#Preachitgirl: No Sisters Left Behind, and Other Stupid Things

Hello!

I'll start out with transfer news; Sister Dumas and I are both staying in this area! It's crazy to think that by the end of the upcoming transfer I will have served 1/3 of my mission; and in the same area nonetheless. Sister D found out that no missionary visas have been processed through the Chicago consulate since February due to the World Cup, but in July they will start processing them again. It is likely that this could be her last transfer in the US.

We meet with the Memorial Day Gun family once a week to help them progress toward the temple and we are really growing to love that family. The wife has a daughter from a previous marriage who is turning 8 next month and will be baptized. I knew that they were both on the younger end of life but was never quite sure how young. The husband is always mentioning things from his childhood that were also a part of mine, so I finally asked him how old he is. He is only 24! So that explains why we basically are the same person. He wants to start a business with me after my mission and his wife legitimately offered me their spare bedroom to live in. They're funny people; I really like them.

We stopped by some homes on Friday night to follow up on family mission plans that we created with some families because our investigator's appointment fell through. The first home is of a family that I know but not very intimately. Their three year old son was excited that we stopped by and as we left he hugged us and said, "I just love them so, so much!" It's funny how some kids love us because of who we are--missionaries--even though they don't know us very well. We stopped by the Cheesecake Factory Family's home and as usual were greeted by pomp and circumstance. The mom told us that after nursery the week before Noah was running through the halls yelling, "MISSIONARIES!!!! MISSIONARIES!!!" We had already left at that point and he was sorely disappointed that he missed us. The mom was baking cookies for Father's Day and her husband was gone so she told us to stay 20 more minutes until her first batch was done so we could have some before we went. While we were waiting I read a book to the kids and then Maya gave me a dance recital. The kids in our wards really make us feel loved when we need a pick me up.

Me breaking the rules by holding Noah on my lap.

He loves selfies!

We are in an intense custody battle over an investigator that is giving me an ulcer. I'm about to call up Maury and ask him to have us on his show to solve the dilemma. We got a call last week from our district leader telling us that there was a 17 year old that was being taught in the Citrus Height Stake that is actually living in our ward boundaries and that she has a baptism date set already. It is a huge no-no to teach people outside of your area so we were a little bothered that she was poached from us by some other elders in a stake in a completely different area of Mesa. We found out that her boyfriend is in the stake she is being taught in and that is why she is being taught there, but now that she's getting baptized she has to get baptized in her appropriate ward. We were told that there was going to be a transition lesson this week in which we would all be at a lesson and then from there just Sister Dumas and I would teach her. We were so excited because her dad is actually a less active member in the Thunder Mountain ward and because that ward is completely dead! This is the answer to our 40 day fast! A baptism and the potential to re-activate her dad and baptize her mom! Well after our transition lesson we had another one and at that one the boyfriend's family basically told us that she’s going to be baptized in the Citrus Heights Stake and that boundaries don't actually matter and that she is too shy to go to a new ward at this point. That's the short version of that. So we called our ward mission leader who called some people to set things straight and at this point she is going to have her records in our ward but be baptized over there and then we were told we are teaching her the new member discussions and she will move over to our ward slowly but the other ward is still clinging on to her! Okay, let's just baptize this girl and tell her she can go to whatever ward she wants to the rest of her life! That sounds smart! The elder accused us of just wanting another notch to add to our belts and we were irate. All we want is to help this girl understand the way the church functions and the opportunity to re-activate her dad! It is so out of hand. The elders should never have let this go on as long as it did...they've been teaching her since DECEMBER. Really? It took them 6 months to track down her real ward? So that has been a mess. Mainly it is frustrating that we have found a handful of people since I've been out that were interested and we immediately turned them over to the appropriate elders or sisters when we found out their addresses.

As a form of good karma though, we did actually have a guy on Sunday from Apache Junction bring two people to our ward who are interested in learning more. He brought them to the appropriate missionaries, like all good human beings should do! We are really excited, they are really prepared and we think they will be receptive to the gospel. We talked to them and set up an appointment for this Wednesday! #blessings #karma #obediencebringsblessings #New investigator

We went on a wild goose chase to find a referral this week. We got one with an address and went and were told that the person we were looking for lives 2 houses down so we went there and he said that it is actually his brother that is interested, not him, but he is out of town until Wednesday. So we will go back later this week.

We helped a family from one of the elders' wards move this weekend. It was a good service opportunity, but frustrating because people were trying to just throw stuff in the moving van. I set every one straight though, and told them we had to do everything in a logical order. Elder Webb and I then just had people bring us stuff and we loaded it for a while. One of the elders whined about his sore elbow the whole time and didn't actually help. As if.

We had a Zone Training Meeting (ZTM) this week and I was asked to give a talk on faith. I'm always asked to speak or give training at these things now. Some people haven't done anything all transfer long! I guess it just must mean I have a lot to learn. We had to pick a Christ like attribute to work on for the month and I selected hope because I need to be better and having perfect faith and hoping for the best instead of just planning for the worst. I'm just really good at planning for the worst! I had a really good week though full of answered prayers, direction, and spiritual insights. I am always a little surprised at how much I am growing as a person on my mission yet how much I stay the same, which is good. I was worried my mission would change me to the point that I was unrecognizable.

We went on this awful hike this morning as a zone up to the wind caves. I was getting so mad at the elders who wouldn't just hike on without us; I'm a slow hiker, but I'm not a child I can do things alone. They were like, "No sisters left behind," and other stupid things. Okay. When I'm doing something humbling I prefer to be left alone, okay, thank you. We finally made it to the stopping point and one of my zone leaders was getting a kick out of my bitter sarcasm and asked if I would write a blog post about the experience. I told him I wasn't to a point of spiritual clarity yet about the situation, so probably not. He said something else and I was like, "The last thing I want to do on a P-day is hike up a freaking mountain with a bunch of skinny girls. I'm having flash backs to running the 600 in third grade; people offer encouragement and you don't want it! I never encouraged the stupid kids who did awful on their spelling tests during the middle of those. When you're doing something you're bad at you don't want attention drawn to yourself!" He laughed and told me I'm something else and said he is looking forward to the blog post. It was cool at the top and my anger dissipated almost immediately, but I still hate hiking up mountains. I only hike when I'm super angry (like the one time I hiked the Y) or when Ryan Gosling takes me on hiking dates (which is still yet to actually happen). At one point during the hike I told my friend Elder Webb that our friendship was over because he was being outrageous (clearly I wasn't being outrageous, just he was). He started talking to me like five minutes later and I was like, "ELDER WEBB. Are we friends again?" He assured me that we were because he is a boy and doesn't hold on to anger. I wasn't ready to be his friend again, but I am also the worst at holding grudges so I told him we could be friends again. Hikes bring out the worst in me...men should hike with me before they decide they want to marry me because it will never get worse than hiking with me.