Hello my friends,
Thanks for your replies. You all always make me feel good. Things are looking up. I realized they always are, you just might have to look a different direction sometimes to notice it.
There really is a lot of good things going on. I'm not going to say that more people came to church this week... but they will. In district meeting we learned about how faith requires hope. Hope is an assurance that God will fulfill His promises to us. If we get discouraged when our faith doesn't seem to produce the desired results, then we lack hope. Without hope we cannot have true faith. Through many things we are frequently tested to allow our faith to grow. But we must learn to kindle our faith and it will gain nourishment and strength.
Kristen is the girl that we met last week that let us in and then was really interested. The second time we taught her she we were going to invite her to be baptized, and then before we taught it she asked US if she could be. I've always wanted to have a King Lamoni experience and it came. It was funny because Sis. Olney was supposed to issue the commitment and it threw her off and she didn't really know what to do or say to respond. I had to pull out my planner and schedule her in before we lost the moment. She's kindof (maybe an understatement) addicted to cigarettes so we're teaching her the stop smoking program tomorrow and she's really excited. We've taught her roommate too so he'll be there too. I'm excited to be able to go over there and not smell afterward :)
One thing I've really noticed about myself is how I've developed to adapt to different situations. As is very contrary to how I used to be, I've really had to step up in a lot of situations and lead. That includes making decisions, which you all know I've never really liked to do. In any of my companionships we've never really figured out who's supposed to be senior or junior companion but we tend to pick a role and stick with it. When Sis. Olney and I were first together we were both on the passive side. I'd been out a little longer so I'd end up leading a lot. Since Sis. Olney and I have been together so long I've noticed I've been doing more and more and I feel like I'm making her lose her juice. We've started splitting up the days where one of us will lead the lessons and planning etc so we can both learn and grow. It's important to be able to do both leading and following. For once I'm making myself to NOT do all the talking. Crazy.
I've been learning a lot of quirky things about Ohio. The newest one deals with Halloween. Pretty much, Halloween on the 31st doesn't exist. Everything is split up on the week prior or following the date. Trick or treating as we find out is always held on Sunday afternoon. Each city has a 2 hour block where everyone will go out. Instead of going to the doors, most people will sit with a bucket on the end of their driveways. I found a few things that support this practice: 1) You spend less time and get more candy-no use wasting time with the houses that no one answers and no more long driveways. 2) People can actually see your costumes. 3) Missionaries tracting on streets soon after get people running to the door with candy instead of trying to hide :) It was great. Oh, and 4) It's safer. Funny though.
We also got word that Sisters can no longer tract after dark. Here, that means after 5:30. We've already been trying to do it, but now we have to start filling our evenings will all our appointments. The only problem is if an appointment isn't there. We can't just tract, so if we're not wanting to go home in between we have to either drop in on someone we know or learn to do lots of things in the car. We also have the option of contacting in stores or other public areas. I never really can find a non-awkward way of doing that so I guess now's the time to make me grow in that ability.
Last night though, we were supposed to be IN our apartments at dark since it was Halloween and you never know what goes on. We had walked to an appointment because we used all our miles on our car and it wasn't TOO far away. We got done at 5:30 and it was almost dark so we were pretty much running home. We realized the only thing we had we could eat for dinner was french toast, but we didn't have milk. So, we stopped at the gas station right by our house figuring we had a few minutes. We ended up being there for 10 minutes because their computer broke. So...we were kindof out after dark. Eesh. But, the lady working was about to cry and I think we were just supposed to be there as a buffer for her and the man that was getting mad behind us.
Random story, but hey, it's from me... That's all I'm going to write for now. My arms are starting to get that imprint dent from resting them on the table. Sometimes it starts to hurt.
I've officially received permission from Sis. Olney to start singing Christmas songs. She told me I had to wait until after Halloween but at District Meeting yesterday everyone else wanted to sing them too, so we did. Then at all our appointments I claimed the privilege of singing them a day early. Ah, Christmas. I'm going to have to get some good Christmas CD's though. For some reason I didn't bring any.. Hope everyone has a fabulous November.
With love,
Sister Salisbury
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