Isn't life just awesome? God is soo good and I love him! This week has been super fun, full of laughter, the spirit, miracles, and people I have grown to love! YSA IS FUNNNNN!!!!! I love the branch I serve in, I love my companion. The weather is cooling down which I am sooo grateful for! I miss Fall but I love San Diego, wouldn't want to be anywhere else!
So to start off the week we went on exchanges with our Sister Training leaders.... SISTER STEWART IS ONE OF MY SISTER TRAINING LEADERS!
So exchanges were fun, just trying random people, Sister Starr giving me killer advice since she works in a YSA too. I now fully embrace the YSA life, only as a missionary though, I appreciate the lessons the Lord is allowing me to learn.
Thursday was interesting, full of weekly planning and surprise lessons. And what I mean by that is a former investigator generally calls us frequently asking for rides, to which it's hard to provide because it's very often and our poor branch has jobs and school. So we do the best we can. We can always get him a ride to church though! ;) Anyway, he called us and it started to turn into a doctrinal discussion. He brought up points that weren't necessarily important, he was just trying to argue. But you know what shut it down? Testimony. My testimony. They are so powerful, no one can deny it and they always bring the spirit. We then taught a lesson with him that night, talking about baptism.
We also did the PQ service again with the fancy farmers hats. Didn't get a picture. I will someday! They are legit hats.
And throughout the day it can be easy to get bored, so Sister Chan is good at finding ways to entertain us. One is to ask a question and have the Book of Mormon answer it. We ask the question, then the person flips to a random page, says left or right, then the person who asks the questions picks left or right, for left or right page. Then they pick L or R again for the column. Then the person with the scriptures looks at the verses in the column, says what the verses are and the person picks a verse. Sounds complicated but I promise it's not. It brings quite a few laughs and some good insights from our loving Heavenly Father. :)
Recently someone from the missionary department came and instructed our zone and district leaders and the sister training leaders. The other missionaries who did not attend then got the counsel during district meeting. Man, it was good counsel! All I can really sum it up in is specific prayers lead to specific answers from our Heavenly Father. Of course all according to His will and not any greedy or selfish prayers. But for example some missionaries were challenged to do this, specifically finding investigators. They prayed that they would find a family of five with a car and a job. And guess what, they did that day. So cool! But anything is possible through our faith and the Lord's power.
So on Saturday right after district meeting, Sister Chan and I tried it out. We had no scheduled appointments. So we said a prayer, asking where He wants us to go to find a YSA. Sister Chan got an impression to go to our branch mission leader's street. So we did. We started walking, talked to a family, not interested. Then right after there was a guy walking. We stopped him, started talking. And like one minute into our discussion he said "This is exactly what I needed." I WAS LIKE OH MY GOSH THIS WORKS!!!!"
Specific prayers people: we now have a lesson with him tonight. I'm SUPER PUMPED!!!!!!!!! I can't wait! Also Sister Chan got another impression, on Sunday to go to our branch mission leader's house again, specifically at 7:30 and we went, on time (can't be late for the Lord). We were walking around, nothing. We decided to stop and say a prayer, asking for guidance. I got the impression to turn around. I did, and saw a big (looked empty) house. And then Sister Chan told me she thought of some numbers, 8,1,1,4. And the house I was looking at was #11824. I just instantly thought "Okay, there is no way we are not knocking on this door!" So off we went! Knocked, no answer, so we decided to use members! Super key in missionary work. We walked over to our branch leader's house and told him our experience. We must have sounded crazy but we asked who lived there. He said it was an old lady with a son. Okay. We encouraged him to share the gospel with them. He said he would see what he could do. Then Sister Chan felt prompted to leave a note, explaining that we felt prompted to stop by, and if they needed any help to call us.
Now fast forward to the next day, Sister Chan got another impression to go over there, at 4:30.
Not gonna lie. I was like, "really?"
The same street, three days in a row?
But okay, off we went. Now as I type this out it makes me feel like Laman and Lemuel going to get the brass plates. Thank goodness repentance is possible! Anyway, we go over there, nothing. We say a prayer again. All of a sudden I look at the house we left a note at and someone is watering their bushes. We walked over to a Philippine old lady. Super sweet. We talked to her but we don't think she understood what we were saying. She just kept saying "In the Philippines I have an Aunt. She's an old maid, and when you go over her house you can't sit down, you go to church." She said the same thing like five times or more! I was like Okay, we will send over the Tagalog elders. Wonder why the Lord wanted us there. Hopefully someday I'll figure it out.
Also, benefit of being a missionary, you get free frozen yogurt if you go to Golden Spoon! (Owned by a member.) You just walk in, flash the badge, no question. ;) God is good.
It has stumped me for a while. I was just looking for such a specific answer with each of my experiences of life. But then during sacrament meeting it hit me: Jesus Christ's atonement makes me who I am! I'm happy all the time because of the atonement. Truly. I don't think I'll be able to explain it more than that. But it was a great sacrament meeting because of that.
We met with Caleb this week. Baptismal date doesn't look like it will hold. That's okay! Never give up!
And we painted pumpkins last night at FHE! Being a missionary, I made a missionary pumpkin! And yes, there were investigators there. ;)
I truly love this mission, I love the people, the members, the missionaries, my mission president and his family and more important, I have such a close relationship with my Savior and Heavenly Father, that alone just makes my mission!
I love you all!
Keep being awesome and sending me stories about YOU!
Pictures are also nice. :)
Love,
Sister Whitcomb
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