My mom asked me a few months ago if I could use one word to describe my mission what would it be. My thoughts? Fulfilling, familiar, long-suffering lol jk, humbling, lasting, essential.
I had told president in my email last week that “my mission has changed my life” and he corrected me and said the GOSPEL is what changed my life. How true. I’m thankful for such a wise man for my mission president.
Monday- I ate A meal that day. That was progress hah. We basically did the bare minimum and that was pushing it just a little. We’re pretty sure Heavenly Father just helped us have enough strength to do the things we HAD to get done for Pday because once we had we went home (4 oclock) and knocked OUT til 7:08….we had a dinner appointment at 6….we woke up and felt so bad for missing it, but realized we felt even worse than we were making ourselves believe. We cancelled our 7:30 appt and laid around the rest of the night. Because we have really great Zone Leaders/Ward Mates who knew we had been struggling (physically, mentally, emotionally) they called us and made us laugh for like 15 mins straight. It was nice to laugh. It was a really hard day.
Tuesday- I woke up at 6:30 am feeling nice and refreshed. I didn’t even feel tired at all. (that hasn’t been the case in like….uh…..6 months? Hah) other missionaries in our District were sick so they cancelled our District meeting. We were sick of being inside and not seeing people so we went to a different Districts meeting. It was nice to be around people instead of laying in bed. After we deep cleaned the apartment to get rid of any germ that could possibly still be lingering around. We were DONE being sick. It gets old. Fast. After that we went to a Sisters house in the ward and she taught us how to make eggrolls! It was so much fun and I can’t wait to show off my eggroll makin’ skills when I’m home. We made enough to feed an army!! So when we left with tons of left overs we gave the extras to the zone leaders. Come to find out, they didn't have any food that week, so our egg rolls helped them make it to P-Day.
I think that eating those, after barely eating anything at all the past few days, made us sick again. We went home and felt super crummy. Light headed. Like our heads had heartbeats. It was frustrating because we just wanted to be done with it already :(
Wednesday- My last Zone Conference to attend on my mission. Phew. That caused for celebration so I wore makeup for the 1st time in 2 ½ weeks! It was really nice to see familiar faces, although, I felt I hardly knew any of the faces anymore. All my friends have either gone home or gone down the hill so I never see them. It made me so happy a few times during the meeting Sister B made some realllllllly deep and incredible comments. I sat there really proud of the missionary she is becoming. She has changed so much since day 1.
Some good quotes/thoughts I had from the meeting that are note worthy??
-Pres talking to us about needed to wait to use the restroom til the breaks ‘I haven’t seen any of the brethren leave the pulpit to use the bathroom…and they’re OLD!”
-President: I’m still growin older and uglier each day.
-the struggle itself is part of the Atonement.
-The Lord won’t move our mountain, but He will help us climb it.
-The question isn’t “how do I get the spirit’ but rather ‘how do I KEEP it’ what do you need to give up/get to have it more fully?
-Pres: is God without trial??? HE HAS TO PUT UP WITH EACH OF US!!!!
-Theres peoplpe on both sides of the veil praying for us at all times.
Anywho. The meeting was from 8-2 and Sister Brentlinger and I held together (and truly did feel fine) up til like 12…it was rough. I kept having hotflashes. We went home and napped. Again. UGH. WE WERE SO OVER SLEEPING BY THIS POINT.
Chris (Ashleys son) had his baptism interview and passed with flying colors. He is such a stud. He knows SO much. We asked him to explain what a prophet is and his response? God tells the prophet what to do and the prophet tells the bishop. Hahah. Spoken like a true champ.
OH! I got a cool nickname at dinner: Sister Diamond!!! He said he decided on that because of my quick, bright smile and my sharp whit. Hehe. I was really thankful we made it to that dinner because I considered calling and cancelled (we still felt horrible) but because we didn’t we went and had a POWERFUL lesson. By the end the less active said “So what I got from your message is that we need to take our bad habits and replace them with good ones!” I’m grateful Heavenly Father teaches people through the Spirit and not by our own talents and tact…if that was the case missionaries would never be successful.
Thursday- biggest miracle of the day? I didn’t run over Sis. B when her clumsiness failed her haha. I will tell you, in her words, the event that took place.
“For those of you who don't know, I am a fairly clumsy person. I fall over all the time. For those others of you that might know that but don't know, as a missionary, when you have a car, the one who doesn't drive has to back the driver out all the time. Can you see where I am going with this?? If not I'll give you a little more, I am the one that does the backing. So yes, I'm backing Sister Toolan out of a members home, and I twist my ankle, and I am down. Thankfully she stops immediately so she didn't even come close to running me over. I stood up pretty quickly, and continued to back her out. We laughed about it in the car, and now I feel like half the ward knows about it. Well just our ward mates and our ward mission leader. Crazy! They have been making some not so subtle jokes about it the rest of the week...”
The next biggest miracle of the day was that we finally made it through a whole day without having to stop, have a nap, feel like complete crud and just work. So refreshing.
Found out that Chris had been inviting people to his baptism all week. That was so sweet and precious to hear. It’s so funny how excited he got about his baptism. I loved seeing it. He filled me with more enthusiasm which was much needed after the past few days we’d had.
Friday- CHRIS’S BAPTISM! It was….CRAZY hectic hahah. Everything changed super last min and boy oh boy I can’t wait to tell you all about it when I get home. Yep. I just pulled that card. Ain’t no body got time to write about allla that :p the top neatest things about the baptism were 1. seeing how much God had provided a way for it to all work out even weeks ago without us ever noticing it and 2. seeing how stinkin’ excited/nervous/anzious chris was about it all. He was running around SO happy before it and couldn’t wait. He is my favorite.
AWESOME MOMENT: earlier in the day we needed to stop by a Recent Converts house that had just moved into the ward that we’d never met. As we pulled up I notice the ton load of dogs in the fenced in yard. I knew the only way to get to the door was thru the gate but that mess wasn’t happenin! Yall know how I am with dogs. Well, just animal in general haha. So in our prayer before we got out of the car I asked heavenly father to help us in the sense that the dogs would be loud enough that it’d make someone come outside to check, therefore noticing us and so on. Well. Guess what. Sure enough that happened!!! All it took was like 48 seconds! It was awesome. I love that if we will specifically pray (and it’s in line with Gods will) that He will specifically bless us. COOL.
Saturday- Did some good ole Community Service with the town of Apple Valley. Met some really cool nonmembers who were out helping :)
We had a lesson with one of our investigators and the first thing she says is "I want to get baptized at the end of May beginning of June. I want to wait till then because I want my family to be here for it so that they can feel the spirit and hopefully one day let missionaries into their home. " It was difficult to not drop our jaws. She started to cry and said “The only bad part is that you won’t be here and I want you to be.” It was hard to hear/realize but I told her that it was better for her to wait and have her family experience it with her than to have me there. Who knows, maybe I can skype in? :p she is amazing.
GUESS WHO I HAD DINNER WITH???? My recent convert Guillermo from Diamond Bar!!!!!!!!! He and his non member wife drove up to take sis b and I out. It was SO nice to catch up with them. I couldn’t stop smiling. I was on cloud 9. they both bore testimony to us before leaving that we were doing a good work and that none of our efforts were in vain. They are precious. I loved seeing them more than they will ever know.
Favorite quote from a 6 year old boy “sometimes when I get nervous I fall over….sideways…” hahahhaah.
Sunday- Our golden investigator came to church. She was late, but she came and stayed for Gospel Principles. She was going to stay for Relief Society but decided to go home and spend a couple of hours with her husband before he left again. He's gone often for work so she tries to see him as often as possible. She wants to start talking to him about asking for Sundays off instead of Mondays so that he can come to church with her. This was her idea not ours, I'm telling you she is so amazing!!! She asked questions about the topics the speakers talked about it, and different things she heard about in Gospel Principles so that she could better understand. She absolutely loved it.
AFTER 2 ½ WEEKS OF NOT SEEING MAMU SHE FINALLY CAME HOME AND WE GOT TO SEE HER. I love that woman. I can’t stand the thought of having to leave these people in 2 short weeks. Ugh.
Honestly, if I can go on a mission, I can do virtually ANYthing. This is hard work. I feel so accomplished. I feel as though this is Gods way of building up my confidence. Thank goodness. He knew I needed it. Ha.
Sorry for tons of writing. I just……am coming to and end and am in denial………blahhhh…….i hit 18 months this week. CRAY. Love yall. See you soon.
-hugs-
Sister Toolan |
| After many, many days of NO mail we decided to make sure it wasn't all stuck at the back....nope...still NO mail :) |
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