Monday, March 24, 2014

Last Time in this Area!

Dear Family!
 
Well it's crazy that another week has gone by. We found out transfer information this week and Sister Liebing and I will be transferred! I am pretty excited to try out a new area, but at the same time, it is hard saying goodbye to everyone. I don't know where I am going yet or if I will be in a companionship or in a trio. I find out all of that information on Wednesday. (How transfers work here is that you pack up all of your stuff, go to transfer meeting, President announces over the pulpit where everyone is going, and then you just grab your stuff and go to that area.... it is all very theatrical. :P) Sister Wynn is staying in this area though. 

Saying goodbye to people is definitely VERY heartbreaking though. We've already started to say goodbye to some people now and they have been very sweet to us. A few of them have started to cry and say that they will miss us so much. One lady in particular said one comment that really meant a lot to me. She said: "Even if the only thing you did in this area was to bring me back to the church, wouldn't that be enough because I'm one person.... and I'm worth it." 

Other than transfers, we did have some exciting stuff happen to us this week. We were going to go and contact one of the potential investigators and we could not find which house was his so we decided to park the car and just walk to find his house. There was a nearby church parking lot, so we just pulled into there... erm, well we tried to pull in there. Apparently there was this small, very well hidden pole sticking out of the ground that none of us saw, and just as our luck would have it. We drove over it. It put a nice gash in our right front tire. Poor Sister Wynn, she's the driver, was pretty upset about all of it. Anyways, we got out to attempt to change the tire and everything.  As official as I am sure my companions and I looked (being in skirts and stuff) there was a very nice man who saw us and came over to help us. When he first came over, he looked at our tire and the first words out of his mouth were: "Wow, well that looks like a $60 mistake!!" We got everything squared away and called the mission office to tell them what happened. At first they told us to just go get the tire fixed.... but the damage was too much so we just had to replace it. Elder Hunt (he's in charge of all the cars in the mission office) kept saying over and over "Man, those were Brand New tires!!" Needless to say, all of these comments were really helping with Sister Wynn's guilt. Later we went back and looked at the pole and the only way that we could have gotten a flat tire on it was if the tire was on the pole, and we turned the tire. I was talking to Sister Wynn later about it and she said: "You know, us getting a flat tire is like the Titanic!" She was meaning how once the Titanic hit the iceberg, apparently they tried to maneuver around it, and that just made the damage all the worse... but I didn't really know that so I thought she was comparing thousands of people dying to us getting a flat tire. I didn't quite know what to say to her about this so I said: "Well you know, mistakes happen all the time! For instance, if I were to choose between having a car totaled and replacing a new tire, I would most likely choose to replace the tire!" It took us a minute to understand each other, but it was pretty great once we were able to get what each other was saying! 

We had Stake Conference this past Sunday and it was pretty good. There was one story that I thought was pretty great. This guy was sharing a story about a part-member family. He kept asking the wife, Laurie (She was the member), if her husband, Steve, was ready to take the discussions. Time after time, she would say "No, he's not ready yet!!" After the 4th or 5th time, the speaker said that he decided to just go and ask Steve if he wanted to hear the missionary discussions. Steve said yes. So the speaker, went up to Laurie and said "Hey Laurie, do you want to come to the missionary discussions with Steve?" Laurie responded the same as she had before "No, he's not ready to take them yet!!" The speaker said "No, Laurie, you don't understand! I asked Steve and he said he's ready. We're having the discussions tonight and wanted to know if you wanted to come along!"  Three weeks later Steve was baptized. I just thought it was interesting because the speaker mentioned in his talk how Laurie was a very active member of the church, but she was just afraid of asking her husband to take the lessons because she didn't want to make him uncomfortable or anything. As a missionary, it's really cool to hear stories like this because most people aren't offended just by a simple invitation to learn more... and what a great gift we are offering to them when we do share more with them and they accept the gospel!!
 
This past Tuesday we went to the Family History Center with Samantha to have her get some Family names to bring to the temple. The lady there was definitely not computer savvy at all. She kept logging in and out of the computer, like 5 times in a row to make sure that she had exited out of a page. It was a bit ridiculous. I don't know how convinced Samantha is about Family History Work, but we are really hoping to get her to at least bring her names to the temple and do the confirmations for them in the next little bit!! Oh, other exciting news!! Samantha finally chose a name for her baby! She is going to name him Atlas. He is due at the end of April, but could come any time now since she is healthy enough!!
 
Also, a Bobby update. I went out the other day to say goodbye to Bobby.... and he's on vacation and doesn't get back tillThursday... so I won't be able to say goodbye to him. I am very sad about that. :( Bobby finally did learn my name though!! Sometimes he would see us walking up to an appointment or something and he would wave to us or say hi to us as he was passing by. On one occasion, he even used my name!!! (Granted, it was my first name, so I had to tell him to call my Sister Spencer and explain the whole mission thing to him), but still, I feel very honored that he learned my name!
 
Well, I love you all sooooo soooo sooo much!!!! Oh, quick update. When I eventually get down to Brazil, I will go into the Brazilian CTM for two weeks to do a crash course on Portuguese before going out into the field.... that makes me feel a little bit better. I am still super anxious to get down there though!
 
Love ya tons!
 
Sister Spencer

No comments:

Post a Comment