Wednesday, April 22, 2015

4-20-15 Marshmallows, Evictions, and Bingo

Hey Everyone!

Wow this week has been so great! Hard work really pays off, especially in the mission! I'm so happy after the past week that Sister Saintonge and I have had! We haven't really had any baptisms or any investigators at church, but we met more of our goals than usual and we were able to teach so many people this week! As you can tell from the subject line for this week, we had a lot of exciting things that I'm going to talk about!

So starting with last Monday, we were doing all of our usual PDay stuff, like shopping, car washing, emailing, etc, and we decided to go back home to put our groceries away when to our great surprise, we got an eviction letter on our door! We were so confused and we had no idea what to do! So we just called the mission offices and tried to work it out through them. It turns out that it wasn't really a problem on our end of the deal, but rather to the previous owners, so we're trying to get that worked out. We still have an apartment and all our stuff, so that's alright! We hope that we'll be able to stay there so we don't have to pack up and move somewhere else!

On Tuesday there were some training meetings for the older missionaries, so I got to go on my very first splits! It was pretty fun, and I got to go to the Retirement home to play card games and horseshoes! That was pretty fun. I was with Sister Andana, from the Philippines. She's been a member for about two or three years and she's been out on her mission for about 5 months. We had a great time playing games with the seniors and having fun!

On Wednesday I got a package from my dear grandmother with a marshmallow shooter! I was super excited about that because 1) it is a marshmallow shooter and 2) we had weekly planning that day, and that can get pretty long and boring. So throughout weekly planning I spent my time practicing my aim at Sister Saintonge's nametag and this picture of Samuel the Lamanite. It was super funny because none of my marshmallows hit Samuel and flew around him just like in the scriptures! However, I was able to hit Sister Saintonge in the nametag and in the face!

Marshmallow Shooter


On Thursday we went back to the retirement home (because it was our actual day for service and we weren't on splits), and we spent some time with some of the older seniors who aren't able to do much physically or mentally. We made some flour/salt dough and made some fun little sculptures with it. After that we went to go play Bingo with the other seniors. They are serious when it comes to their Bingo! They have all different ways and games to play with bingo. There was also a lady who sat with me to play who was deaf, so I'd have to hold the numbers up for her to see them.

Friday night, we got to go and get frozen yogurt with the Elders and Ward Mission leader! That was probably the best part of the day for me and Sister Saintonge because we LOVE frozen yogurt!

Yesterday we taught the Junior Primary 4 year old class about the Word of Wisdom. It was so fun because we didn't really have to do much except for tell them, "Don't eat bad foods." and then we played a game where I made a sock puppet "eat" good and bad foods drawn on paper (like apples, bananas, broccoli, bread, milk, and also wine, beer, and cigarrettes). When the puppet ate a good food, he gobbled it down and let out a loud, satisfied belch, while when he ate a bad food, he would let out a terrible scream and explain very simply why we don't eat bad foods. Four year olds are really hard to keep attentions, but they're a lot of fun to watch learn about the different parts of the gospel! Afterwards we all went outside and ate some yummy orange sherbet bars. Sometimes, I wish that the world could be as simple as it is when we're 4 years old. It would be so much easier to teach and help people understand each other!

Last week was a tough week for Sister Saintonge and I. We spent a lot of our time talking with a lot of people that would not be interested and we had some people stop taking visits from us, and we were very discouraged. However, this week, we decided that we cannot just rely on Heavenly Father to pull us out of tough spots, but we need to work in order for Him to be able to help us. In this video, we watch a man go out and get stuck in the snow. Even with his 4-wheel drive, he is unable to get out and help himself. Instead of staying stuck in the truck, he decides to get out and so the work that he originally went out to do. As he works, he is able to load his trunk with weight large enough to give him traction and get out of the snow. Do the fruits of your everyday labors give you the spiritual traction to move forward from day to day? I have felt my load increase this week, but at the same time, it has helped me move onward. I hope that in any task you undertake, that you'll be able to bear it well and that the weight of your task will not drag you down, but give you the traction to move forward.

I hope you all have a great day and that you can do all the things that you need to do! Have a great week and God Bless!

Photos of apartment:
Sister Saintonge and her desk

Sister Denton's desk

No comments:

Post a Comment