Holla Familia!!!
We had a few fun experiences this week. We helped some members move all of their stuff upstairs. Looked for members on the roster to see if they still existed. Visited Less Actives. Went on a Blitz thingy with the Blacksburg Sisters. It has been a pretty fun/ interesting week.
Well, the first thing that happened this week! President Pitt came to our district and we got to have an interview with him. It is always nice to talk to the Mission President. He is such a loving, kind, amazing president. I'm going to be so sad when he leaves in June. It's going to be pretty tough.
We were given a list at Elder Nielson's conference thing last week on things we personally needed to change/ give up. It was rather hard to come up with a list when there is probably a hundred things that I wish I could change... but as soon as you try and think of something... you can't.... what can I say... I must be perfect.... NOT! It has been quite frustrating to try and think of things that I need to change. It seems I have been trying to fix the same thing my entire mission and I just haven't changed it yet. But that's not how it works. Real change comes with sacrifice. Which is hard. It's not easy to give up doing things that you are so used to doing. You did them all the time at home, and they weren't really a 'big' problem. In fact to some they weren't even labeled a problem at all. Change is difficult, especially when you are going into a 'foreign world'. I can see how hard it would be for new members of the church. Not only does everyone seem perfect, but they speak a different language too!!! Who knew that they didn't serve Stake at the Stake Centers!? Crazy I know. It has been pretty interesting thinking about change. We all think we know the destination or the end that we want to get too, but in reality that is how "the perfect end" would be... Exactly how we planned... doesn't exactly ever happen. I imagine you have heard of the phrase "taking a step into the dark" that we all need to in order to learn new things. Well, I have been thinking about it. You know how darkness engulfs, drowns, and tries to destroy everything? Well if you step into the dark... what do you think the darkness is going to try and do? Right, Destroy you. But do you know why we don't get crushed? destroyed? curl up in a ball and start crying? (most of the time) It's because we aren't really stepping into complete darkness. There is the Scripture "Ye are the light of the world" now... if you are the light of the world and you cannot be hid. Then that light must be coming from within you. YOU are a light, the truths you hold and know are what glow within you. So when you step into the dark, darkness has no power over you because you are a light moving forward. From Grace to Grace. Continually moving forward, because darkness has no power over the light. So when we move forward with the hope and faith that we have already in the light that we have. Obtaining more light is easier.
Anywho... That is just my thoughts on the things of change that President asked us about. I know what "perfect being" I want to become, but how to flipping get there... I haven't quite figured out.
After President we went and did something different and fun. We went to a Part Member Family Jackie and Bill. They are the most ADORABLE COUPLE EVER!!! just saying. Anywho, last time we were with them, we said that Sister Thomson would bring her Viola and she would play for them. So we did. It was pretty awesome. The music brought the spirit and Bill talked about how Hymns were kind of like a prayer. YES!! So as Sister Thomson played I at first read the words to the hymns, cause I'm no amazing singer, but then again... hymns just don't have the same feeling when you just read it. So Guess who started singing? We both did! how crazy is that. It was a neat experience to do that though. Hopefully it opened their hearts enough to start thinking about coming out to church again.
After the Comptons we had another fun experience. We moved some members from their downstairs to the upstairs. They had been living in their basement, for a year! now this isn't a huge basement. It was just a single room. With two bunk beds, a king size bed, and a whole bunch of dressers, and All of the kitchen supplies and such. It was the size of the Playroom at home. It was TINY!! bless them for dealing with that for a year!! So it was nice to help them move everything upstairs to a newly floored house. So much more space... And you get your own room.
Now The Blitz. So Sister Richards is the new STL in my area so she asked if we wanted to do a blitz. I was like "YEAH!!! what's a blitz?" so for this blitz we were able to switch companions for a while. Essentially it was like a mini exchange for about 3 hours. I got to work with Sister Richards again! It was nice. The stressful part about it was that I needed to plan for two companionships. That I could deal with not doing again. But it was worth it in the end! Sister Thomson had a good time with Sister Reed and were able to have a few neat experiences with tracting. I had a few neat experiences with Sister Richards tracting. The first house we went to was a referral. The lady who answered the door came outside (oh by the way it was snowing, lightly), cause she had crazy barking dogs inside. We then asked her about her religious life and she said that she was a 7th day Adventist. Sweet. Unfortunately I don't' really know what that means. So we asked her what she believed in. Essentially they follow the Word of Wisdom, and they believe in being an example of Christ, not just on Sundays but everyday. So we talked to her for a bit, and then she started making the signals of "I'm going inside now". She said it was a cool thing that we were doing and that we were planting a lot of seeds for Christ to come and collect later... Seeds!!! So I pulled out The Book of Mormon and I was like "Hey, that just reminded me of a scripture! You mind if I read it to you?" She hesitated for a moment and then was like "Sure" So I read her Alma 32 about faith being like a seed and such. Her countenance kinda changed at that moment, and Sister Richards said that we hand out Book of Mormons for free and if she would like to have it. She agreed and took it from us! Sweet! Potential Investigator! We will be trying her again in a few weeks. Then we tracted another street. and on this street we met a lady named Nikki. She is pretty sweet as well, we hopefully will meet her this week. Then I will tell you how things go :) She did tell us about how her grandfather was a Mormon once, and now he goes to the Church of God. Awkward... it was funny cause Nikki's daughter kept saying 'Awkward' the entire time we were there. It helped break the ice a bit! So that was a neat experience to meet her!
Our next adventure was that we went out with the Sister Burner (the Bishops wife) to find some people on the directory who lived in the ‘ Land Desolation’. It's not really called that, but it's really far away and we don't go out there very much because of how far away it is. We had an adventure of finding out that most of them didn't live there anymore, and that even some of the houses didn't exist! Yay! At least we didn't waste all of our miles driving back and forth. We probably drove over 100 miles that day. Eww. Fun road trip.
Well, things have been moving this week. Lots to do. Lots to Learn. Lots to Love. I don't know where to really start either! So it's going to be fun! It feels like this week has been a lot longer than it really has been. Which is good. If things were going by really quickly I would start to panic and that would not be good.
Well I hope you are all doing well! I Love you all! Be Good, Be Happy, Smile Often cause you know what? ..... you are a Child of God, and that is awesome!
Loves you!!!
Sister Karen Call
We had a few fun experiences this week. We helped some members move all of their stuff upstairs. Looked for members on the roster to see if they still existed. Visited Less Actives. Went on a Blitz thingy with the Blacksburg Sisters. It has been a pretty fun/ interesting week.
Well, the first thing that happened this week! President Pitt came to our district and we got to have an interview with him. It is always nice to talk to the Mission President. He is such a loving, kind, amazing president. I'm going to be so sad when he leaves in June. It's going to be pretty tough.
We were given a list at Elder Nielson's conference thing last week on things we personally needed to change/ give up. It was rather hard to come up with a list when there is probably a hundred things that I wish I could change... but as soon as you try and think of something... you can't.... what can I say... I must be perfect.... NOT! It has been quite frustrating to try and think of things that I need to change. It seems I have been trying to fix the same thing my entire mission and I just haven't changed it yet. But that's not how it works. Real change comes with sacrifice. Which is hard. It's not easy to give up doing things that you are so used to doing. You did them all the time at home, and they weren't really a 'big' problem. In fact to some they weren't even labeled a problem at all. Change is difficult, especially when you are going into a 'foreign world'. I can see how hard it would be for new members of the church. Not only does everyone seem perfect, but they speak a different language too!!! Who knew that they didn't serve Stake at the Stake Centers!? Crazy I know. It has been pretty interesting thinking about change. We all think we know the destination or the end that we want to get too, but in reality that is how "the perfect end" would be... Exactly how we planned... doesn't exactly ever happen. I imagine you have heard of the phrase "taking a step into the dark" that we all need to in order to learn new things. Well, I have been thinking about it. You know how darkness engulfs, drowns, and tries to destroy everything? Well if you step into the dark... what do you think the darkness is going to try and do? Right, Destroy you. But do you know why we don't get crushed? destroyed? curl up in a ball and start crying? (most of the time) It's because we aren't really stepping into complete darkness. There is the Scripture "Ye are the light of the world" now... if you are the light of the world and you cannot be hid. Then that light must be coming from within you. YOU are a light, the truths you hold and know are what glow within you. So when you step into the dark, darkness has no power over you because you are a light moving forward. From Grace to Grace. Continually moving forward, because darkness has no power over the light. So when we move forward with the hope and faith that we have already in the light that we have. Obtaining more light is easier.
Anywho... That is just my thoughts on the things of change that President asked us about. I know what "perfect being" I want to become, but how to flipping get there... I haven't quite figured out.
After President we went and did something different and fun. We went to a Part Member Family Jackie and Bill. They are the most ADORABLE COUPLE EVER!!! just saying. Anywho, last time we were with them, we said that Sister Thomson would bring her Viola and she would play for them. So we did. It was pretty awesome. The music brought the spirit and Bill talked about how Hymns were kind of like a prayer. YES!! So as Sister Thomson played I at first read the words to the hymns, cause I'm no amazing singer, but then again... hymns just don't have the same feeling when you just read it. So Guess who started singing? We both did! how crazy is that. It was a neat experience to do that though. Hopefully it opened their hearts enough to start thinking about coming out to church again.
After the Comptons we had another fun experience. We moved some members from their downstairs to the upstairs. They had been living in their basement, for a year! now this isn't a huge basement. It was just a single room. With two bunk beds, a king size bed, and a whole bunch of dressers, and All of the kitchen supplies and such. It was the size of the Playroom at home. It was TINY!! bless them for dealing with that for a year!! So it was nice to help them move everything upstairs to a newly floored house. So much more space... And you get your own room.
Now The Blitz. So Sister Richards is the new STL in my area so she asked if we wanted to do a blitz. I was like "YEAH!!! what's a blitz?" so for this blitz we were able to switch companions for a while. Essentially it was like a mini exchange for about 3 hours. I got to work with Sister Richards again! It was nice. The stressful part about it was that I needed to plan for two companionships. That I could deal with not doing again. But it was worth it in the end! Sister Thomson had a good time with Sister Reed and were able to have a few neat experiences with tracting. I had a few neat experiences with Sister Richards tracting. The first house we went to was a referral. The lady who answered the door came outside (oh by the way it was snowing, lightly), cause she had crazy barking dogs inside. We then asked her about her religious life and she said that she was a 7th day Adventist. Sweet. Unfortunately I don't' really know what that means. So we asked her what she believed in. Essentially they follow the Word of Wisdom, and they believe in being an example of Christ, not just on Sundays but everyday. So we talked to her for a bit, and then she started making the signals of "I'm going inside now". She said it was a cool thing that we were doing and that we were planting a lot of seeds for Christ to come and collect later... Seeds!!! So I pulled out The Book of Mormon and I was like "Hey, that just reminded me of a scripture! You mind if I read it to you?" She hesitated for a moment and then was like "Sure" So I read her Alma 32 about faith being like a seed and such. Her countenance kinda changed at that moment, and Sister Richards said that we hand out Book of Mormons for free and if she would like to have it. She agreed and took it from us! Sweet! Potential Investigator! We will be trying her again in a few weeks. Then we tracted another street. and on this street we met a lady named Nikki. She is pretty sweet as well, we hopefully will meet her this week. Then I will tell you how things go :) She did tell us about how her grandfather was a Mormon once, and now he goes to the Church of God. Awkward... it was funny cause Nikki's daughter kept saying 'Awkward' the entire time we were there. It helped break the ice a bit! So that was a neat experience to meet her!
Our next adventure was that we went out with the Sister Burner (the Bishops wife) to find some people on the directory who lived in the ‘ Land Desolation’. It's not really called that, but it's really far away and we don't go out there very much because of how far away it is. We had an adventure of finding out that most of them didn't live there anymore, and that even some of the houses didn't exist! Yay! At least we didn't waste all of our miles driving back and forth. We probably drove over 100 miles that day. Eww. Fun road trip.
Well, things have been moving this week. Lots to do. Lots to Learn. Lots to Love. I don't know where to really start either! So it's going to be fun! It feels like this week has been a lot longer than it really has been. Which is good. If things were going by really quickly I would start to panic and that would not be good.
Well I hope you are all doing well! I Love you all! Be Good, Be Happy, Smile Often cause you know what? ..... you are a Child of God, and that is awesome!
Loves you!!!
Sister Karen Call
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