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!
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
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