So, little did I know that last pday would be my last pday over in Gahanna. Usually, the transfer happens on a Thursday and we find out the board on Tuesday and then we have a Wednesday pday to do all of the things that we need to get done. This time around we just got a random email on Thursday night that said the transfer board would be out the next day at noon and that transfers would be on Saturday. Everyone was shook. On Friday we were looking at the board and when we saw that neither of our faces were in Gahanna we started flipping out. We scrolled all the way down to the bottom of the transfer board to see that we were both being transferred all the way up north to the Youngstown Zone. We have three states in our zone! Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. I am a Sister Training Leader (STL) over here in the Warren area! The good news is that Sister Mahan is also in the zone so I will still get to see her and I get to even go on training visits with her this transfer a few times. That was for sure a tender mercy.
Obviously, I was sobbing about Gahanna getting shotgunned and all that stuff, but it would have been much worse if Sister Mahan wasn't anywhere around me and I wouldn't have been able to see her anymore. Seriously, she is one of my best friends. That is how I feel about pretty much all of my past companions, even the hard ones! They are just all my best friends! That is one reason why I like having new companions, it is just another person to learn from and grow from and become bffs with. It's always sad to have to get split though. Literally, it is always so bittersweet.
My new companion is Sister Johnston. She actually knows Sister Rowberry (as in Joey's cousin that serves with me at Temple Square) from the MTC! They were in the same zone, isn't that such a small world? So we have been out for the exact same amount of time which is pretty cool. She has been serving in the Youngstown Zone for her entire mission. Seriously parents. For all of it. So she knows this area and the stake and everything super well which is kinda crazy. It's so weird to me that she has been out for so long and has only been in this one place, kinda crazy. She is like the ultimate Preach My Gospel missionary. She knows her stuff you guys. It is so cool because every night we say something that we learned from one another and we say a tender mercy and she said to me that I was a Preach My Gospel missionary and a powerful teacher and she was excited to learn from me and I was like SISTER JOHNSTON HAVE YOU EVEN MET YOURSELF?!?! She is really cute. And she is from St. George Utah! Now I have someone that I can visit and we can go to national parks together which is super fun!
The last few days in Gahanna were good. The only thing that I can really remember is that we taught Nancy and she is super solid for her baptism. She still texts us good morning and good night, I really hope that she will just keep progressing with the new sisters. When we told her that we were both leaving and that two new sisters were coming in she started crying. Isn't that so tender?! We told these two guys that we were teaching and they were so mad because they just wanted to learn about Jesus from us but we told them that no worries because the new sisters shared the same message and they were just like "well then why can't you just tell us it if it is the same message". One of them then proceeded to ask me if I could date. Kinda funny. We told Latisha. Oh my beautiful Latisha. I love that woman and I am going to miss her so flipping much but I know that God has got her and that she will get baptized one day. I know that she will for sure. We told all of the favorite members, we told all of the rest of the people that we are teaching and all of our friends, and it was basically just a sob fest. I cried saying goodbye to like every single one of them. Oh, how I am going to miss Gahanna. It is such a blessed area and I LOVE all of the experiences and memories and people that I got to meet.
I was really hardcore struggling because I just felt like we must have done something wrong because we were getting doubled out, but I got a blessing and I felt a lot better after that. In the blessing, it said that Heavenly Father was proud of the work that I had done so far and that He had more work for me to do in other areas here in Ohio and that He needed me to keep serving. That was good to hear because I was fine with not going back to Temple Square if I could stay in Gahanna, but once I got the news that I wasn't I was like oh my goodness get me back to the Square right now. It was good to hear that He needs me in Ohio and that He was proud of the work that I had done so far. I hope that I can keep making Him proud. We have been doing some good stuff in the one day that I have been in Warren. And keep in mind that this includes having some of the sisters in our zone come over because of a death in the family of one of them and President Stratford told them to come and stay with us. Oh the life of being a STL. I don't think that I am very good at loving others. I just feel awkward and like I don't know what I am doing so yeah. Pray that I can do better at that.
This past week while still being in Gahanna, we had the Book of Mormon challenge and we were supposed to read the entire thing in 24 hours. You guys, we went HARD on that challenge. We read and read and read and read to each other and listened and we finished it on Friday morning. Considering we didn't read for ten hours, we actually got in done in like 15-18ish hours so that was pretty good. Every single other person I talked to didn't really do it and are still working on finishing it. I am so grateful that we were able to blaze through it so fast because I was able to see the central themes all throughout it that I would have missed if I didn't read it so fast. Also, it was just so peaceful to read it and to listen to it. My entire day I could feel peace and calm. The next day, after we had finished it, we were listening to Ed Sheeran and the only thing that I could think was that I wished we were listening to the Book of Mormon because the feeling I had listening to the Book of Mormon was so much better. Isn't that so crazy?!?!?! Jesus really does change our hearts and our minds. Also, for part of the challenge, we went on a four-mile walk at this park and we listened to the Book of Mormon as we walked in our skirts and dresses. Also, we bought energy drinks (why you may ask? because we were bored and we wanted to see if they would actually make us wired. They did and we were up all night by the way) and that was quite the experience and it was good that we were walking when we started drinking them because we were just walking fast and listening and just everything was great.
Basically, this week has been super crazy. From moving three people out of the apartment to updating and setting everything up for the new sisters so they can have success when they got to Gahanna to cleaning the entire apartment so the new sisters would have a clean spot for everything to saying goodbye to everyone we were teaching and all of the members and my beautiful dear sweet Sister Mahan, it has just been a little tough. But, I am still a missionary and I am still doing missionary things but now I get to learn from a new companion and I get to be a leader and hopefully help other sisters and I get to meet all new awesome people to teach so that is a tender mercy for sure. Life is just going on. I hope corona blows over soon so we can go out and proselyte. We are betting that we will be out and about by April 14th. What do you think?
I love you both! Thanks for being so supportive, I'll talk to you soon:)
Love
Em
No comments:
Post a Comment