Week 38: Transfers and training (again!)

February 12, 2014

My family!

Well, I gave it away in the subject line, but transfers are upon us again and Sister Budvarson is outta here (keeping with her tradition of only being in an area for 2 transfers) and I will be training for a 3rd round! (which means I'll probably be here at least a total of 6 months- my tradition.) I'm excited to train- it's so refreshing and challenging and I need a boost of greenie fire. I AM sad to see Sister Budvarson go- I adore her. But we have both learned a lot from each other and are comfortable teaching together, which always means it's time to transfer. Transfer meeting is supposed to be tomorrow, but there's another (wussy) storm rolling in, so they have bumped up the meeting to tonight. Needless to say, it's going to be crazy at our apartment today!

Phew! Speaking of crazy, how to recap 1.5 weeks?! (why is that so much harder than 1 week?)

Julie Dexter is magic because she has been called to be the missionary dinner calendar coordinator and she has called EVERY person on the ward list (active and very inactive) to see if they will have us over for dinner. And it has opened up so many doors! I love her! We told her to not call some of the inactives were weren't sure about (I'm so afraid of people getting mad at me), and she said, "Oh, those are the people I WANT to call!" And so she has. :) The joy she feels at coming back to the gospel is so fresh that she wants EVERYONE to experience it. I want to strive to have that same joy and eagerness to share!

So speaking of Julie Dexter, she is also magic because when we took her to our Tuesday appt with George, he was a totally different George! He was nice and the lesson went well. And we took him some real food to eat (Sister Fairbank took him some real food on Sunday, so that was nice!). So that made us all feel better! But then, Thursday was an MTC type day. Really big ups and downs. We had another lesson with George and Julie, and it was going pretty well, although George started the lesson by asking Julie to take him to a class reunion in May (what the..?), but we continued teaching the Plan of Salvation and it was going fine until George got sidetracked and for some reason took us to 1 Kings 1:1-4 and said that he needs someone to take care of him. The Spirit was gone like that, we finished the lesson and left and Julie was SO weirded out because she felt like it was pointed at her. Sister Budvarson and I felt conflicted about it for a while and we've had a few lessons with him since where we've felt okay about things, but we think it's going to be best to pass him off the the Elders. :/ So that is lame... 

BUT! Thursday night after we had a very mood-spoiled lobster dinner with Julie (aren't you proud I ate lobster, Dad?! It was yummy!!!), we picked up Kara Wagstaff (who got baptized when she was 18 despite severe opposition from her family) and took her to a lesson with Maya, our 16 year old eternigator (she's been investigating for 4 years) and the lesson was straight up magic. Sister Wagstaff told Maya her story and Maya opened up about how her mom's boyfriend showed her anti-Mormon stuff in 2011 and it's been the reason she's been holding back. We have been trying so hard to get Maya to open up to us and this is JUST what we needed! MEMBERS ARE MAGIC! We're feeling a lot better about Maya now. We know she wants to get baptized, she told us, but she's not ready to set a date, she told us, but we now feel like we have a better idea of what we need to do to help her get there!

In other news, we really want to start teaching Aaron Washington (the pro-knitter Sister Washington's non-member husband) and he was totally listening in on the lesson we shared with Sister Washington on Saturday night (he took 10 minutes to put on his coat and "find" the keys to the car). :) We just need to find a second to have an open conversation with Sister Washington about what's the next step! I WANT TO HELP THEM BE AN ETERNAL FAMILY!!! :)

OH! And Sherri and her son Arias were really sick this weekend, so we went over on Friday with the Elders to give her a blessing. Sherri's dad, Charles, came over to be a chaperone for the Elders and I KNOW he needed to be there (his parents were members but he's never really been active). The Spirit was SO strong and it was such a sacred experience to hear the blessing Sherri received. I'm praying it will be a pivotal experience for her conversion. I don't know how it couldn't be!

Also, we started teaching this 92 year old lady named Leona. She's such a doll and totally with it. We met her while we were trying to find a less-active. Why are we teaching so many old people, you may ask? Easy pickin's I guess... :) Jk. But it was really special to meet her and teach her the first lesson. The Spirit was SO strong and I felt so much love for her, despite her getting a little sidetracked in the lesson and despite not being totally sure how interested she will be. I felt so strongly that Heavenly Father loves her and that an important reason she is still here is to hear the message we have for her. Those moments of clarity as a missionary where you see for a split second who these people really are and you feel so strongly how much they are loved by our Father are irreplaceable.

I love you all! This gospel is so true. And we are so blessed to have it in our lives. SHARE IT! :)

Love,

Sister Wheeler Jr.

P.S. I will try to send pics on Tuesday! (Monday is a holiday!)