love them all
so much and I know I needed to have both presidents for my mission
president.
2.
I did get the message; Mahonri is an iPad mini 2 (with retinal display,
if that matters). And I'm glad you finally heard more information about
the whole iPad thing. I was beginning to wonder if you ever would...but
so my understanding (just wanna make sure we're on the same page) is
that since I'm going home after 31 August 2015 I get to/have to buy
Mahonri and will keep him after I'm released. Is that what you were
told?
3.
I did. Thank you! I really enjoyed the Johnny Lingo bit--did you write
that or did you find it online somewhere?--and as far as the garments
go, the bottoms were a little too tight (I could fit but it wasn't
particularly comfortable) so I would ask you get a size bigger, and that
should be fine. And with the tops, that is the smallest size right? I
can't remember... Also, thank you for the CD and the journals. I just
wrote the last day in the one I had so it was right on time! And I
haven't opened whatever is wrapped yet; I'm gonna wait until my actual
birthday. (Speaking of, so we're having a branch party/activity on 1
August, to celebrate the birthday of the branch, and Hna LaBonte
volunteered to make tres leches cake so we're going to have tres leches
cake for my birthday and for the branch birthday. haha) (:
4.
On the 7th we just met President and Sister Griffin. We did get a
little bit more training, from the both of them and from the assistants,
but that's it. It was really great though! Elders Higley and Hansen
taught about the three degrees of motivation (which I'd learned from
Elder Higley while he was my zone leader in Peoria) but man, it's so
good. I can't remember if I've written about it before or not, but
anyway, the idea is that we want to be obedient (of course) but for the
right reason--because we love God.
5.
It is super weird! I can't believe we've been graduated for two whole
years....who said that was okay...? So I guess the next thing to happen
is all those young return missionary men get engaged....eek. I'd rather
not contemplate life after the mission....but cool. This last week I got
an email from a friend from high school entitled "My last email as a
missionary....." Oof. It kind of gave me chills. I've always thought,
every time there are departing testimonies at zone conference, and they
all say "I never thought this day would come", I always thought that was
silly. But now I feel like I understand better. I mean, mentally and
logically I know the end will come, eventually, but it doesn't really
feel real. Because you literally do the same thing all day every day
beginning from day one. And then suddenly it's supposed to just stop?
Excuse me? But yeah, that's how it works I suppose. Until 3 March 2016
comes around, I'm going too keep working hard and smart, as though that
day will never come. Because that is how you're supposed to serve a
mission.
I
don't even know where to begin, this week was so amazing! But I suppose
it would be good to start at the beginning, no? I will try to keep this
somewhat short, and only talk about the highlights, but there were so
many! Buckle up, peeps....
Monday:
after our dinner appointment with our recent convert, due to an
unplanned lesson that set our schedule back, we had about 20 minutes
before 9:00. And we were about 10 or so minutes from our house, so we
had about 10 minutes to work. We didn't know what to do with those ten
precious minutes so we prayed, and we both received the same confirming
revelation of the plans that we had made last night--to visit the family
of an investigator with a lot of potential who is currently in Mexico.
So we went and ended up finding the daughter of that investigator. Her
name is Brenda. We found out she'd heard a bit about what her mom was
learning but wasn't interested, but now she is! So we taught a really
quick lesson and set up a time to come back, on Wednesday.
Lesson learned: seek revelation and you will receive it (James 1:5; 3 Nephi 14:7-8)
Tuesday:
In the evening, we had plans to knock doors. Usually, this is effective
until about 8 but we had plans to do so from about 6-9. A somewhat grim
prospect perhaps, but I was excited. I love knocking doors. We went to
7th Avenue and began knocking. At one door, we met a young man named
Ivan (he's either 21 or 28, we couldn't ever hear the last digit...) and
he was really cool! We had a great spiritual doorstep lesson, but then
at the end, he basically told us that he wasn't ready for this right
now, so we testified that one day he will be and it will help him answer
his questions. Then, it was about 8:45, so we were walking back to our
car and we see a man sitting on the porch of an apartment building. Of
course we had to talk to him! We ended up showing him the video Because
He Lives and as soon as it's over he stands up, walks over to us (I was
thinking "Is he gonna punch us or something?") And then he awkwardly
embraces the both of us, one in each arm, while he's standing on the
step above us....if that's not one of the most awkward things you've
ever heard, I don't know what is. Anyway, one thing led to another and
we sort of taught him the restoration, specifically about the Book of
Mormon. And when we asked if he would be baptized by someone holding
God's authority when he knows these things are true, he said,
"Absolutely". Cool! Also, two times after the first he embraced us just
as he had at the beginning. Triply awkward....ah well. And then of
course we didn't have an English Book of Mormon so we ran to the car,
drove back, gave it to him with an "assignment" to read Alma 32 (he was
really into faith in Jesus Christ) and then we basically handed him off
to the elders. (Anytime I serve in English church units, I feel like we
do a lot of finding for the English missionaries.....is it just me or is
that a normal Spanish missionary thing? haha)
Lesson learned: talk
to everyone, because you never know when you'll be an answer to
someone's prayer--or when someone will be the answer to your prayer
(Alma 8:18-20)
Wednesday: don't be afraid to ask if we can come in and share more--some people do say yes! (Alma 22:1-3)
Wednesday:
was exchanges. For the second time in my ten months, I left my area.
This time I went to Wheaton, and I was with Hermana Montanares. It was
quite a lot of fun. She and I are pretty similar and I felt like we
worked well together. We had a member with us at one point to visit a
referral from another member, but then they didn't answer. So we did
some knocking in a neighborhood that didn't look Latino hardly at
all....but eventually we found one that housed some Latinos! The man we
talked to, turns out he had read the Book of Mormon before, when he was
14, because it was easier to understand than the Bible. We got to teach
him about what the Book of Mormon is and why its necessary, and he
seemed pretty open. However, he told us at one point that he doesn't
believe in churches, because they're made by man. I asked him, "You know
that Jesus Christ established a church when he was on the earth,
right?" He said, "Yes" so I asked "So we should be a part of church,
right?" And he said "Yes, but only if was Christ's church." *smile*
"Well, that is the message that we share; that the church Christ
established has been brought back to the earth through a modern
prophet." Anyway, I was pretty complacida with myself because in
situation like that, I tend to get frustrated and end up saying
something that kind of drives the spirit away, but that time I kept it
together! So happy. (:
Lesson learned: don't be afraid to ask if we can come in and share more--some people do say yes! (Alma 22:1-3)
Thursday:
basically did almost nothing today, because we had so much driving and
then weekly planning. However, planning was a revelatory experience for
us! We came to the realization that we need to focus on just one of our
investigators. Because while we do want to set and achieve higher goals,
we need to start with the basics, and just focus on one person: Jose.
So, that is exactly what we will do.
Lesson
learned: even though we want to set and achieve high goals, we need to
start with the basics--in our area, we need to focus on our investigator
Jose, otherwise he's more likely to fall through the cracks (Alma
26:30)
Friday: We had an appointment with one
of our really promising new investigators and she wasn't there; granted,
we were a bit early so we decided to wait around for a bit. In order to
be productive still, we tried calling the investigators we had numbers
for that we hadn't had contact with for a while. One of them is Stefani.
She's a YSA (young single adult) who seemed interested in knowing for herself in what we
said was true, but we hadn't been able to meet with her again hace
algunos semanas (for some weeks). We called her and she picked up! She was still super
nice and sincere and wants to learn more--the problem is that she's so
busy because she's in the military (I have no more details on that,
sorry) and is working and going to school. But we were able to set up an
appointment for next week before she goes out of town, which made her a
new investigator! Then, our appointment never did show up so we decided
to go by another new investigator nearby, named Gloria. And she was
home and answered! We ended up teaching her and her 8, almost 9, year
old son. She'd actually read from the Book of Mormon since our first
visit and was in 1 Nephi 3, so we kind of recapped the beginning and
read the rest with her and her son, Humberto. And for all of you who
aren't familiar with the story of that chapter, it's when Nephi and his
brothers go to get the plates (scriptures) from Laban, back in
Jerusalem. Long story short, quite fitting for an 8-turninng-9 year old,
wouldn't you say? He was pretty attentive and Gloria really understood
it well, plus the doctrines that go along with the story. It was an
awesome lesson that we totally hadn't planned for but I know because we
were in the right place at the right time following the Spirit, Heavenly
Father blessed us.
Lesson learned: You can't give up on
someone just because they haven't answered their phone--we ended up with
a new investigator (by giving her a call and setting up an appointment)
and an other lesson (because we went by and she was finally home, and
we taught her and her 8-almost-9-year-old son about Nefi, Laman and
Lemuel) (Mosiah 27:8-20)
Saturday: Well, we
followed the Spirit all morning and reaped the fruits of our labors, so
to speak, and then we both felt we had finished all that we needed to do
in a part of our area, so we decided to go somewhere else--which wasn't
in our plans--and we ended up finding three men outside of the house
where we were looking for our potential investigator. Normally, I'm not a
fan of talking to more than two men at a time, but this time we did and
we ended up having a lesson! And man, this hermano, Arturo, is very
sincere in his desire to change his life. It was a really cool
"coincidence" (the notion of coincidences is a heresy, so I'm told) and
we made a return appointment for the next day--with his whole family!
Lesson
learned: unless the Spirit explicitly tells you not to talk to that
slightly scary-looking group of men, talk to them! You literally never know who is being prepared to receive the Gospel. (Alma 32:4-6)
Sunday:
We had an appointment with someone we'd met and taught yesterday (not
Arturo) and then no one answered when we went by, so we went to our back
up plan: to knock doors. Wooh! To be quite honest though, I wasn't
thrilled at this point to be knocking. It was blazing hot and I thought I
was going to die. (I could never live in Illinois....) we finally get
to the next number we have and we find out its an apartment building.
And we have no apartment number. There are four options and so we
finally just pick one and knock. And we meet Julian, who asked us
questions pertaining to the Plan of Salvation. Then his wife came to the
door and they kind of switched places (he recently had surgery so the
heat was kind of giving him trouble I think) and we ended up teaching
her the restoration! Once again, doing some finding for the English
elders. haha but yeah, they were pretty cool and they even gave us cold
water bottles! So thoughtful.
Lesson learned: You stay in an area until you find out why you're there, and then you begin to harvest! (Alma 18:12-23)
(Also,
as a side note, we got to teach an Englishman today--a legitimate, born
and raised, English accent, Englishman. Granted, he was maybe 16 years
old, but it definitely still counts. Plus, I'm pretty sure he is totally
ready to learn about the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, which we just
happened to have prepared to teach for our finding lesson at the
Walters--he was staying with them. So that's an added bonus.)
So
all in all, this week was really super awesome. The Gospel is true no
matter what anyone says about it. Joseph Smith is a prophet of God,
called to receive revelation for our days. But it is up to us if we will
listen to God's counsel given through him or if we will ignore it and
continue to wander in the mists of darkness (1 Nephi 8). I know the Book
of Mormon changes lives because it has changed mine and it has changed
the lives of many people I've come in contact with. I know God answers
prayers no matter what, just sometimes it takes a little more time than
we think it will. And above all else, the question He wants YOU to ask
is if there is more truth out there, if there's even the slightest
chance that what I share, daily, as a missionary is true--if it has the
potential to change your life. When was the last time you asked?
Todo Mi Amor,
Tu Hija y Amiga,
Hermana DeBuck
Sent from my iPad
Fotos:
The
corn is still uneven....so we found the tallest corn near the edge that
we could find, and we also took a photo by our regular spot. But hey,
at least they're growing!
