Its been a stressful week.

 



Happy Fall!

 

Alright...I don't have as much time as usual because today, we went and carved pumpkins/ played Chush Wozni with 8 elders. Chush Wozni is a game named after Elder Wozniak. It's kind of like basketball except you don't dribble. You can take like 3 steps and then have to pass the ball. It was really fun! I haven't gotten that good of a workout in quite some time.

So last week, I was all "Cool, I'm taking over the area!" But guess what....taking over the area is STRESSFUL! You're the only person that knows where anything is and who anyone is so you basically are planning by yourself because your new companion knows absolutely nothing. Awesome!



Last day with Sister Park

So Monday and Tuesday were pretty uneventful. We went and said bye to Sister Jankowski and then taught FHE. We were teaching the Sabbath Day Holy with this object lesson using ice cream and in opening the chocolate syrup, I definitely spilled chocolate ALL over myself. Thankfully, most of it was on my black skirt but still, I was a sticky mess! Tuesday, we said bye to Kia & the Young Women and packed. Oh...and we had an amazing training meeting in the School of the Prophets! It was Sister Barker, Sister Sanchez and Sister Mazza's last training meeting so they bore their testimonies and it was just really powerful.

Wednesday....I FOUND OUT MY FATE! Ha...but seriously, transfer meeting is so dramatic. You don't know where you're going until the zone leaders announce it over the pulpit. You and your new companion stand up and leave and get going. Well...we predicted that Sister Park was going to Girard. She didn't. She's in Hiram now.



My new companion came from Hiram....it's Sister Law! She is from Draper, Utah and she's served in Hiram for a year. You just read that....she was in one area for her entire mission until now. So...in some ways, I almost feel like I'm training. Also, Sister Law is very quiet and she kind of just copies everything I do... It's a little different. Oh, she has a learning disability too, a reading disability. I think that I am good for her and I know that I can learn alot from her too.

My new comp Sister Law

We're different....I'm always going at hyperspeed in pretty much everything I do, especially now trying to figure out what members to take with us for LMPs, and getting in contact with the people who are feeding us and all this business and she moves very slowly. So, it's definitely different from Sister Park but I think it will be really good. We are going to build up Lyndhurst!!

Oh, so Thursday and Saturday we had no one sign up for dinner so I definitely called ward members and asked them to feed us. I didn't want her coming into a new area and having zero ward participation! Ha...I'm getting more bold by the second. (Okay, not really.) We had an amazing day on Thursday. We saw Joyce! People were in the store and so we were bummed but she had us go upstairs to "get snacks and talk to Sarah", her daughter. We got to meet John, her husband, for the first time too. Cool! He's awesome. That was obvious though because if he's married to her, he has to be.

But anyway, when the people left Joyce came and got us. She was like "I have to tell you about last Thursday! It was like the heavens opened for a moment. ((Meanwhile, I'm like...what happened that was so significant?! I don't remember anything.))Do you remember when you were in here last Thursday and you met Blaine?"

BACK UP.

So last Thursday, Sis. Park & I stopped by and this black lady walks in and the first thing she says is "Oh, my sister's LDS." Oh...cool! What? It was random. Anyway, that's Blaine. So I guess after we left on Thursday, Blaine asked Joyce if she was Mormon. She said no but that she knows a bit about what we believe. Then, Blaine spilled her life story to Joyce and told her that the only time she's really felt like she was loved & fit in is when she went to Arizona to visit her Mormon sister and her in-laws.

But Blaine has a problem with how she thought women in the Church were treated. And then Joyce goes "And I had just watched the Relief Society Broadcast and researched Sarah Kimball and so I told her all about that, and just told her like I knew what I was talking about! I told her that your church was on Cedar Rd. and that I'd never been but I'd go with her." SERIOUSLY WOMAN? She's already being a missionary and she's not even a member! BE BAPTIZED! You are golden.

But oh, it gets better. I'm not sure where Blaine lives exactly but I left a pass-along card with Joyce to give to Blaine the next time she comes in. So after I pulled the pass-along card out, I pulled out the Book of Mormon. And I WAS BOLD! I told her that we wanted to teach her, that she was amazing, that she radiates, that her family is incredible but that God has even more blessings in store for her! And I invited her to the fireside in Kirtland that was yesterday. She said, "You know everything that you've told me so far about your church sounds so familiar. [I KNOW, RIGHT?!] And maybe this is a journey that Blaine and I are supposed to take hand-in-hand."

I SWEAR I ALMOST PASSED OUT AT THIS POINT BECAUSE OF THE SHEER PERFECTION OF THIS WOMAN. She is so amazing! She put the fireside on her calendar and we left astounded at the experience.

Random picture.....Alicia did not give any explanation!!!!!

Then, we were in the ghetto later that night and after walking past some guys that were most DEFINITELY smoking weed, we met J.D. He was a young black guy sitting on a porch listening to music...so we went up and talked to him. Turns out that life is hard for him right now. Things are hard with his mom, and his girlfriend... He's been in jail before and he said then he turned to the Bible and to God and he felt really connected....but now he feels distant. Solution: BOOK OF MORMON! We had him read in the 3rd paragraph of the intro the BoM where it says that this book lays out the doctrines of the plan of salvation & tells men what they must do to gain peace in this life and eternal life in the world to come. And then we testified of that. And he goes, "Well, I can tell the book works for you. You're both very happy and smiley." Haha yeppppppp it's legit!

That's what happens with the word of God. So we are going to go back and teach him tomorrow and we're bringing Darren. Darren is this guy from the singles ward who was baptized a little over a year ago. He's a 26-year-old black guy and he used to be a drug dealer before Sister Wright and Sister Mitchell found him. And in about 2 weeks, he's reporting to the MTC to serve a mission in Minneapolis! HE'S SO SOLID. So I'm way excited about that! We taught Harvey that night too. There was a lack of thinking on my part and I forgot that as sisters, we'd need another sister to come with us to teach a single man. Boooo. So we ended up having to teach him on his porch and it was 7:30 pm and like 45 degrees so he was really nice and brought out coats for us to wear while we taught him. He said he was going to come to the Kirtland fireside too....

But guess what. NO ONE CAME! Yeah, it was completely lame. Joyce was sick. I called and checked with her and she was definitely congested. But Harvey was just a no-show...well, we don't have his phone # and he doesn't have ours so maybe he would've called, who knows.

But the day before that was rough too. We met with Kia and talked to her about moving her baptism up to October 30th and guess what. She's HESITANT about baptism again.

RIP MY HEART OUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORRRRRRRRRRRE

Come on Kia! We determined that she just doesn't deal with change very well because she did this same thing when Sister Barker left and I came in...but still! RIDICULOUS. We read over the notes I jotted down from the Priesthood blessing she received and it said, "As you make promises and commitments with Heavenly Father, He will bless you more than you could ever imagine." Okay....kind of amazing. Who doesn't want that?! We prayed with her about still being baptized and she was supposed to come to church and tell us what she felt about it but she and Sister Pennington didn't show for that. Really? Really. COME ON!!! I know that Satan is working really, really hard on her because he realizes that she's going to do SO MUCH GOOD in her family! But it's still frustrating to be on this end of it and I just don't know what to do for her. Aaaaaaaaaahhh.

Saying goodbye to Kia on Tuesday. 
Sister Park and K'maryia (apparently I've been spelling her name the very white way this whole time.....it's not Camaria.....it's K'maryia), Kia, Kayla and me.

Yeah....so p-day was REALLY needed and it's been nice to actually get a good workout in and just relax. But no worries, this week is going to be better!

I got to go. I love your guts!

Until next week,

Sister Webb

                                           Video of Kalvin on his unicylce.

                                    ( I don't know how to get it upside right.)