Week 17 - Secret Surprise

Monday is best not spent getting a phone call from the President. I would say of the United States but since I heard he is currently in a pickle I don't think he would be calling me. We were sitting there eating lunch when President calls and asks us to come and talk with him after we finish lunch. So we hurry up and eat lunch and proceed to the church where we meet with the President. We were all unsure of what was going to happen... take that back we knew sort of what was going to happen. Because he said that he had a "new assignment for Sister Call"  So I went in there fully prepared to hear that I was getting sent to the 'out lands' of Kansas. When we sat down he asked us all how we were doing, and just sitting there was making me anxious. After talking for a few minutes he finally informed me that I would no longer be a full-time Bel Aire sister. I would still live with the Bel Aire Sisters, but I would spend my days from Tuesday-Friday within the office. Being the first Office Sister. Well, lets just say that was a huge relief. In fact I was super excited. After leaving the office with President we went on with our usual P-Day activities... well sort of haha. Within the humor of the moment we decided to Tease our Bel Aire Elders and tell them that I was being transferred. Elder Holbrook was declaring the whole time "I knew it. I knew there was something going on".   We then would walk away and silently laugh to ourselves.
Another cool story of that day was that Sister Murray had lost her wallet.  We had no idea where.  We were afraid that we would have to start calling to cancel all of her cards... but lo and behold! the Manhattan Sisters called! saying that someone had found her wallet... We were slightly confused because... Manhattan is 4 hours away and we definitely didn't drop it out there. so we started the whole chain of finding out who had the wallet. and we finally found that we had dropped it in the parking lot of an investigators housing and the manager had found it and had made many calls and had finally found the person it belonged to.  The coolest part is that all 173 dollars were still in her wallet.

We went to Walmart and finished our shopping and then proceeded to Panera where we bought dinner with the money the Gondas gave us. We also bought dinner for the Elders because they gave us enough money to feed all 6 of us.

After that we drove out to Newton and did our exchanges with those sisters.

 

Tuesday I started my first day in the office. I had a whole board of things that I needed to do for the office.  Well. let's just say that I caught them up on 4 months of paperwork that needed to be done. The office is relatively quiet, and I got a nice quite spot to sit and enjoy all of the quite time. but man my back hurts now because you sit for a long time. The Sisters picked me up at 5:30 and we then drove out to Bel Aire for dinner with Sister Loosle. She is a really awesome single sister who is in her 40's she fed us a great meal of Lasagna and it was the best we have had yet.  We exchanged back with the Newton Sisters after dinner.

 

Wednesday I did my usual office work and waited patiently to have my companions pick me up... lets say that working in the office makes me feel like a little kid. having to be dropped off at school and then picked up. After a long day at the office we went to JoAnn Harris' house and read the scriptures with her for a while.  She is watching her brother in law's dog and that dog is beautiful. I love it so much.  We had dinner with the Cluffs with the Elders and enjoyed showing them the Mormon message about the Book of Mormon. 

 

Thursday- The office. I ate this jalapeno Honey. Bad Idea. I do not do spicy.  I died. but then came back to life after lunch and finished up all of the work that sister Hachtel had for me.  I then went and helped Sister Chumbley make the new missionary books.  After getting picked up, we went to the Dunlap's for dinner and they made this really interesting salad. It had cheese and peas in it... weird.

 

Friday we had zone training. The Zone Leaders talked to us about our dedication to the work and how we have to continue pressing forward through the discouragement. we then did an activity where we put a puzzle together. but we were missing pieces. so we had to go search for the pieces. We eventually found them and finished the puzzle.  Then they sent us out to find a horse in the church.  We didn't find one.  When we had come back one of our pieces was missing. They used it as an analogy that no matter how hard we try we would always need to ask the Lord for help. and the atonement will fill in the empty spaces in our life. They then had my team of sisters (who won) come and pick the reward out from underneath one of the 3 containers they had in the front. Sister Huffman picked, and then read the piece of paper. The paper announced that we would be all going to the Oklahoma Temple on the 29 of October!!!  It was super exciting news and almost everyone in the room started crying because most of them haven't been to the temple in over a year. So it was exciting news to be able to go to the temple again.
We had lunch at Olive Garden afterward with our district and enjoyed being able to celebrate the good news.  We then went out to Andover and tried some Less Actives of whom we discovered that one was not interested and the other lived in a senior rehabilitation center. She hadn't seen anyone from the church in a long time and was super excited to see us. Her name is Ramona Floyd. She is a sweet old lady. We talked with her for a good hour and then scheduled to see her again. We then went to a Pumpkin Carving Extravaganza!  We had 3 Non Members come and we enjoyed every moment of it (I carved a Mexican Skull, you know the really pretty ones?) I wish that I had a tall pumpkin because then I would have carved the rose from beauty and the beast. along with the glass case; because I learned the art of "shaving" a pumpkin.

Saturday was a whole day of fun with the Bel Aire sisters. we went and did service for sister Smith in the morning by dragging out all of the branches and wood she has in her yard to this free dump that they had that morning right outside her house (Lucky for us!) We then went and enjoyed lunch in her kitchen. After lunch we went to sister Harri's house and read the scriptures with her some more and talked about all the things that she was going to do.   She plans on going out to try and see her children for one last time before she gives up on them. After we went to see Christy Baker, a less active, who we also read the scriptures with.  We are working on trying to get her off of coffee and smoking but we are taking it one step at a time.... with the smoking first. We will see how far that goes. We then went home and enjoyed an amazing steak with sister Smith. She is a fantastic cook.  We then went around the neighborhood and tried coming in contact with more less actives. We could not find them, but we came in contact with a woman named Bianca of whom I had luckily placed a Spanish restoration pamphlet in my backpack that morning because none of us speak Spanish and she doesn't speak English.  So we gave her that and she seemed to accept it. We then met Mohamed and gave him a restoration pamphlet too.   He was super nice. We then met Monica after we tried a less active named Ollie.  Sister Christenot was a little hesitant to go down there because it was night and it was the ghetto of the city, but Sister Murray and I felt that things were okay and that we would be safe going there. So we ran into Monica and she was super interested so she gave us her number and we gave her ours and we text her some encouraging thoughts right now until she has a schedule for when we can come meet her. 

Sunday was church! we taught the gospel principles class and guess what it was about! Missionary work! because it is not only up to the missionaries to spread the word but the members are essential as well to sharing the word. For some reason this came as a big surprise to some people. After church we had a missionary correlation meeting with the Auxiliaries.  Well lets just say that some people are not very helpful in our efforts of furthering missionary work.  We had dinner with the Ackers and enjoyed teaching their family about the importance of sharing the gospel with their friends and family. 

Dearest everyone. Do not forget your role as disciples of Christ. We have been called to this day to share the word with everyone. Because imagine the one person who we fail to tell about the gospel. I may not be out among the people anymore now, but within the office I work my hardest to try and further the other missionaries progress within their areas. If we work as a whole then the whole mission will be blessed as a whole. Our actions effect everyone and we must never forget that. 

God Be With You

Sister Call