Ridiculous Fast

Hey there Parents! 

This week seriously passed so ridiculous fast it is ridiculous. 

Lemme start off with some drama that was going on in the district. Last transfer, this Elder told my companion that he had a crush on me and made her swear not to tell but of course she told me sooooo I knew but he is LITERALLY an 18-year-old boy so I don't care. Don't get me wrong I like him and we are friends but ya know not like that. Plus, I am not here to flirt ya feel? So, it wasn't a big deal. Then, this transfer, it was still not a big deal. New companion and everyone was aware, but no biggie. This past week though, it just seemed like it all blew up. Everybody knew and everyone was talking all about it and the Sister Training Leaders (and one of them is Sister Reese, my companion from last transfer) were like freaking out about it and telling President and I was like "wait, what?" And I am right at the center of it. I feel terrible and honestly, I feel like a ho. I know that I haven't done anything wrong but I still feel bad. We have interviews with President this week and I am wigging out because I don't want him to think that this is me because this isn't, but I don't want this Elder to get in trouble either because he's a good kid and he doesn't deserve all of that. So, it's super messy. Pray for me please. 

This week we have been super duper busy. I feel like I blinked and now we are done. We found not one, not two, but TWENTY new people everybody. #buslifebaby. We met some standouts! There was this one kid that we found on Saturday and he was like "oh I think that I have been to your church before" and we were like "oh do you want to come again?" and he said "sure!" He is sixteen years old. We will refer to him as Malan. That was Saturday afternoon. Obviously, we had faith that he would show up but we didn't really think that he would. We texted him and he was like "hey I am running late but I am coming" and we were shooketh. He showed up right around 9:33 and caught the tail end of Sacrament meeting and he went to priests quorum and he had a great time! WHAT A CRAZY HECKIN MIRACLE!!!! We met this guy a few days ago named Deuteronomy and he was cool. He wanted to go to church but he actually had to work. BUT he has been texting us back. He for sure is flirting with us and asked us if we were single and we explained that yeah but nah and he said "but God said that we are supposed to leave and get married" and we were like "yeah of course but not right now for us" but we told him that we had single ladies at church and he had to come and see and meet them. What a funny guy. 

Wednesday we had like just a giant miracle day. We were in a trio with good old Sister Reese and we were going around. We had found seven new people the previous week and had set up seven return appointments. Literally, every single one of them fell through. LIKE ARE YOU FOR CEREAL?!  It was worse too because we were on training visits so we were trying to have way more to do to be super-duper productive and now all of our plans fell through. I felt pretty crappy I won't lie to you. I wanted it to be a really good day and it was looking like it wouldn't be too good. BUT it ended up being one giant miracle after the other. We were in this neighborhood and we started knocking and after we knocked on this one door (new person found) and this lady pulled over in her minivan with her window rolled down. She was giving us this intense look and we were like "hey!" and waved and everything and she didn't respond. So naturally, we said hi again and then she just yells out "well hello sisters" and then we ran over to talk with her at her car window. She is so cool. Her name is Emerald and basically, she had met with missionaries before and she even knows our ward mission leader which was wild. She gave us two referrals for people that lived on that street and was like "yup they need Jesus" and basically she just loves the sisters. We went to one of the referrals and she was there and she invited us in to teach them. She was trying to be tricky like she didn't know who we were and was like "oh Jesus people come on in share a message" and she was winking at us and I was so dead. We shared the restoration with them. When it got time to share the first vision she was messing around with this rubber glove she had on but then as soon as I said "I saw a pillar of light" she stopped and it was SO COOL. We set up a return appt. for both of them and it was just this giant miracle basically. All in all, we found seven new people in that area. The exact same number as appointments that we had missed. 

When we got home, we had one more hour so we went back out there into our apartment complex and we met this guy named Wes. When we asked him if he had a belief in God he was like "kinda, it's 50/50 right now" and we were like oh why and he told us that it is because his 19-year-old cousin died. He asked us "what does God need with a 19-year-old boy". We took a second and then we just bore testimony of the plan of salvation. We talked about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the Spirit World and the resurrection and the spirit was STRONG. In the end, we said that we wanted to talk with him more and he was excited about that. Such a cool guy! Right after that, we knocked on one more door and we ran into this Hindu couple. She invited us in and we taught them all about who Jesus Christ was and His Atonement and our purpose here on earth. Parents. They loved every single thing that we said. The husband was more on edge and not super about it but he still liked it, but the wife was just so cool and loved it. She told us that she had questions about her purpose and this helped her. At the end, we offered a kneeling prayer with them all together. We asked them how they felt after the prayer and the husband said that he felt good. We told them that it was the spirit and as they pray for themselves that they could still feel that way! It was AMAZING. Basically, Wednesday started off rough and I was feeling down because all of our plans got trashed, but God had a much better plan in store for us and He just wanted us to exercise a little bit of faith and patience and then He just blessed us beyond belief. 

Tuesday (backtracking lol) we had zone conference. My last zone conference in the Great OCM! Not gonna lie that was kind of sad to think about but whatever. We focused a lot on becoming master teachers. They had this giant roleplay in front of everybody and they called on like seven companionships to do it and you guessed it Sister Mahan and I were called on. Go figure. BUT they ran out of time so we didn't have to go which was awesome because I was nervous and sister Mahan was FREAKING out. I guess it is her first transfer and doing a roleplay in front of everybody at zone conference wouldn't be the most fun thing for her. We also talked a lot about the morning routine and how we need to get up on time and exercise and do what we are supposed to do in the morning. President invited us to repent if we weren't doing the morning routine well and said that us not following it was, in turn, allowing the devil to lead our souls to hell. Wild. I do the morning routine and I do what I know I am supposed to do during the day so I didn't feel bad at all during that part. Sister Richardson, our Nepali trio sis, did feel burned and was like "dang". But has she changed? Nope, not really. Kinda funny how humans are like that. Sister Mahan and I talked about it and we are going to have an intervention because she won't change by herself. We will let you know how that goes next week. 

Another big theme was having a fat pature. (Any guesses on what she meant to type here? I'm totally stumped) He wanted us to dive really into our studies and prepare ourselves and everything like that and it was funny to talk all about it and see President get so passionate and goofy. At the end of zone conference, President pulled a fast one on me and made me give a departing testimony because I going to be leaving the mission... even though I still have some mission left. It was kind of sweet that he let me do that honestly. I appreciated feeling like I was loved and that I would be missed and that they actually saw me as part of the mission. My testimony was good and just like that, I'm out! I got my travel plans earlier this week and they had me email my testimony to put in the big mission newsletter and they want me to send pictures for it too. I feel very loved here and I am grateful that even though it was for two transfers, they are treating me as one of their own! They are going to miss me! That is wild to me. President Stratford said that he was going to email President Fisher and tell him to let us stay. I told him to do it! I love it out here! Also, I love Sister Mahan. I don't want her to get a second trainer, I think that is stupid. I want to be her only trainer. I know that is super prideful and selfish because she is cool and she should share the love but I am already super jealous of her next companion. Ugh. This is a problem. And, it's super lame because I won't be able to see her again. It isn't like I won't see her around NO I am changing missions. Even if she served on the Square I could come and visit but I don't think that I will be visiting Ohio for a hot second so it is just kinda dumb. Whatever. I guess if God wills it then it is fine. 

Do you all remember the lady from the bus that we put on date that lives super far away? Good, me too. We set up a time to do a pass off lesson with the Marble Cliffs sisters. We bussed into her neighborhood and literally she wasn't home. It was so weird because usually she is home and she texts back and everything and she was solid yesterday for this time today but she didn't come to the door. Sister Mahan and I were actually pretty worried about her. So, we traveled three hours total to go see someone that wasn't even home. She texted us the next day and apologized and everything which was nice and said that she had some family things going on. But, the sisters in her area texted us and told us that she came to church this past Sunday!!! So yay! We are hoping that she stays solid for her date on the 21st and that we can go because we would just love to see her get baptized. 

Saturday was just a super lit day. We had a service project in the morning and then we had a lesson at 12. We took the bus there and on the way we found this little Spanish pocket in our area. There was this food truck and it looked really sketch but also really good so naturally, we said that we would be back after our lesson. The lady that we were supposed to meet with was in the bath so she texted us and asked us to reschedule. We did some knocking in her complex and found a couple new people but it was kinda dead. We walked back to the bus stop and went to this food truck and it was SO COOL AND SO GOOD. Everyone was speaking in Spanish. It was legit. We told the Spanish sisters about it because they have seriously zero people that they are teaching and they seemed excited about this new place that they could go and find. Speaking of the Spanish sisters, we are good friends with them! So, we decided that we should get together and do a fun finding activity. We made hot chocolate and bought a bunch of doughnuts and we set out some Books of Mormon and pamphlets and things and we went to downtown Gahanna in this nice little square and we gave out free doughnuts and hot chocolate. We were able to have some good conversations, find two new people, and give someone a Book of Mormon and he was SO EXCITED to get it you should have seen his face. It was a good couple of hours spent. We didn't see a single Spanish person which was kind of a bummer but they didn't seem to mind the change of pace. The pretty much just tract all day every day. And tracting is fun! I love tracting! But I can imagine how they feel when they go every day and don't meet a single Spanish person and just no one opens up for them, it's killer. 

Sunday we had a big miracle with Malan coming to church. We were also asked by the bishop a few weeks back to come to ward council and to tell the ward council about what was going on with missionary work. That is actually a really big deal. Missionaries before have tried to go to ward council and asked if they could share some things but literally, Bishop has said no and just to tell the ward mission leader and that the ward mission leader could pass it on. So, this was kind of huge that we were invited to go. We talked about what our main priorities were and we talked about how members were helping and when we visited members what our focus what and we were teaching them. We showed them where the ward progress record was so they could see the most progressing people that we were teaching and the members that we had visited. They had no idea where it was or what it was before and we have been filling it out for two months... what a waste. But now they know! We told the Elders later on that Sunday that we had gone and we were invited and they were like "what?! Why didn't they invite us" and we were like "well we don't know" and they said "wow it just goes to show that they really do like the Sisters better" and we were like nah but actually, this ward really does like the Sisters more which is kinda funny. I feel like all growing up we (and by we I mean dad;) never super loved the Sisters and liked the Elders more (but still didn't like them too much either lol) so it is funny to see the other side of it and hear how the Elders think everyone likes us more...which they kinda do around here. 

Well, I think that is all I have for you. This week was wicked fast so hopefully this next one is slower so that way I don't feel so flustered writing an email and like I don't actually remember anything that is going on. I want to know what is going on in your lives too! I know about mom but I don't know about dad. That's right dad. I would like for you to email me at least once, please?? Anyways. I LOVE YOU BOTH AND MISS YOU SO MUCH!!! Have an awesome week and I'll talk to you soon:) 

Love 

Em