The last Hermana standing, sort of

7 September 2015

This was the other thing we did-played the missionary game. 

Since we couldn't go out finding, we could at least do it on a board! :)

This week was a restful one. Wednesday morning during exercise, My companion collapsed and fell asleep on the floor. We worked as much as we could, but then she said, "I just gotta go home. I can't function anymore." So we went home and she passed out on her bed. She's had it before, she calls it "the 6-day sickness" because the last time she and her old companion had it, they were incapacitated for 6 days. :( Pobrecitas (Poor things). And so, she got it again and we've been staying home as much as possible so she can recover. We've only left the house for fixed appointments, emergency shopping, meetings, and church. She's doing lots better now. This is day 5. She can stay awake longer, but still doesn't have a lot of energy. While she's rested, I've been writing up notes from my iPad to my study journal because I want to, and I had the time for it and while it is true that I'm taking home my iPad, it's going to be wiped, so I will probably lose all my notes. :) so I've been busy with that. The other Hermana missionaries in our ward haven't been so great, either, so I've done mini-exchanges with them, Thursday was with one and last night with the other, because the other had a cold and the one also had a relapse of the 6-day sickness. So, the two more healthier ones go out and work and the two sicker ones stay home. There's just a bunch of sickas in this ward right now, that's all. :) 

What's really interesting is that I got cabin fever, which I never thought would be possible for me, because I liked being inside, last I checked, but when I was facing those days of staying inside all day, I thought, "I just want to go out. I don't want to be in here right now. This feels really weird!" But I survived, and am surviving, so don't worry about me, I'll be fine! :)

You could say I'm the last hermana standing, but I haven't been 100% whole, either. On Saturday, we had a ward sports activity and we were playing 5 Alive, where you kick a soccer ball into the goal and if the goalie blocks it, they get to have a chance to kick, too. Anyway, so I was goalie, and I tried to block the ball and I jammed my finger, instead! Right now, it's the size of a sausage with the coloration of a blackberry, but it's ok! It's not broken and it's healing. Slowly, but healing. :)

Yesterday, after church, we had a dinner for the ward. More people came to church than ever before while I've been here, and they all loved the new building. Also, they ate up all the food, which is always a good thing. :) it was good food, and it was fast Sunday. "Hunger makes the best sauce." :) 

That's about all the excitement there was for this week. We're working on getting better, so that this will be a good, busy week. I have my exit interview with President Huntsman tomorrow and it'll be my last district meeting! 

Toothless might fly through at any moment

31 August 2015

Friday was a normal planning and proselyting day, and then Saturday was a fun day. :D

We also helped with moving our ward to the new building. We brought stuff in, threw out magazines from the 1990s and early 2000s, and we helped clean out the cupboards where we were putting everything. There were things in those cupboards that had not been moved since the 60s...we also threw out a lot of that stuff because it had been chewed open and there were mouse homes in there...yeah, it was gross, but it's all clean now!

 

The new building is AWESOME!! There are skylights in the gym, which is in the bottom level, so there's natural lighting in there. The kitchen's next to the gym, with the young Women's rooms down there. On the upper level is everything else, but what's cool is that down the hall of the bishop's office, there's a wooden panel on the wall that when you open it, you can see down into the gym! It's so cool! And the chapel is in an A shape with dark wood, so it looks like a Viking hall. One of our zone leaders said, "watch out! Toothless might fly through at any moment." :)

So, we helped with that, then we had correlation, and we went home and I took another shower, then we went out and proselyted, then when we came home for dinner, there was my flight itinerary. After all the excitement and food, we went to stake conference. It was good! We learned about teaching the gospel to the family and that we need to keep the Sabbath day more holy.

Sunday was also Stake Conference. It was also good, and basically a further in-depth study if what we learned on Saturday.

Today, we just got back from our zone activity. It was good. We did some minute-to-win-it kind of games. Like you have skittles and a straw, and whoever can transfer the most Skittles from one bowl to the other in a minute wins. Another one is you put Vaseline on your nose and then, without using your hands, move as many cotton balls from one bowl to the other in a minute. Another one is how fast can you get all the tissues out of a tissue box with one hand? Or how fast can you move an Oreo from your forehead to your mouth using only your face muscles? Things like that. It was fun to watch, more than anything!

New ward and baptism

24 August 2015

This week was a little bit more sedate...just a little. :) We had zone conference on Tuesday. We talked about working with members a lot, how to help them know what to say,  how to ask them for what we need, investigator-wise. It was good. Writing about it, it sounds a little weird, because I realize I'm writing to members..but anyway. Afterward, we went to the mission office and I saw all the departure information on the desk of one of the senior sisters, so I know it's coming, I just don't know when.

Saturday, we had a ward sports activity. It was really fun. We played volleyball for an hour and a half, and then they played soccer for another hour (hna. Tate and I just watched.) It was so exhausting, but fun. That morning, we had done a hard-core workout video, and then we played volleyball...Yesterday, I was sore all over, from my neck to my feet. I really got to get into shape!  :) But it was fun. One game we did was the youth against the missionaries, all 8 of us. So two of us rotated out as we went, and the youth were supposed to rotate out, too, but I think they didn't know that, because there were 11 people on their side..but it was so much fun. One of the companionships of elders has really great companionship unity-one elder would set it and the other would spike it. They did it about 5 times in a row. It was really cool to watch. :)

Also last night we had a baptism! Yay! The lady we baptized had been investigating the church for almost a year, and because she works every single Sunday, she can never come to church. Even if she asks for it off, the one manager will put her back on. She's tried to get it off multiple times, the missionaries have gone and asked for it off for her, some of the members of the ward have gone and asked, and nothing. She still has to work Sundays. So, with special permission, she got baptized and confirmed last night, with the promise that if she continues faithful as much as she can, reading and so on, then she will be able to come to church one day. It was a great baptism, a very beautiful experience. 

During/after we have stake conference next week, the Tysons ward will be organized, and the Bella Vista ward will meet in a different building! Whoo! This also means that there will be missionaries called to the Tysons ward, so that will be exciting, but it's not really going to affect the Spanish program. 

Today, we had decided to go to D.C. Before we left, we stopped at the library to download our emails. A man there starts talking to us, we engage in a good conversation, and it turns out he's a less-active! He told us his story of how he joined the church, and he said, "Now you're making me excited! I would love the Elders to come by and give me another Book of Mormon, because I lost the other one I had."  OK! For sure! We'll send them over as soon as possible! :) It was awesome.

So, we went to D.C.  and saw the holocaust museum and the air and space museum. It's really cool. All about rockets and navigation, etc. I learned something really cool about longitude how it deals with time. Something like, if you sail for 24 hours west, you move 15 degrees from where you where. Because the earth rotates once in a day--or 360 degrees in 24 hours. 360 divided by 24 is 15. I don't quite get it, but that's what the video sailor captain said, and I figure he knows what he's talking about, so I guess I'll believe him. :) It's given me more drive, though, to learn more about sailing and astronomy and things like that.

Arlington Cemetery

17 August 2015

 The guard and the lieutenant and the new guard presenting arms.

 The carriage pulling a casket. We're pretty sure it was empty. :)

And this is the lieutenant checking the new guard's rifle, making sure it's up to snuff. You have to look into the fuzzier part. Sorry! But It made me really happy because it was like he was doing a few color guard spins. :)

So, this week, we went to the temple visitors center on Tuesday with an investigator who's getting baptized this Sunday and a member. The investigator loved it! We saw a cute little video about family. 

Then, Wednesday, we had district meeting and appointments-we were running around crazy. Por todos lados, as they say in Spanish. 

Thursday, I have no idea what happened with Thursday. We were visiting places, trying to find people to teach. 

Then Friday was weekly planning, and by the end of it, Hna. Tate had a migraine! (But not from planning. :)) so, we went to the two appointments that we had, and then came home so she could sleep it off. 

Then Saturday was correlation, and afterward, they asked us to help set up for an open house that evening. We got almost everything set up, and then there was a problem--the couple was stuck in Las Vegas! There were no flights coming in or going out of the D.C. Area, including Baltimore, the two airports here in Virginia, so they weren't going to be there, so we said, "why keep setting it up? They're not even going to be here!" There was a big debate about it, but in the end, we decided to take it all down, fridge the food, and do a smaller dinner-like thing on Sunday. So we took it all down. That was an evening also where we had a hard time finding people to teach.

Sunday, after the last English ward got out, we told the deacons to not take down the chairs in the gym, and we reset everything up, ate, and then dashed off to a charlafogonera (fireside), where I was playing piano. But! I had told them the wrong number for the opening hymn, because it's different between the Spanish and English hymn books. I meant for us to sing, "La Alba ya Rompe" (the day-dawn is breaking, #52 in the English) and instead we sang "Guíame a Ti" (Guide Me to Thee, #52 in the Spanish). I was so embarrassed. We couldn't change the hymn because there weren't any Spanish hymn books, the words were already printed on the back of the programs. So everyone learned a new hymn last night. It all worked out. It's fine.

So today, we went to Arlington Cemetery and saw the changing of the guards by the monument to the unknown soldiers. It was really neat to see. But it was really hot-sweat was running down my back. I felt bad for the soldiers. But, they're only there for an hour, and the ceremony takes like 15 minutes, so by the time it's over, they're only there for 45 minutes, so they're probably fine. 

The cemetery is HUGE! I had no idea it was that big. It has 400,000 gravestones there. All of them military people. Chaplains, médicos (what's that word in English?), lieutenants, colonels, etc. It was really cool. We also saw a horse-drawn casket! We're pretty sure it's empty, though. :) 

Then after the cemetery, we did our grocery shopping and came to write. We'll be heading out pretty soon to go wash our car for zone conference tomorrow and do our laundry. Hopefully there will be some time for a nap somewhere in there...

The Nationals won

10 August 2015

The temple here was pretty busy the day that we went on the temple trip. There were 4 groups of departing missionaries (including us), and in the time we were there, there were 5 weddings (which I thought was a lot, but then I found out there was going to be 27 the next day) and it was just busy, busy, busy! 

On Tuesday, we had Spanish Forum, and I learned a lot about finding joy in the mission, proselyting online, and working with members. It was funny because when president Burton spoke to us, he began by asking us what we learned today. And he approached one elder and he said, "Elder, what did you learn today? Stand up and tell us." And with one hand, grabbed him by the lapels and pulled him up on his feet. President Burton's funny. But he's great.

Wednesday was normal, then Thursday was transfers, Friday was the temple trip, Saturday was a stake missionary breakfast, where all the missionaries in the stake had breakfast with the Stake Presidency. It was good. There was food I could eat, so don't worry. :) then we had correlation right after, and that night there was the baseball game! We went to Red Robin right before with a member and she offered us a ride to the game because she was going, too! We we're so grateful because the Metro would have been packed like sardines in a can, and then it turned out that the line we would have taken home had been shut down, so that was a blessing! The Nationals won, if you were wondering. 6-1. It was a good game. We got home at 11:30 and went straight to bed.

Then church yesterday (it was so nice to have investigators at church!) and we had a nice long nap and dinner and then we went out to work.

I'm so grateful today is preparation day! It was a crazy week. Now the dust is settling and it's nice to rest a little. 

I've decided I'm never going to ask a missionary how much time they have or how much time they have left because when I went to the temple with the other sister missionaries, one of them was talking about the night before when her companion told a member, "yeah, my companion has 6 weeks left." The Sister said, "I could just see the member shut me out, as if I didn't matter because I was going home soon." And I thought it was so sad! So, I've decided not to ask about a missionary's time, so they can feel better about their service and that they can feel like they actually matter. 

93 degree, humid weather

3 August 2015

I'm at an Hermanas activity right now. I'm playing volleyball in the 93 degree, humid weather! :D it's ok. I'm almost used to it. The humidity, I mean. :)

Yesterday, we were in the Primary (I was playing piano). But we had forgotten that we had agreed to help in Relief Society! So, Hna. Peabody rushed over to help, and I stayed at my station on the bench. It all worked out.

The mosquitos continue to bite us. But it's ok. We'll live. :)

We had dinner on Saturday in a restaurant where a member works, and he said, "Hermanas, I'm so happy you came to visit me!" He was really cute about it. He's one of the ward missionaries.

Eventful week

 I drew this in personal study yesterday, trying to grasp more about

the plan of Salvation. My drawing skills still aren't the best in the

world...:)

Sister Frei and I at the Washington DC temple!

The temple was wonderful!

This week was eventful! We met a lot of people and taught a good amount of lessons. Our area is HUGE! We cover the Oakton Stake and half of the Ashburn Stake. City-wise, we cover Herndon, Reston, Sterling, Ashburn, and a corner of Chantilly and a corner of Great Falls. Sometimes we go into Leesburg if we have a member or an investigator up there. 

Investigator-wise, we had three who were really progressing who are just simply hard to get ahold of, so we can't teach them well, and they don't come to church, so they're not progressing as fast as they could...it's frustrating.

There was a baptism in Old Town that I went to on Saturday. It was two kids I had been teaching before I left, and the mom didn't want to give them permission before, but one day, she just had idea to give them permission, and now they're baptized! I was so happy! 

I had my first lesson with an older Hispanic who has Alzheimer's. She's so cute. She kept introducing her son to us and asking where the church was. It was cute. 

I made pancakes the other day, but I burned them and set off the smoke alarm! It was so sad, but funny, too. :) The alarm also went off when I burnt my bacon, too. Smoke alarms and I just don't get along, I guess. :) maybe I just need to refine my cooking skills. 

Other than that, there's nothing really new. Next week is going to be crazy, because we have an Hermanas activity on Monday, Spanish Forum on Tuesday, transfer meeting on Thursday, my temple trip on Friday, and the baseball game on Saturday. :) It'll be great.