This week was pretty wild I won't lie so I hope that this makes sense.
Monday: Pday baby. The Alliance Sisters came and hung out with us and we went to Target! Thank you mom, for sending me some money to buy some clothes because I have been wearing the same outfit for like 15 weeks now and I just really appreciate it. We have been with Sisters every single day this week. Oh, the life of an STL where all of the sisters in your zone are falling apart.
Tuesday: We had a training visit with Alliance! I went with Sister Atkinson, who was trained by Sister Johnston and was Sister Mahan's follow up trainer for two weeks before she went home. Sister Atkinson is seriously so awesome and I aspire to be her. She is a very obedient, positive, loving, and hardworking missionary. She just loves the work and she lifts everyone around her. We had a full day planned where we saw some awesome miracles. The first happened during daily contact. We called a bunch of people, a Bible referral that we had received a few days earlier included. His name is Mike. We called him and he talked to us for about 40 minutes about all of this family drama where he was basically bamboozled after his mother died. He asked us if we needed to forgive people in this life to be forgiven by God because that was his understanding of the Bible and we were like well yes dude and then we sent him this video and invited him to watch it. Seriously though he went on forever about his family drama and it just reminded me of every single Bible request phone call that I would ever make at the Square. Good times. Fun fact about this guy though, he drives taxis for the Amish people so that is kind of fun!
We also called this random lady named Margie that was just a dot in the area book that no one had talked to in months. We gave her call and told her it was the sisters and she was like "oh I haven't heard from you in so long how are you?!" and we explained that we were new in the area and we asked if we could call her in a few days and get to know her and talk with her more about God and she said that she would like that. More on her later and how that phone call went.
We went to the church after lunch to do the rest of our work there and it was kinda boring honestly. Most of our lessons didn't pick up. The only person that answered us was Adam (who is still not willing to drop the Catholic thing even though he knows that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith is a prophet) and the Dew's which is the nice older couple in our ward. The Dew's were supposed to sit in on Tyler's lesson but then Tyler didn't pick up. Tyler hasn't talked to us in nine days now, ever since that phone call when we asked for his address and he wouldn't give it. Kind of sad. We have a goal to somehow get in contact with him this week. We aren't blocked or anything, he just won't answer anytime that we call or text him. Sister Johnston called it and said that she thought he was going to ghost us, I was like "oh ye of little faith" but now I'm starting to think that she has a sixth spiritual sense. Basically, this day was good and we saw miracles but almost all of our lessons fell through so that was just a little bit sad, especially on a training visit I would want to be super productive and it was just a little harder this time around. oh well.
Earlier in the week we got a call from the APs saying that President had asked them to give us blessings and we were both like "oh cool but we are doing okay but we would love blessings!" so they came to the church and we all had blessings. The main thing that I got out of my blessing was that God was proud of my service and my diligence and that I would be a special light to the sisters around me. That was nice to hear because most of the time I feel like I don't help the sisters with anything and I just wonder am I even helping them, but I guess God knows that I can help them and this blessing was a way for me to see that. It's always nice to get a blessing and it was especially nice for President to think of us and make sure that we specifically got blessings. I really appreciate it.
Wednesday: This day was honestly a blur. The Alliance sisters had brought Sister Mahan's bike from their place and it was our responsibility to get it the APs so they could ship it back home to her. We went to the Youngstown church building after some work in the morning to drop it off with them and to use the computers in the family history library so we could do My Plan. I don't know if I have told you both, but My Plan is the program that they make missionaries do to set goals and make plans to continue to progress after we go home from our missions. Last week when we did it, I almost had a mental breakdown because it was having me have a vision for myself and to set goals and make plans for myself but I didn't like how it was all about me. It honestly felt wrong. I wanted to be planning and setting goals for other people and I felt guilty for thinking about me. Wow, how the mission has changed me. This week was still weird but not so much. I have so far set a lot of goals about studies and activity in the church and staying faithful and the kind of person that I am going to be. This coming week it is all about continuing discipleship so that will be fun to do! After that, it is dating and marriage... gross. I'm just trying to finish it now so that way I don't have to worry about it next transfer and I can just focus on the work.
After we did My Plan for a second, we went to the Youngstown Sisters apartment because they have been having a hard time lately. We went over and we had dinner and they had been painting some fun designs on Books of Mormon so we did that too! I made an Ohio one and I am going to mail it to Sister Mahan because I think that she would enjoy it. Then, life got dramatic. It was right around 11:30, we had finished talking and we were all on the brink of sleep when we hear Sister Poulsen say "hey does anyone else hear that?" and we are like "hear what?" and she says that it sounds like a scratching tapping kind of mouse noise and she has heard it for the past week or so every night. Sister Johnston heard it but I was like "don't worry sisters, there aren't any mice in this apartment" and resolved to go back to bed. Then, we hear this loud bang from the closet like something ran into something or something fell down, and naturally, we all began to scream and Sister Johnson jumped to my mattress pad to cuddle because she was scared. So, right around 11:30 we turned on all of the lights and we decided to open the closet to see what it was. I was the brave one and had the flashlight and was looking around because I didn't actually think that there was a mouse in there. We look around and didn't see anything immediate, but, there are three suitcases in the corner and Sister Hollenbeck insists that we move them and look behind and I was just thinking about how I was tired and how I didn't want to look because it was probably nothing but I did it because I was the STL and I had to help so I started to move the suitcases. I moved the one pushed up in the corner last and lo and behold there is like a black cord all bundled up there and in the cord, I see a brown tail and some beady eyes and then I start screaming and then everyone screams because THERE WAS A MOUSE LIVING IN THE CLOSET.
We didn't know what to do so we called the Elders at 11:30 pm screaming and crying about the mouse in our closet and asked them desperately what do we do. They started giving us all of these ideas about traps and such when all of the sudden the mouse runs out from under the closet door and across the room and then out of the bedroom and we all screamed like little girls... with the Elders on the line. Sister Johnston had some sense to mute it after a second of us screaming to try and save our dignity, but we were really flippin. The Elders told us to leave it for the night and then to hunt it in the morning and to just shove a blanket under the door. I went to bed terrified you guys.
In the morning we found that the mouse had been pulling Sister Poulsen's Hershey kisses from her easter basket to the corner and eating them and we were all shook. There was poop everywhere. We went to Walmart and got some traps though so we could catch the little guy. We named him Mike. We really hate Mike and we would pray in every prayer that he would die. We were with the Youngstown Sisters until Saturday because they are really really struggling and us just being there is helpful for them. Every morning we would wake up and look at all of the traps and every morning they would all be set off and the food was gone but no mouse would be caught. Mike was smart and this tiny mouse was seriously bamboozling us. We left Saturday around noon and then on Sunday morning we got a call from the Sisters saying that they had deep cleaned the apartment so they could see where the mouse had been the next day and the same deal had happened: all of the traps set off, poop literally everywhere, and not a mouse to be seen. Then they opened the drawers in the dresser and found mouse poop all in the drawers and they then realized that it wasn't just Mike, but that Mike probably had a family. This was the tipping point for these Sisters. They were just like that's it we are gone we are moving out of this stinking apartment (because some other bad juju stuff had happened there before) and the mice were just their breaking point. So, they spend Sunday all packing up their things and moving it to an apartment on the other side of their area where Elders had used to live but had moved out. They came and stayed with us Sunday night because they just can't deal right now. We are happy to be with them though!
Thursday: We were at Youngstown this day and dealing with the mouse. Honestly, I was scared to round every corner for fear of running right into Mike. It just gave me the heebie-jeebies.
We had some awesome miracles though! First of all, we called that lady Margie back. She answered immediately and we talked about the restoration! Prayers together and all. We asked her what she thought of the first vision and how she felt when we shared it and she said that it felt good and that was awesome! She then told us this wild story about how she was led to our church with the like long lost Bible and how the other day right before we called her, she had opened up the Book of Mormon that she had gotten a while ago and went to start reading it but she just didn't feel like she even knew where to start and then we just called her! It was insane you guys. We texted her the list of the Book of Mormon "answers to the questions of the soul" and she read them all and said that she was going to go back and reread and highlight and learn more. It was seriously awesome and she is super prepared. And parents, she is super normal. Like, she isn't super struggling or weird or anything, she is just this nice normal lady. It was a miracle!!!
We also got to see our good friends Eric and Emily. Emily's dad had died earlier in the week so we dropped off cookies at their house as a "we love you" gesture and they really appreciated it. During this lesson, we talked about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and how He can help us and strengthen us and how because of Him, we can all be resurrected. We also taught about baptisms for the dead. Eric and Emily knew about sealings, but when we taught about baptisms, Emily was so excited because once she is baptized, she will be able to then be baptized for her stepdad and that is just so exciting. They are so excited about their baptism and we have this awesome plan to get them to move their date up a few days so I can hopefully see it! Pray for that!
Thursday was just a really pretty day outside so we went to this really pretty park named Buhl Park. Sister Johnston served in Youngstown for six months and one of her recent converts fishes at the pond all day every day. His name is Dave. I have never met Dave, but I have heard so much about him that I feel like I know him. We got to talk to him and I even made him a dandelion flower crown that I put on his baseball cap. We then met this crazy guy named Lenny that I had a hard time having patience with because you could tell that he wasn't going to progress and I was just fed up with him and I wanted to go. So I did. I was like yeah nice to meet you and walked to our car. From our car though, we had an awesome miracle!!!
So we have been teaching Wanda for a long time and she just never really understood why she needed to be baptized. We decided to teach about Temples because we didn't want to push baptism too hard. We had this recent convert of a year call in who happens to be her next-door neighbor. Her name is Sadie. We start talking about baptisms for the dead and Wanda goes "yeah I just keep trying to figure out if I need to be baptized again because you guys keep telling me I need to but I just can't figure it out" - Side note: Wanda reads the Book of Mormon and prays every single day to find an answer so she is doing what she needs to do- and then Sadie just says "yeah, it's just important that the person baptizing has been ordained to the right authority" and Wanda goes "oh that makes sense. Wait, that is the answer to my question I see why I would need to be baptized again" and Sister Johnston and I were just like "wait what?!?!!?" and her and Sadie were just having a convo about it and then we cut in and were like "hey Wanda will you be baptized by someone who has the proper priesthood authority" and she was like "yes of course" and then our minds exploded. We have been explaining the priesthood and the scriptures and everything a million times over and now look at her! All we needed was a member and now she is on for May 9th and she had Sadie were even talking about carpooling to the service. It was magical and we were just so joyful. God is so good and He really has answered Wanda's prayers and helped her to see that this is the truth! She was diligent in looking for an answer and God loves effort and He gave her an answer. We are just hoping and praying and working for this baptism to happen on the 9th.
Friday: This day we had to go pick up our car from the garage (it was broken for some reason but now it is better, don't worry!) and we had a bunch of awesome lessons set up but like nothing actually happened. It was actually kind of a bummer because no one picked up the phone and we were just dying out here. We did have a dope weekly planning though. We also went to go get ice cream and we went to this member who lives in a senior home and we knocked on her window because she hasn't been answering the Sisters calls. Unfortunately, she was not there. But we did try! Honestly, Friday was just a little bit of a long day for me. Keep in mind that the entire time we are in Youngstown there is a mouse on the loose and we are all terrified.
Friday night, we get a call from the New Castle Sisters saying that someone had been banging on their door super loud and scary... as in both doors. And they were just scared and didn't feel safe at their apartment. So, they drove over at like 9:30pm to the Youngstown apartment so now we had six sister missionaries in one bedroom all sleeping. We only had two mattress pads (you know the ones that we brought with us) so we gave those to them and we slept on the floor. It was a long night.
Saturday: Sister Johnston and I were starving and we ran out of food that we had brought so we drove to Panera, McDonalds, and Burger King to get some food and then we brought a sandwich back for the sister in Youngstown that is really struggling. We called her out to the car to eat with us and we gave her the option to have a midcycle transfer with her trainee because she was just having some major anxiety and she was just struggling. And she had her companion really love each other, but they are just super super different. She said that she would think about it so we shall see what happens. Basically though, the days that we were with Youngstown were just super long and by the end, I was just feeling emotinally drained big time because for the entire week I was with sisters every single day and I was dying because I just wanted to be with Sister Johnston. But that is okay, I love the Sisters and I know that God is the one giving me the emotional stamina to counsel and comfort and listen because I would have died four weeks ago if He wasn't.
After some lunch, we went back to Warren. Sweet, sweet Warren. We had some lessons where we had to break some hard news to Eric & Emily and Wanda: the Word of Wisdom.
Eric chews tobacco and drinks coffee and Emily doesn't do anything so she is chilling. Eric when we told him that we were going to talk about commandments he was SO EXCITED because he is just so pumped to get baptized.. but he was not super excited about this commandment, which I guess makes sense. He was just like "but I'm not ready yet to give up tobacco" and we just talked about how if we ask God He will strengthen us and Jesus Christ knows and we read some scriptures and we promised some blessings and we had a recent convert that they really like join in and bear testimony. It was so cool because, at the beginning, Eric was pretty dead set on "no I can't" and by the end, he said "well I love the Word of Wisdom" and yes, he did say it sarcastically but he is going to try to start living it. Emily was super supportive of him doing it and has been trying to get him to stop chewing for a while so she will be really good to hold him accountable.
Also in the lesson with them, we found out that they have been telling their families about what they learn from us! Emily told her mom about doing baptisms for her dad and her mom loved it. Eric has told his family what we share with them and they keep telling him that we are a cult... but ya know he still shares and he knows that it isn't true. We asked them why they wanted to be baptized and how they feel when we call and they were just like "we just feel so good and protected and safe and this is what we want to feel all the time" and we got to explain that holy ghost and that after their baptism they could feel that all the time and it was just awesome to hear that. We love Eric and Emily and we love their faith. They are amazing people! Please pray for Eric that he will accept the word of wisdom and that he will start to live it.
We also taught Wanda the word of wisdom and she was pretty okay (I mean she was a little sad about no cold beer in the summer but she could live with it) and then we told her about tea and coffee and she was like flabbergasted and didn't even know what to say. We shared all of these scriptures and blessings and everything and we would ask her questions but she just was like "I don't even know what to say right now" and it was so sad. Wanda is 72 years old and we just love her and we knew that this would be hard for her but we didn't think that it would be this hard. So, we invited her to pray about it and to ask God if this really came from Him and she said that she definitely would because she needed to because this just really confused her. More on this subject tomorrow.
Sunday: We had our church service over Zoom and one other one later that we invited our friends to and not as many came this week, but still an okay amount. We had the sacrament at President Connor's home again and it was just so special. The New Castle Sisters came with us there and then we went on our way and that was great.
We had another phone call with Wanda and she told us that she had a long talk with God and she just wasn't sure about an answer yet. We just invited her to read the Book of Mormon with her question or concern in mind and we promised her that God would give her an answer. She was kinda in a bad mood because of the rain and she couldn't hear too well so we just left pretty quick but we just love her so much. Please pray that her heart will be softened and that she will understand the why behind this and that it comes from God. She shared with us that she just doesn't want people to tell her what to do because this is her life and she wants to live the way she wants to because she is 72 and she is done having people tell her how to live because she wants to live the way that she wants. She said it nicer than that but still. We shared the analogy of a scuba diving cage and how the cage was around the divers so and the divers thought it was to restrict them at first but really it was to protect them from the sharks.. but we don't know if she got that. So just pray for her, please. She reads from the Book of Mormon every single day and loves it and loves everything that we teach her, we are just hoping that she doesn't let this one thing that will be hard for her stop her from being baptized.
Honestly, Sister Johnston and I yesterday just had a little bit of a hard day and it was mostly because of the people that we were teaching. We are just so worried and are praying constantly for Eric and Emily and Wanda and the Word of Wisdom. We are sad that Tyler is ignoring us and we are really trying to get in contact with him. And last but certainly not least: Asia. We have been trying really hard to get in contact with her but she hasn't answered the phone in eight days. She texted us a few times telling us that she loved us but that is about all. We have been calling the courthouse to get her marriage license and we just told them not to call her but to call us because she wouldn't pick up if they called her but we were her friends and would get the info to her. We have been calling her every single day and texting her every single day with basically no communication back. We have been praying and planning and literally doing everything. Finally, we called her yesterday (Sunday) like five times and sent her the link to three different church services and we told her that if she wanted to get baptized this week like we have been planning on and like she has been working toward, then she would have to come to church because she had to go for the third time. You know what we got back? Absolutely nothing. I won't lie to you, both of us were kind of upset because we have been working so hard with her and doing everything we can and all she had to do was click on a link. Just one link. Not even physically go to church! We had three that she could go to at different times and she just read our messages and didn't respond. We prayed about it last night and we both feel that she is just not ready right now. She has no followthrough and we just feel as though we are dragging her to the font and she is doing nothing to take steps to get there herself. Plus, if she can't keep the covenant after baptism at this point, it is wrong to get her in the water because she is just unprepared to continue. Man. We are just feeling heartbroken.
Honestly, Sister Johnston and I are both hitting that point where we are just thinking "are we even doing anything?" and we know that those are coming from Satan because we are doing things, but it is just getting to the point where I think being in isolation and being alone is just getting in our brains a little bit. We just feel sad. I have been feeling a little irritable this week so I need to chill out. Just pray for me. And pray for Sister Johnston. But mostly just pray for Wanda, Eric, Emily, Tyler, and Asia because we just love them and some of them need some more help right now. Also, we have a plan to put Margie on date this week so pray that her heart will be soft and we will be able to do that!
Okay, I love you guys, thanks for reading through this, I know that it was long so I really appreciate it! I only have one more pday here in Ohio before they ship me back to the square. I actually had a nightmare about Temple Square last night! I was just crying in my dream because I felt lost in the crowd and forgotten and like just another sister. I had a companion that was nice enough but we weren't really friends. It was just terrifying. It is so funny because last transfer when I knew I was going back I felt like my brain was prepared and was aware that I would be leaving, this transfer, I don't feel that way at all. I just feel like I will probably be here in Ohio forever but I know that I need to start preparing now because then when someone moves my cheese, I will be able to deal with it better. Just pray that President Fisher will be able to receive correct information and revelation regarding who my companion needs to be for my last transfer in the mission, and pray that God will send the right sister here to Warren to take care of the Sisters and the wonderful people that we are teaching here. I just love all of these people and I'm kinda dying emotionally but it's okay.
Okay love you and miss you and talk to you soon!
Love
Sister Moran
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