Mom and Dad, Family, Whoever Might Be Reading This,
I've been a missionary for a month!!! And in the field for two weeks!!!
Thanks for the adapter and keyboard! You get pictures this week!
Thanks for all the pictures of the temple too. I have a pic of the
Redlands temple as my background. :)
If music hasn't been put together can I make a few requests? That CD
case I have at home somewhere has a Pride and Prejudice CD... I would
love just 2 songs from it. "Self Portrait" and "My Giant". :) Also
Paul Cardall and other good uplifting instrumentals.
I would also love love love Christmas music, maybe on a separate flash
drive? I could actually send home the flash drive I brought with me
maybe, because it won't work on the iPad. It would actually even be
fine on the iPod, I'd just skip over Christmas songs at non-Christmas
times, if I had a companion that cared (Sister Lamborn doesn't; we
both love Christmas music :D ). For Christmas music my only request is
songs from my Sparrow in the Birch CD, which is either on the bookcase
with my other CDs or who knows where (sorry). :P Not the
romantic/overly secular songs though.
We can wear pants now! I guess the threat of Zika is spreading in
Florida. And the mission will reimburse the cost of up to 3 pairs (if
we're being frugal). So we might look at pants today.
I'm really glad I'm not around for election nonsense too. Sister
Lamborn would actually enjoy talking politics, I think. We actually
had a Hillary supporter approach us and we told her we weren't allowed
to discuss politics. Then listened to her knock on a door and have a
"I respect your stupid opinion, God bless you" fight with a Trump
supporter.
I think it's so cool that you're working with the mission office
there! We love our "senior" missionaries. :)
One cool thing about living below sea level (how does below sea level
work? Can Dad explain it?) is my heart LOVES it. My heart rate has
started to be mostly in the 70s-80s range. Except yesterday it was
super jumpy. 120 to 80 to 90 to... I felt a little gross. Hopefully it
stabilizes again.
On to this week! During personal study, I've been trying to read one
Conference talk per day. Elder Bednar told us that what's discussed in
General Conference should be "our walk and talk" for the next six
months, until the next Conference. So I've been studying those and
taking notes the same way he does. And now I have access to
everything, as long as I can find wifi to download it.
We had the car this week! We have VERY limited miles, so we try to be
careful about planning where and when we're going. Sister Lamborn made
me take the lead more this week, which has definitely helped me grow.
We traded off knocking doors. Still don't really have progressing
investigators, so we're trying to meet as many members as possible.
And when they're not home, we don't want to have wasted the miles. We
figure that maybe there's someone we were meant to contact in that
area. So we pray and look at the houses and go with it. We've had some
really interesting contacts. Had someone abruptly cut me off and shut
the door on Saturday. That specific instance taught me that fear and
faith cannot coincide. Feeling the Spirit from testifying of truth
mixed with the awkward feelings of how much I don't like talking made
me feel physically sick. So I've been trying to focus more on faith.
Our service days are fun. We didn't do much this Wednesday, but it's a
good chance to talk, plan, and study while nothing else is going on.
They also give us pizza. And the atmosphere is so friendly, everyone's
great at Give Kids the World.
We've spent quite a lot of time in Walmart this week, haha. They have
free wifi and I've needed to do training and download stuff. So we
wander the aisles and have some really fun conversations. Feels a
little weird staring at my tablet while listening to a video about not
being distracted by technology, but... We make it fun.
Sister Lamborn claims not to be a patient person, but from what I've
experienced, that's a total lie. She's always great at giving me a
push to do something, not getting upset when I'm hesitant (it's one of
my goals this week to not complain and hesitate as much about things I
know I'm going to do anyway). She's also given me great pep talks
right when I need them on more than one occasion. I'm so glad to have
her as my trainer and companion. :)
Had a Zone Training Meeting on Thursday, so I sort of met everyone in
our Zone. It seems to be a rule in missionary meetings that everyone
who talks extends a commitment. There were lots of good spiritual
insights, but the one that stuck with me and that I've been thinking
about the past few days, is that we are the "noble and great ones". I
had never thought about that until this past month. Sister May talked
to me about it, one of the Sisters at ZTM talked about it, there are a
bunch of scriptures about it... (By the way, I love Gospel Library and
how easy it is to get sucked into a footnotes spiral. So many
interesting things.)
Then all the Sisters in the Zone went out to lunch together, which was
super fun! Out here it's so different, and usually we're supposed to
avoid gathering in big groups of missionaries. But it's so nice to
have the chance to be surrounded by people with a common purpose, even
if it's just for a little while.
Fridays are planning days, so we mostly stay in. I made pumpkin
chocolate chip cookies! :D
We had dinner with the other two Sisters at the house of a sweet old
member lady who made us an absolute ton of Philippino food. She kept
making us take more and more... And eventually sent us home with the
leftovers. Apparently she does this every time she has missionaries
over.
I love having companionship inventory on Fridays. Basically it's a
time for us to address any concerns and boost each other up. I'm
starting to look forward to it. We learn how to improve and help each
other, and tell the other their strengths. We're trusting each other a
lot more. She told me she's glad to have a companion that she can hold
an intelligent conversation with, haha.
Saturday we went to a baby shower. It ate up a lot of time, but we got
fed and talked with some of the members.
Sunday... Nobody told us about daylight savings time. So we got up at
5:30. Thankfully, the iPads change automatically, so we realized and
went back to sleep. I NEEDED that extra hour. I've been dragging a
bit. (We also got in super early so I got another extra half hour,
YAY.) Church starts at 2 PM here, which is super gross. We have
coordination and ward council starting at 12 PM, and it's about a 30
minute drive to church on a good day. So it's a loooooong day. Fast
and Testimony meeting was great though! We've got a ton of awesome
members, even though the ward is very small (and only a handful of
those active members are in Poinciana). The members are so great
though, they're willing to do anything for other members and for the
missionaries. It is hard to get them visiting/home teaching though.
We're going to work on that.
Had another less-active come to church this week (along with 3 more
who usually have gone to the Spanish branch, but are more comfortable
with English)! She's about my age and seems awesome. We're going to
keep meeting with her, she needs the spiritual boost.
But then I got a headache and my heart felt gross for the rest of the
evening. I feel much better today, but now Sister Lamborn feels sick.
:( We're hanging out at church with some others from our Zone, writing
letters, playing piano...
Dunno what else to write. So much happens during a week, it's hard to
make it into a coherent letter. I hope all of this made sense.
Missionary work is hard. It's so hard to choose faith and courage
instead of fear and doubt. It's hard to be up all day. But it's so
worth it. The constant prayers, the Spirit and direction we feel, the
closeness to God and my companion... Seeing people we talked to during
the week come to church... It's amazing! I love it out here. I'm
trying to improve every day, and those around me are definitely
helping me with that. I've felt the love of our Heavenly Father so
strongly here.
I hope you all have an amazing week! I love you all.
Love,
Christine
Sister Stevenson was going to send photos in a new email, but she must have run out of time. so I'll just include the one Sister Kober posted from the shower.
Sister Kober shared this on the Missionary Mom Page:
What better way to meet possible investigators than attending a baby shower! Sister Stevenson, Sister Lamborn, Sister Parish, and Sister Angelo were a great help! We also learned that Sister Stevenson should be a contestant on the Price Is Right upon completion of her mission. She was the big winner tonight!
Oh yeah, this is me at
a baby shower at which I won many useless things for a missionary. The bag has
a candle. Useless. :)
Pictures from this week are going to be included in the next blog.
Pictures from this week are going to be included in the next blog.
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