Where oh where did February go??? Can't believe this month is wrapping up here in just a few days...
We've
had a good week here in east sac! Keeping busy with service for
different members of the ward, reading in the Book of Mormon with one of
our less-active members, Henry and still meeting with Kirk& Colleen
and Dekontee. Dekontee feels that she hasn't received an answer for
herself that the gospel is true but completely agrees and lives both the
word of wisdom ( a health code that members of the church follow to
keep our bodies healthy and staying away from harmful substances etc)
and the law of chastity. We are meeting with her again this evening to
go over the restoration and Joseph Smith, so keep her in your prayers!
On
Wednesday, brother Gehrig and his wife (the older member that was
supposed to take us out on Valentine's day but got sick) took us out to a
local ice-cream restaurant. The dinner portions were relatively normal
but when they brought out the ice cream desserts we'd selected, holy
hannah I have never seen an ice cream serving that enormous! Sister
Kandare and I thought we were going to die from all of that ice cream!
Thankfully we drove ourselves to and from the restaurant to avoide being
in the car with brother gehrig and his terrifying driving and come
close to a second death in the same night. Oh the crazy (near death)
experiences on the mish!
Thursday was Sister Hickman's 21st
birthday! Sister Kandare and I went over early that morning and
decorated her door, and then we met as a zone to play sports that
morning. She and Sister Kandare went on run so another sister and I
could decorate their car. After our district meeting we went out to
lunch and had a few little gifts to give her. Sister Hickman is from
Tulsa and came out with Sister Kandare but the 3 of us have become the
best of friends and love love love serving in the same zone. We had an
incredible district meeting with our new district leader, Elder Berryman
on how we can make active member visits more effective. Sister Kandare
and I are really excited to continue working and strengthening our
members applying the counsel he gave us.
Saturday
was a good day; we were able to visit a less-active sister that is
fighting breast cancer and has two darling daughters both 9 and 11, so
sad but she has an incredible attitude and is doing all that she can to
win this battle. We have family home evening planned for tonight so we
are hoping that will go well. The girls are so funny, they will hug and
squeeze and cling onto us as long as they possibly can before we have to
detach from them and leave. We had dinner with a family and she made
the yummiest bread that we both kept raving about. As we were finishing
dinner and our message we hear the timer go off and she scurries to the
kitchen and brings out a fresh from the oven loaf of bread just for
us...that we proceeded to eat the rest of the night before we even got
home. I wish I could say we're ashamed...but we're not. Whoops!
Sunday
was an interesting day; we had stake conference this weekend we were
invited to go to a young women's meeting on Tuesday during the time we
typically meet with Kirk and Colleen. After the meeting we went up to
them and asked how they liked the meeting and asked if we could switch
our time for our meeting. Kirk said that we would have to discuss
another time about the talks, saying that something wasn't right about
one of them; then said something quickly to Colleen and said no, we can
just skip this week and walked away. Knowing that something was wrong,
we went over that night to talk with them. I guess one of the speakers
at conference made it seem that mormons are the "good" guys and that
everyone else are the bad guys and that mormons are the only good people
in the world. Kirk, coming from a very different background and
lifestyle has seen good people (as we all have) at different stages in
his life that aren't members of the church. He felt frustrated that
sometimes members of the church are associated with a certain "look"
about them when the only "look" that members of the church should have
is the light of christ within us and being loving towards those around
us. I completely agree, we had to tell Kirk that yes we have a perfect
church with the fullness of truth, but we as members are not perfect and
will make mistakes and say/do things that aren't always the best. After
talking with him, he reassured us that he had been praying since that
morning that he would feel peaceful and move on from the talk; we told
him that the meeting we were planning on going to had been cancelled he
told us we could come at the usual time. We told him that HE is our
first priority as missionaries. We said a prayer before we left, knowing
that everyone felt better after we had stopped by to visit with them
instead of letting him stew about it for a few days. It was a good
reminder to me as we were driving home that this is why I wanted to be
here: to serve other people and bring them the happiness that the gospel
has brought me and my family. I may not be teaching as much as I would
like, but Kirk is one of the few people that the Lord has blessed us
with in our area and put in our path to serve and love the way that the
savior would. Yes I'm learning and changing in so many wonderful ways
out here, but I'm first and foremost here for other people and to serve
them. Such a good and needed reminder that sometimes I do forget.
I'm
running low on time to email, but hope everyone has a great week!
Thanks for all of the fun emails and pictures to keep me updated!
All my love,
Sister Allen
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| our sister training leaders decorated our door! |
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| brothers and sisters, my companion |
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