Sister Holly Larson's Mission Adventures!: October 2012

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Week #41

Dear Everyone!

Well this week has been tough... but those are the weeks that I feel myself learning and progressing. It has been really tough to have members in our lessons. I know that is how our investigators will progress--by getting them involved in the branch! But I feel like I spent hours and hours and hours on the phone trying to contact members asking them to help us. It's proving difficult with now 4 missionaries in such a small branch. I hate bothering the members--I know they are so busy with families and working alll the time. Us being on bikes makes it even harder because most of the women that are home during the day can't drive. That being said we worked really hard to have members in all of our lessons... and we had multiple multiple multiple lessons where we had members but the investigators weren't there. We tried visiting others but it just didn't work out. Which is okay. I'm learning to deal with my stress levels. Finding the balance between healthy stress (that helps you be productive) and unhealthy stress (which just freaks my companion out :/ ) is something I've never been good at. But I'm trying to figure it out. I'm also trying to figure out how we can help our investigators to keep their commitments (like our appointments!). We tried teaching a lot to our purpose as missionaries this past week and will continue doing that as we teach towards baptism and our role in helping people make covenants with God.

On a good note: we set an awesome baptism date! With Lupita. She's had a hard time quiting coffee... but she's been 3 days clean! And when we set the date... for the first time she was excited about it--instead of us trying to convince her that she is ready. It's for October 17th. I'm excited about it and hope that she will be able to stay strong without coffee :] The lesson beforehand we had talked about her not drinking coffee. We had made a "plan" with her... but she ended up not following it :[ And we really tried talking with her--trying to figure out what will help her. Sister Sanchez talked about how it's so easy for us to say it--just stop and that maybe we don't understand how hard it is, but that Jesus Christ does know and he can help her. As I heard that I felt the spirit prompt me and tell me that we need to at least try to understand her. So we made a deal with Lupita that for the next week as she stops drinking coffee that we will stop eating candy and desserts. When Sister Sanchez heard that come out of my mouth she just looked at me and said WHAT?? haha. But we are doing it. I obviously didn't think about that very well as it is the week of Halloween... but maybe God's trying to help me and Lupita at the sameee time by committing me to not eat sweets! haha.

Saturday was a busy day! We woke up early early. It was the Mesa City "day of service." The church is always very involved in it. They had a big stake breakfast and afterwards we when and cleans streets and canals and alleys. It was fun. We were also given City of Mesa shirts that say "I love Mesa" on the back! Love it! And then later that night was the branch halloween activity. Well actually... so as to not offend those that don't want to celebrate Halloween it was called "la fiesta de la cosecha." Which is like party of the harvest! haha. But it was fun to be there and see all the kids with their costumes. We had some investigators there which was good. We also enjoyed watching other people eat candy and we couldn't. haha. But Lupita was there to see us resist all the candy so maybe that was a good thing! haha.

This morning Sister Sanchez and I got up early to go hiking with some of the people in our zone! It was really fun... but I realized that since the last time I went hiking (MAY) that I have seriously gotten out of shape! But it was good to get out there and sweat a bit and feel good!

Well I hope that everyone has a great week! And a happy halloween! Apparently church headquarters is worried about missionaries safety on halloween night--so we have to be in our houses by 6pm. We'll probably do some studies or something. But maybe we'll try doing something fun. I'm glad we live with two other sisters! Should make it more fun.

Love,

Hermana Larson

Week #40

Happy 6th Birthday to Jack! Hard to believe that it's been 6 years! Tell him I said hi :]

Well this week has been a lot better than the last week! We saw a lot of miracles and I'm feeling better about training Sister Sanchez. I know that I'm not perfect, but I feel like she is learning and things are going well.

We always talk to everyone on the streets (especially if they look like they might speak Spanish!!) And this week as we have talked to everyone we have met 6 people that were already members whose names weren't on the records. And I realized that here on my mission I've never really worked with inactive members before. We've always just had so much work with our investigators that we didn't make it a priority. But I'm so excited to work with these people! They have already made covenants with our Heavenly Father and it's so important that they keep those covenants. I also sometimes think about the missionaries that originally taught these people. I would be heart-broken if future missionaries didn't work as hard as they could to help my converts. We met one lady on the street named Laura (!). She was baptized about 5 years ago here in Mesa (but in a different stake). She's in her late 20's but has gone through a divorce since then, and had a lot of trials... and she stopped going to church. We talked to her for while, got her number and address, and set up an appointment to come visit her again. Okay I'm going to try and explain where she lives because it is important to the story... but I am not sure if it is going to make sense! haha. She lives in a gated apartment. But not like a huge complex. It's just like 4 little gated apartments... but the point is that it's gated so you can't even knock on her door. I'm never been back to where the apartments are because it's ALWAYS locked and gated. So we just don't work much there. There's not a code or a way to call back to the apartments... just a key-lock. So when you get there you have to call their personal phone and they come unlock it. Well. Turns out my Spanish isn't as incredible as I thought it was... I didn't get the right phone number. So we were there calling her phone and the number didn't work :[ Because it's only four apartments it's not like people are coming and going frequently. So we waited for a little bit but then just went on our day and didn't have the appointment :[ I didn't know how else to get in contact with her. Fast forward 5 days. I had kind of forgotten about it all. We were working all day (without a ton of success) it was about 8:40 at night and I wasn't sure what we should do. I hate knocking on people doors without an appointment that late because most Hispanics go to bed pretty early because they all work extremely early. So I just turned to Sister Sanchez and asked her if she would say a prayer so that we would know what to do. She did and as she prayed I couldn't stop thinking about Laura. I told Sister Sanchez that I couldn't stop thinking about Laura, but felt stupid because I knew it was a bad phone number and I knew that those apartments were always locked. But Sister Sanchez is the best. She was like "let's go! Who knows, maybe the lord is telling you that so we go over there and he'll put someone else in our path." So we biked over there. And we didn't see anyone. (I was feeling even dumber by this point). Sister Sanchez walked up to the gate and just pushed on it.... and it opened. Someone left it unlocked. I almost cried when I saw it open. It was something so simple, but confirmed my faith. At that moment I knew that God was conscience of me, and of the work I was doing. And that if I would just follow the promptings he gave me, they would come more frequently, and it would be easier for me to recognize them. Since this experience I have been trying to follow every prompting I receive and it's been incredible to see the miracles we have seen this week. They are simple, but I feel the spirit so strong as we work. We were able to have an awesome lesson with Laura that night by the way. And we got her real phone number :]

We are working with another inactive, Norma. And she came to church this week! It was so cool to have her come and to be able to meet all the members. It's so incredible how much faster people progress once they have been to church and have met the members and have that sense of strength.

Last night our branch hosted the Mission President's Fireside. Which means the recent converts of our branch spoke :] It was awesome as Miguel, Maribel, Paola and Blanca spoke. The music was awesome, the spirit was there. And Sister McKee was there! (my trainer!) she is working and living in Phoenix and knew I would be at the fireside because our branch was hosting it. It was so fun to see her, but weird to see her not as a missionary! haha. But also fun for her to meet Sister Sanchez.

We're having a zone activity today. They're calling it an Arizona Snowball fight. Where they put flour in nylons and then I guess we just fight? haha. I hope Sister Sanchez enjoys it!

I love you all! Hope all is well.

Love,

Hermana Larson

Week #39

How is everyone doing? I can hardly believe that it is October 15! Halloween is coming up pretty soon! Which is fun... but for me it mostly means that the weather is really cooling down! Which I am totally grateful for. It's been a good week to be on bikes. During the day I still get sweaty and gross... but the evenings are the best. And there are a lot more people in the streets in the evenings which makes it easier to talk to the people.

We're really getting ready for the Christmas lights at the Temple! Even though I am a "full-field" sister while I am training Sister Sanchez... we will both work in the Visitors' Center during the season (assuming we stay together the full 12 weeks). We generally have preparation meetings for the VC sisters every other week, but in preparation we are starting to have them every week. Which is making it better for me to be able to go every week and see all the sisters! I miss them not being in the Visitors' Center.

This week has been tough as far as the work goes. On saturday we had 6 appointments planned... we were ready and had members for all of them... and then all 6 either cancelled... or weren't home when we went. And it was pretty much the same story yesterday. So it's been discouraging in that aspect. I have been trying to figure out what I am doing wrong, and improving will still keeping the faith and excitement about the work. We have a lot of investigators that are just not progressing and not following through with their commitments. So this week we are really going to focus on helping our investigators know our purpose as investigators--we're not just there to talk to them about God if they happen to be home when we come by. We are here to help them change their life and make covenants with God. So hopefully this week we'll be able to really find out who is prepared and ready... and who needs more time :]

I love you all and hope that everything is going well. Have a great week!!

Love

Holly

Week #38

Dear Family,

I hope that everyone is doing so well. I heard that Chad and Amy were in Provo! And got to go to a football came with Julie and Ryan?? That is so exciting! I want to see the pictures that were taken :]

This week has been... really interesting/weird for me. Well Sister Sordes was called to be a trainer in the Visitors' Center. (Just like S. McKee and S. Falcon). Like an AP in the VC--there are two of them. I thought that I was going to have ONE companion where she wouldn't be at trainer and wouldn't know transfer news beforehand and not be able to tell me... but apparently not! But I am so excited for her because she is going to be such an incredible trainer. I was still hoping that we would stay together another transfer! She found out transfer news on Wednesday but of course she couldn't tell me! But from the way she was talking I had a feeling that we wouldn't stay together :[ But as I thought about it I honestly had no idea what would happen. I felt like maybe I was ready to take a little bit more responsibility (maybe greenie break or something). Then during the week we got a call from the assistants. They told us that they were going to split our branch (mesa grande). Well not the branch itself but that we would then have two sets of missionaries. They just wanted our opinion on boundaries. So that got me thinking! Saturday night is when we always recieve transfer news. Well we were on shift at the visitors' center. I checked the phone looking for a text from an investigator to see we had a missed call from President. That's always a little scary to get transfer news from President. He told us that they are splitting mesa grande. We will both be staying.... but that both Sister Sordes and I had been called by the Lord to be trainers. My stomach did somersaults audibly. And I just started to cry. I didn't even know what to think. I'm still completely overwhelmed. I've never been a senior companion before. And I don't know how to train a new missionary! I still struggle with the language! Then I found out that the sister I will be training is from Spain! So that made me feel a little better. Then I found out that she is not a visitors' center missionary. So I will be full-field for two transfers. Saturday night and Sunday were hard for me as everyone asked me "are you so excited to train!?!?" and I didn't know what to say. I've never been full-field before so that terrifies me! THEN. I found out that we will be on bicycles! I've never been on bikes before either. So pretty much I'm doing everything new at the same time. I'm still terrified. I still don't know how I'm going to do it. But I'm excited now (I wasn't two days ago...). I just hope she likes me. I hope she is happy. I want to help her become an incredible missionary. I feel like yesterday I was just trained; but maybe that will be able to help me in knowing what I can do differently, or the same as my trainer. I know that these transfers are going to be really hard for me. But I know that I will grow so much and I will learn a lot. I scared of so many things--not being able to meet our investigators down, not teaching her everything she needs to know, offending her, scaring her, and a lot more. But I am just trusting in God that if I try my best he'll make up for all the stuff I don't know.

Her name is Hermana Sanchez. And because she is not a VC sister I really don't know very much about her. But I'm excited that Sister Sordes will also be training... and that all four of us will be living in the same house! This morning for exercise Sister Sordes and I road bikes around, and that helped me a lot to gain some confidence in that aspect (I was so scared of getting hit by a car haha). I still feel like I have a blank future, because I feel a little bit in denial, or like I have no idea what is going to happen. But I know things will work out.

This week with Sister Sordes has been so good. We continue to learn so much from each other and I'm so glad that being in the same branch as her will allow me to continue learning from her example. We have an investigator Lupita that is progressing so well! She's so incredible and her 22 year old son was baptized on Saturday! It was an incredible baptism to be at. The second that he came out of the water he just shouted "Finally!" It was pretty cute.

We met a family of 6 this week! They are really nice and we can tell that they have had a lot of contact with the church in the past. They are very catholic (two of their kids are in their first Communion right now...) but they allowed us to come in and have a prayer and we were able to talk to them for quite a while. I hope they will open their hearts and allow the spirit to touch them!

There are so many other things that happened this week. But that's the biggest thing for now... I'm training. And I have so many things I want to do today to get ready for her! So I hope everyone has a great week. I love you all.

Love,

Sister Larson

Week #37

Family,

Love,

Sister Larson

Week # 36

Hello everyone!

Okay. This has been like the most incredible week of my life. We were excited all week that Elder Bednar was going to come on Saturday morning and speak to us... but to be honest I wasn't just jumping out of my seat. I was excited... but not like crazy (like some other people haha.) I had been to meetings before with apostles and knew it would be edifying... but I had the most incredible experience. I felt the spirit like I never had before. I would love to share with all of you all of the things that I've learned this week--in the meeting, and since then as I have tried implementing those things into my life and the lives of my investigators--but I can't even begin to explain. I can't give you all that experience. But I can just bear my testimony that I know that Elder Bednar has been called to be an apostle, that this church is the church of Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is the head of this church. I learned so much about faith--that it's a principle of action. And so much about the Holy Ghost. It was so cool to be in such a small group talking to him. I was able to stand up and tell him about how easy it is sometimes to feel like we are not directed by the spirit as we go throughout our days doing everything we have learned. And he helped me to realize that a lot of times we are prompted by the spirit... but most of the time we don't recognize it. But as we have enough faith to act, we then will later be able to see the evidence that we were directed by the spirit as we see the fruit of our actions--which increases our faith, helping us to act again. It's just a big cycle. After we had a big discussion on faith and being guided by the spirit he opened it up to questions. It was indescribable the spirit that was there as he answered questions from "What is a priesthood key" to "You were in the room when Thomas S. Monson was ordained as a prophet--what can you tell us about your experience?" to "What can I do to better understand the temple endowment?" It was so cool. He told us a little bit about his upcoming conference talk and it got me super excited for general conference in TWO WEEKS! haha. I'm just hoping that I won't be in the visitors' center too much and will be able to watch most of it.

So I feel like my life has completely changed since the meeting we had with Elder Bednar. And it was exactly what I needed. It helped me to realize that I'm doing okay here. It was awesome for me to be able to feel at such peace in that meeting. I'm at such a good place. I still have SO much to improve and so many things that I want to learn, here on my mission and just in general for the rest of my life. I finally feel like I know who I am as a missionary. I still don't always know what my investigators need or what I need to do, but I am not afraid to talk, or afraid of doing something wrong. I'm doing everything I know how to to have the spirit and help our investigators. And I trust that God will help me with the rest because that's all I can do.

We have had an incredible week and have seen so many miracles. All day Saturday and Sunday we were trying to implement the things that we learned into our everyday teaching. On Sunday night we had a lesson with Jesus. He's 19 years old and we've been meeting with him for like 3 weeks. And he's come to church every week. Everything we are teaching him is really new for him, but he has taken such an interest in the book and see it changing his life. Well when we came for the lesson on Sunday his cousin was over visiting, and we invited him to come and join us. And that was a miracle. Because it completely changed the dynamics of the lesson to where Jesus began to teach his cousin everything that he has learned with us. It was the coolest lesson I have ever been in. And it was exactly one of this things Elder Bednar taught us--helping our investigators have those experiences for themselves. I know he felt the spirit when he was teaching his cousin everything he's learned, and it was SO cool for us to be able to hear his excitement about the book of mormon. His cousin lives in our area too and we are excited to go back and teach him again.

It's also been really cool to be in the visitors' center since we have had that meeting and just see how I can implement the things I learned there as well. It's not just about finding new people to teach, but about stregthening members. And I love being able to ask members "What do you think you can learn about this painting? How has this movie helped you to think about the scriptures in a different way?" I don't know what I'm going to do when I am a normal person and can't do that in the same way anymore!

We're starting to see our investigators start progressing and it's exciting. I love working with Sister Sordes and feel like I have so much to learn from her and am just so excited that we have had this time together. It's so insane to me that transfer news will come this saturday!! It's not possible!!! I feel like sister sordes and I will stay together just because we have so much left to learn from each other, and also because I've still never had the experience of being with a companion for only a transfer, but it happens a lot and I wouldn't be super suprised if one of us leaves. Who knows. But I'm up for anything. I was thinking last night how desvestated I would be to leave this area and our investigators that I finally started to progress and understand! But I know that the Lord always does things for a reason.

Also I will hit my nine months this Friday! It's hard to believe. I hope that everyone is doing really well. I love you all!

Love,
Sister Larson