My darling family!
It has been SO long! And I'm afraid I won't get everything into this email, but I will do my best to give you the highlights. THANK YOU for all of your sweet words and emails. It has been such a boost to check my email today and feel all of your love and support. (And don't stress, I'm pretty sure you guys can send me pictures.) :)
I wrote a few notes on a sticky note of things to ask you guys (P.S. My sticky notes don't stick anymore- I'm suspecting it's the humidity). :) 1. Mom and Dad, what are the exact details of your mission? Do you guys know if you're actually doing the Perpetual Education Fund? 2. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY Nat and Victor! Wasn't it on the 3rd? Embarrassing if I got the wrong date... #missionbrain 3. Mom and Dad- thank you for the yellow quilt! 4. Laurana- HOW WAS EFY?! We were outside exercising on the Wednesday night you were there and we could hear all of you out on the field for games night. It made me miss being a counselor!!! I hope it was awesome! 5. Did my mission president send you guys a picture that he took with us when we arrived? 6. Mom, I neglected to bring a mattress pad with my sheets- could you send one please? Thank you! 7. Clay M. Christensen is in our mission presidency. I feel slightly sheepish for not quite knowing who he is... :)
Okay, so the rest of the MTC was great! I felt like I grew so much in such a short amount of time. I felt overwhelmed with gratitude. In fact, the first night in Boston, I got in bed and couldn't fall asleep because I was so teary and overwhelmed at how thankful I am for this opportunity to serve and how humble I feel that our Heavenly Father trusts me to be a part of this work. President Packard gave us a great talk about how this is the only time of our life when we'll be able to live the law of consecration in this way. Pretty incredible. He also talked about how he believes we can build Zion here in this mission and I am so on board. I think I've since realized it's going to be a lot harder than it sounds, but I'm willing to do my very best to be the missionary I need to be to build Zion. (In fact, for a week straight, I have not been able to get the hymn "Beautiful Zion" out of my head. We didn't even sing it! But I'm okay with it. It's a pretty one.)
One incredible experience from the MTC- we were teaching a "less-active" in the TRC who I think really was less-active and he talked about how he feels like he is unworthy to repent. I instantly felt this feeling of heartbreak and love and I know that that's what his Savior is feeling for him. I told him that I know that his Heavenly Father loves him and wants more than anything for him to change for the better and that his Savior absolutely feels that he is worthy to repent. We were both crying pretty hard- it was such an incredible experience of feeling the Spirit and being an instrument in the Lord's hand as he communicated His love to this man. I thought to myself, "What would I give if I could experience this all the time on my mission?" and then I was reminded of Alma 22 (I think) where Kind Lamoni's father says that he would give away all his sins to know Jesus Christ. I felt exactly the same. So incredible.
Boston is so cool! Very different. No one smiles on the bus and I'm like, "THIS IS AMERICA, PEOPLE! Be nice!" :) I think one of the biggest reasons I've always been terrified to serve a mission is because my idea of a mission is 100% tracting. But that's not how our mission is- in fact, we rarely tract because it's not effective here. Working with the members is our #1 priority (which also kind of scared me at first because I grew up in Idaho where the missionaries were like, "Do you have any friends we can teach?" and we were always like, "Um... all my friends are Mormon..." Definitely not the case here!) I think in order to make the point that tracting is not effective here, President had all of the new missionaries go street contacting in the Common our first day on Wednesday. (Apparently, the Boston Common is the USA's oldest public park- cool!) P.S. President is letting us go to the fireworks on the 4th- I'M SO STOKED! Sometimes I think the 4th is my favorite holiday instead of Christmas... is that blasphemous?) :) Sister Hobbs and I were both scared out of our boots to street contact and after a couple of failed attempts, I had to just stop walking because I was mentally paralyzed with fear. I don't know how I talked myself back into it, but we got through it. Sis. Hobbs said she wanted to puke when we were done. :)
Anyway, I'm in Cambridge! Right down the road from Harvard. Intimidating! But so beautiful! My new companion is Sister Hollan (funny thing, her name is Rachel Marie Hollan and my roommate last fall was named Rachel Marie Holland- crazy!). She is adorable- blonde with perfect eyelashes and teeth and very funny and energetic. 20 years old, from South Dakota. Studying piano performance at BYU. I'm struggling to be patient with her and with myself as I figure her out (our love languages are not the same and I'm at a loss as to how to serve her/bond with her/understand how she feels about me) and as I get the hang of what we're supposed to be doing. I feel like the MTC trained me to be a machine but our mission is a modified version of that machine, so I'm struggling to figure out how to be obedient/if I'm doing everything I'm supposed to when the rules and priorities are a little different out here. We have a lot of dinners at members' houses and at first I felt like that was just a waste of time (I'm guessing it's because in Idaho, it always seemed that way to me when no one had non-Mormon friends), but I'm starting to realize that we really have to build a relationship with the ward and get them to trust us so that we can help them be missionaries to their friends. I'm also realizing that I'm still being effective/doing missionary work even if I'm not street-contacting/teaching an investigator every minute of the day. I now realize why missions take so long- people take time to change! Growth is a slow and steady process. :)
We had dinner with some recent converts, the Conley family, and they were so great. They met in some sort of recovery program and both felt like they needed change in their lives. They looked up churches to go to on Yelp and ours had great reviews, so they walked right in! Haha! Amazing. There are people who are ready! They are still very young in their gospel knowledge (they seemed a little like deer in the headlights). :) It made me realize that I know enough to teach people- I don't have to be a scholar.
We also had our first lesson with an investigator on Friday (transfers were on Thursday, so I think Sister Hollan and I were both nervous because we hadn't had a lot of time to practice teaching together.). The Losee family are a young BYU couple in our ward with 3 little boys and 1 on the way and Bro. Losee just graduated from Harvard Business School. I felt like I was just hanging out at Nat and Victor's. :) He had given his friend Daina a BoM (pronounced Dina) and she had read Alma 32 and was interested in meeting with us. She was SO brilliant and had so many great questions! The discussion went well and she seemed excited to learn more, although I hope she comes to realize that there is a way to gain spiritual knowledge instead of just temporal knowledge (she told us she was atheist when she was younger but then realized there's no way to prove there is or isn't a God- an improvement, I'd say!). We're crossing our fingers for a solidified return appointment!
We also visited with some less-active girls in our ward whose mom gives them no direction. (There's no dad present in their lives.) It made me incredibly grateful to grow up in a strong family and in an area where the gospel is so prevalent. I feel very humbled. And I've realized how important it is for those of us from such a strong area to spread out to other areas and do all we can to build up our wards there. The BYU couples make such a difference in our ward. (P.S. Our ward is kind of a student ward and they all just moved for the summer, so it's a little sparse.)
Okay, I think that's all I can remember. I love you all so much and am so grateful for this experience! SO grateful. I feel like I can't say it enough.
LOVE YOU ALL!
Sister Wheeler
P.S. My address: 39 Brock St. #3, Brighton, MA 02135 (We're just a few blocks away from where they filmed the PBS show "Zoom!" So cool!) Send me love! It brightens the day!
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