SOUP, It's What's for Dinner

Hello,

After last week's run in with the unique kid hopped up on who knows what, I feel like this letter will be uneventful.  We had a pretty slow week.  We spent a lot of time trying to contact inactive members which is my least favorite activity.  It is just frustrating when people have known the truth and then they choose not to live it AND are rude to you when you try to contact them.  It is necessary though.  This week we have more appointments already so hopefully they don't cancel and we won't have to spend as much time being blatantly ignored by people.  We stopped at one inactive person's house and they flipped the outside light on and peeped through the blinds very sneakily.  No one answered the door so we rang the doorbell again (sometimes we are pushier than I would like to be, but I guess it's people's salvation we're talking about).  We heard a parent whisper, "Tell them we're not home, actually, and don’t get the door."  Another family never answered the door even though all their lights were on and the TV was going.  There isn't much we can do in those situations except report to the bishop so that he knows they very clearly are not interested.  

I didn't get transferred and I didn't get a new companion, but we did move to a different apartment that is closer to our areas.  Same area, same shadow, new digs.  We are the only sisters in the apartment and I miss having roommates, but I do like having my own bathroom and closet.  I miss living with Sister Adams.  She was the Oliver Cowdry to my Joseph Smith (well pre-apostate Oliver Cowdry.  We're talking about when they were young and best chums and translating together and having lunch dates and getting revelations and the priesthood and stuff) #likeningchurchhistorytoourselves.  We wept on each other's necks when I left...and by that I mean she jumped on me when I was sitting in my desk chair and we embraced and were sad.  But that doesn't have a biblical ring to it.  She also said my favorite quote of the week, "I have started to believe that you can be consecrated and still use inappropriate terminology."  I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks that.  Sometimes the only way you get through to people is if you use analogies and examples that are at their level.  And sometimes that involves comparing the Holy Ghost to a contact high (I never actually did that, but I did come up with a really good analogy that I wish I could have shared with our former substance abusers).  While we were discussing all of our great ideas (like making a movie called P-Day, a rap about the Restoration, and our interview with Ellen DeGeneres) I decided that we would be like Saturday Night Live, except we would be called Sunday Morning Pre-taped.  I think we have a promising future.

Guys, I have had 12,944 views on my 6 Things to Do Before Assuming Mormons are Crazy blog post.  THAT IS SO MANY PEOPLE.  I can't believe the number of people that shared it on Facebook.  Thank you.  It made me feel good to realize that while I can't pay people to listen to me in Mesa, I do have people that will read my blog. Unfortunately I will never top that though.  I've been out a transfer and I've already peaked.

Just pieces of advice, missionaries don’t want you to feed them soup when they come for dinner.  We had soup three times last week.  I don't want to sound ungrateful, but soup isn't a meal.  Okay, that sounded ungrateful.  I am grateful...but seriously.  SOUP?  IT'S 88 DEGREES OUTSIDE.  So just feed them steak and other cuts of meat.  That's what they want.

We have training for the pageant this Friday.  Unfortunately we aren't working every night.  We feel a little cheated because they're having sisters from Gilbert, Phoenix, and Tempe come to help.  Gilbert didn't want us for the temple open house, so I don't know why we're letting them come and work our pageant.  They're all going to be super fancy because they're in a rich mission.  They'll probably be cuter than us too.  WE JUST CAN'T WIN. 

Can you tell I've been a little crabby this week?  Because I have been.  I'm just frustrated about life.  I'm clearly supposed to be learning patience, but it's not being learned very quickly.  I'm tired of working so hard and seeing no results.  I feel like I'm not anything special so I don't know why I'm here.  Everyone always says that you're called to your mission for a specific purpose and I am starting to doubt that.  I haven't done anything amazing since I've been out, so why am I here?  My companion said she can see results, particularly with Hermione, which she attributes to me being here and teaching and connecting with her, but I don't know if I believe it.  I feel like I am being myself and doing what I would normally do and people are reacting to me the way they normally would.  I connect well with most people already, that isn't special, that's just me, so I doubt that I am doing anything extraordinary with Hermione.  I guess I'm being humbled too.  I don't know.  I'm just frustrated and don't know.  I DON'T KNOW.

On a more positive note, BIRTHDAY MONTH IS UPON US!  That is right.  I can't even wait.  

Here's the funny story of the week for ya.  Harry Potter has a dog named Hedwig (name changed to protect the innocent K-9).  Hedwig has so much puppy mama drama. He has impregnated two dogs in the last two weeks on his block!  Hedwig needs to be a little less friendly and think about how he is going to support all the little pups he's already fathered.  He clearly wasn't tuned in when we taught the law of chastity.

We had a really great combined 5th Sunday lesson in one of our wards about missionary work.  Our bishop in that ward is so supportive and bends over backwards to try and help us.  He gave the ward clear goals and told them they need to step it up because we are working really hard but won't have much success until they help us.  We are going around now and helping families create family mission plans and encouraging them to invite their neighbors and friends to family home evenings and the Easter Pageant.  The ward members love us, we just need to help them love missionary work as much as they adore us.  I think with this bishop though things will really start to pick up because he is so motivational and is a good example of a member missionary.

Love from AZ,

Sister Poppe

This is my motivational desk art.  My family reminds me to work hard when I don't want to because I imagine you guys are getting blessings for what I'm doing.  The shark is just scary and scares me into working hard.  The quote is one my companion and I share with each other when we feel ugly.  And Jesus.  Well he's Jesus.

 

Mom's note:  You can't see the quote on the post it note but it says, "You're value doesn't decrease based on someone's inability to see your worth."

 

Additional note:  Amanda's other much funnier blog is poppesplates.blogspot.com be sure to check it out!

#josephsmithtabbycat

Hey girl hey!

 

Just to preface this, I'm typing all of this on my iPad instead of a computer, so there may be more errors than normal.  I'm finally to the point that the weeks are going fast.  Everyone in the field told me that your weeks go by really quickly and until this past week I rolled my eyes in my brain and scoffed because my weeks were not going by quickly.  I think being comfortable in your ward really helps with that because I know a lot of families at this point and I love them all.  I do still get overwhelmed at the fact that I still have 17 months left though, so I just don't think about that.

I had a great idea this week though.  Somehow I want to train cats to act out the Restoration lesson.  Imagine a lil' Joseph Smith tabby cat praying in some woods.  That would get so many YouTube hits and would subsequently lead so many people to the gospel.  I think the prophet needs to get on board with this.  #josephsmithtabbycat #allcreaturesofourgodandking #imisstwitter

We had a zone conference this week.  We were given more rules.  At first I was irate because I felt like we were living in the USSR.  To a certain degree we are, but I agreed to most of the rules before I got here so I'm willfully submitting myself to communism.  Anyway, I hate when the good are punished with rules that were only brought about because other people were breaking rules.  It took some effort, but I decided to not be bothered by the rules and just follow them so I can get blessings...and work on obedience.  We no longer have zone sports because too many injuries were occurring and inappropriate elder/sister relationships were blossoming.  We can't have iPods anymore and need to reevaluate our music choices.  But, we also get 2 hours to email a week now instead of an hour and a half! That is exciting, except not this week because apparently my inbox is only ever in feast or famine mode.  Either a million people email me or just you and dad do.  This week I have no friends.  They're all dead to me.  We also talked about bed bugs and scorpions at zone conference.  I am disgusted.  I thought I didn't have to worry about anything gross when I was called to to a stateside mission.

One night the family that was supposed to feed us dinner had something come up and so they just called ahead to a pizza place and ordered us a meal.  It was at Barrow's.  It's some of the best pizza I've ever had.  We have had it 3 or 4 times since I've been out and it is delicious.  While we ate a miracle of sorts occurred.  There were two televisions next to each other by our table.  One was playing CNN and the other was airing hockey.  My companion played hockey and loves it and I love the news.  There was no volume or captions, but I am officially caught up on the Crimean conflict and the lost Malaysian plane.  After we left we started to feel guilty though and decided that if that happens again we should just take our food to go because we can't fight the temptations Satan places before us and eat with our eyes averted.  #sistersinners

During one of our lessons with Harry Potter this week Harry brought up the wise man and the foolish man.  We told him there was a primary song about them and then we sang it for him.  I was shocked I remembered all of the words and the actions. He was shocked that we gave him a show.  We were brainstorming ideas to make his lessons more meaningful so I said we should create a investigator jeopardy.  We each wrote our own questions and created our own game pieces I'm going to buy Velcro later and a foam board and am going to create a legitimate set up.  I already made pretty point and category pieces and am going to get them laminated.  I am so excited, you don't even know.  

We get together with our district once a week to get to know each other better and theoretically do some sort of training, though that part never happens because we get off track really easily. Earlier I'm the evening I decided that if I got arrested I could probably get out of jail without the mission president even ever knowing that I was incarcerated because of all my connections in Arizona.  If I get arrested I'm just going to call you, mom, and you can then call everyone I know in the valley until someone can bail me out.  Well, I was sharing this theory and one of the elders in my district looked at me and said, "Sister Poppe, I imagine that you were just a wild wild woman before your mission."  Everyone else agreed.  I think they have a skewed perception of who I am, but I will embrace the bad girl persona, no one has ever believed that I'm edgy...it's kind of exciting.  Just acting like I'm edgy makes me feel edgy.  Woooooo!

 Speaking of all my Mesa connections, a family in one of my wards is relate to us.  The husband was Grandpa Harold's cousin.  Also, my roommates are in Cammete's daughters' singles ward. My companion said that if she does ever get arrested it better be with me because I literally can throw a rock in this town and it will hit someone that knows me or of me.

We helped some families do a little outdoor service on Saturday.  I'm only 48 shades of white now.

One of the youth in the Twin Knolls ward is a convert of about 6 months and she has been wanting to go on visits with us, so we took her out to contact less active people and a referral with us on Friday.  She is a lot of fun and wants to go on a mission when she is 19.  We are trying to have members with us more during these visits because I believe it is more meaningful to have a member tell you they want you to come to church then it is to have two girls on your doorstep who are there because it is their job to be.  Hopefully this was a good start. 

On Wednesday we had dinner with a family that has five kids.  The dad was still at work and the mom gives piano lessons, so we just are with the kids while the mom gave a lesson.  As we were leaving the mom of the daughter having a lesson talked to us and said she has never seen girl missionaries and that she likes that we are out serving.  Later that evening the member who was giving the lesson called us and said that the lady we talked to is interested in learning more and that she will set up a time for us to come back to her house and talk with her.  It was a miracle because no one in that ward ever wants to be taught!

In that same ward is a part member family.  I talked about them the first week I wrote home from the field.  We teach the step son (Neville Longbottom) who is a member because he doesn't know a lot because he always skipped Sunday school as a kid (and still does a lot).  The step dad (Sirius Black) isn't a member, but he comes to church every week and even has a calling with the cub scouts #drymormon.  It has never felt right to teach Sirius Black so we haven't bothered him.  We know that he knows the church is true and that he will come around when he is ready.  We figured teaching Neville would be a good way to show him that we care about people and don't just teach to baptize.  I also suggested we move our lessons with the step son from Thursday to Sunday so Sirius would overhear things.  My companion and his wife agreed so we have done that the past three weeks.  Well this weekend Sirius met with a member for lunch in another ward in our stake and told him that he has actually been reading the Book of Mormon and wants to know if it is true, but doesn't want to meet with missionaries.  The elders in the other guy's ward told us this, Sirius didn't.  We were teaching Neville the Plan of Salvation last night at our lesson and Sirius sat in on the entire thing (well the whole family did actually). We didn't have an 8:00 appointment, so we let the lesson go long and we spent over an hour just answering Neville's many, many, many questions.  Sirius told the wife a few weeks ago that he is surprised at how patient we are with with Neville and how we speak in metaphors and language he understands instead of just preaching at him.  After our lesson last night he thanked us for being patient and working so well with Neville.  We are hoping that Sirius will come around soon and will be baptized and that we can help Neville gain a testimony.  I love working with them, they're a really fun family.  They remind me of our family which is probably why I love them.  The older brother even said last night that it's a good thing we aren't elders otherwise we would have blown it with Neville long ago because elders don't have the kind patience that we do.  Neville has a hard time focusing in the basics and wants every crazy scenario explained to him.  He doesn't like the mysteries of God (like how we don't exactly know how the world was created, how black people were created, etc.) and allows that to get in the way of him believing there is a God.  Today in personal study I happened to read Mosiah 4:9 which basically says we don't have to worry about everything if we believe in God, so I sent him that scripture.

I'm up to Exodus now in the Bible and am still thoroughly enjoying it.  I don't know where Dreamworks got off with their interpretation of the Prince of Egypt though.  They sure extrapolated a lot out of the one chapter that describes Moses' birth, childhood, escape into the desert, and marriage. #dreamworksbetrippin'

Today we had a zone activity which is why I'm emailing later than normal.  We played mini golf and laser tag.  I actually did really well in laser tag.  I was shocked.  For a girl I actually did quite phenomenal.  I had the highest sister score, probably because I was a wild woman before my full time church service.  I even beat a handful of elders. #aintnobodygottimeformodesty #iamgettingridiculouswithmyhashtagsbutilovethemokay

Just a general note, I can read emails throughout the week on my iPad, I just can't respond to them until Monday, so anyone is more than welcome to email and it will always brighten my day.

As per usual, I'm sure I left a lot out, but these were the high points!  We get to go to the temple tomorrow, so I'll tell you about that next week!

XOXO

Sister Poppe

7 Years

Sometimes I forget that Joseph Smith knew about the plates hidden in the Hill Cumorah for 7 years before he was instructed to obtain and translate them.

Sometimes I forget that Joseph was sold into slavery at the age of 17 and didn't translate Pharaoh's dream until he was 30.

Sometimes I forget that the Israelites were held in bondage at the hands of the Egyptians for hundreds of years before the Lord liberated them through Moses.

Sometimes I forget that I am not in charge of my life's timetable, but that doesn't mean there isn't a timetable.

Let's rewind to my high school graduation: circa 2009.  I had just finished a school year in which I served as the co-editor of our high school year book, drum major for marching and pep band, choir president, National Honor Society president, one of six senior class student council representatives, and senior class president.  On top of my leadership roles I had performed in a musical, play, and on a one act competition team, was a member of our school's jazz choir and flute choir, was working a part time job at the pharmacy in town, worked hard to get top ratings on both my vocal and clarinet solos at our annual competition, was taking two AP classes, sat first chair at the all-conference honor band concert that year, and was on the first ever CFHS Minnesota state champion We the People team.  I was graduating a four year letter winner in academics, band, and choir among other letters that I had accomplished only two or three of my high school years, and had been voted most musical and best female singer by my classmates.  2008-2009 was a great school year for me and I believed my last year as a child was going to propel me into an adulthood of prosperous circumstances.  Now before you're overly impressed with me, I should mention that I was in a class of 106 graduates--it's not like I held all these titles and had beat out 1200 other students for them.  Nevertheless I was full of confidence and ready to enter Brigham Young University and make a name for myself.

Instead, I spent my first year of college struggling with self worth and believing I wasn't destined for anything above mediocrity; how can you excel when 35,000 other BYU students graduated from high school with all the accomplishments I listed above and then some?  I drowned my sorrows and fear in far more Nutella than any person should eat in 9 months and stupidly chopped off my hair.  It took a study abroad to London in 2010 for me to re-find myself and re-dedicate myself to finding my path in life.  With a more humble outlook on my future I finished my second year of college and began to tell myself again that there was a plan for me--it just may involve less grandiose accomplishments than I previously anticipated.  Two years later I've just finished my senior year of college and have another year left before BYU will give me a diploma.  I'm as lost as I was my freshman year of college and still wonder what magnificent things await for me.  When I try and imagine my future I just get lost and don't know what to do.  Unfortunately, the dewey-eyed 18 year old who strode across the graduation stage four years ago with confidence in her own plan was wrong about many of the expectations she set for herself.  I didn't end up majoring in music, I didn't finish college in four years, I didn't have a crazy awesome dating life, and I am no closer to knowing what I want to do for a career than I was the day I was born.

I lost confidence in my plan a few years ago, but eventually gained confidence in the Lord's plan.  I feel like I talk and write about my uncertainty in life a lot.  I think it's because it's something that I've finally learned to embrace in the last 6 months or so and I hope others don't take as long as I did to revel in life's uncertainty.  I didn't come into college with an open heart. I set goals, I made plans, and I didn't confer with the Lord at all.  SURPRISE!  I'm not really the one in charge, but it's better that way.  If I was in charge I would have missed out on so much.  I've been thinking about the Lord's plan for me a lot lately.  Almost incessantly.  Today while I was studying though I was reminded that:


Joseph Smith knew about the plates hidden in the Hill Cumorah for 7 years before he was instructed to obtain and translate them.

Joseph was sold into slavery at the age of 17 and didn't translate Pharaoh's dream until he was 30.

The Israelites were held in bondage at the hands of the Egyptians for hundreds of years before the Lord liberated them through Moses.

I am not in charge of my life's timetable, but that doesn't mean there isn't a timetable.