Backstage

Backstage is crazy. It is the biggest mess I have ever experienced. Everyone is running around trying to get ready on time, helping each other with makeup and costumes and trying to be calm. There is lots of practicing and planning for fast costume changes. But it's also super fun. It is a chance to bond in a new way and to spend time together. It's a way to become closer like you've never experienced before.

My week was like that. Essentially, SERIOUSLY CRAZY. No joke. I say every week is crazy. I have never had a crazier, busier week. 

So there was a big meeting on Thursday for mission leaders, and since Sister Thompson is a leader, she had to go to that. She was also doing a training with anther STL, so they had to meet to plan it. Thankfully, that Hermana is in the Spanish equivalent of our area, so we just met at the church building. We were there for two days for a couple hours each time. But one day at the end of the meeting, the Hermanas went to the bathroom while we left. They called us minutes later saying they had smelled drugs in the building and had freaked out. We called priesthood and went to investigate the building. The building coordinator taught us how to search the building. He knew how because there had been a squatter living in the building years ago and he helped the cops find him. I learned so much that day.

Then we had training for the booth that our stake bought for the County Fair. Those are a big deal in Texas by the way. The booth is all about family history and we had to learn how to use familysearch.com and interest people in family history. I'm super excited now. I've been doing a lot of my own family history.

Then we got to Saturday. I've never had a crazier day. Well, I have, but not on my mission. First we had Super Saturday. That was so much fun. One Less Active brought three non-members, and also had crafts for us to work on. We had a good chat with them while we mod-podged and decorated. Then we stayed after to clean the church because the members in charge that week were also moving that day. 

We next went to help them move. I love when the ward comes together for moving people. There is so much unity and efficiency. And that evening was Women's Conference. I hope everyone (at least the females) has seen that. It was an incredible, spiritual experience. I loved the theme of temples, and of covenant making. And I loved the commandments analogy with the marbles. I'll be using that to teach obedience and commandments in the future.

So I'll just quickly give an update on investigators. D is our most promising investigator. He wants to be baptized so bad, so he can receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. He wants that in his life. He's encountered opposition from the only family he was close to though. He wants their support, but he want's to be baptized regardless. The member we had with us was so perfect. She too had opposition from her family and bad family relationships. She and D understand each other, and that's really what he needed. 

The Diaz family (L,N&A) still haven't progressed. But they just had a death in the family, so that's understandable. We've been able to go over and help them feel loved. Right now, that's really what they need.

And we were finally able to get in contact with N and his mom, Cindi. Cindi has been going through huge financial stresses lately. Her job, her car, her rent, everything has just been crashing down on her. It's been super hard. But Heavenly Father knows everything. The lesson we taught was the one we prepared, no joke, two weeks ago. It was on tithing. 

This week was incredible, and crazy. But I love it. Like I said, it's like being backstage. You run around frantic because you feel like you don't have enough time, but you have so much fun doing it, and you bond so much. I've loved this week. 

Fundamentals

In ballet, or any dance form really, the fundamental moves and exercises are building blocks. For a long time, you'll wonder why you have to do them, because you feel they are worthless, but then you'll come to find out that they really prepared you to do some thing awesome and hard. For example, long balances that seem so pointless really help when learning how to turn, so we can turn longer. Cool, huh?

So this week I totally learned that some of the harder and pointless-seeming things I'd been doing for the past few weeks have been preparing Sister Thompson and I for the awesome stuff. 

So we met this guy named D. He was actually a member referral. We've taught him twice now with that member. D is totally awesome. But he has never been to any church, has no idea what scriptures, prophets, prayer or priesthood is, knows nothing about any of the Godhead, but has concluded recently that God does exist. But in those two times we've taught him, he's felt the Spirit to the extent that when we invited him to be baptized, he accepted. We're going to commit him to an actual date tonight, because we had not been planning to invite him to be baptized in that lesson. It was an incredible experience. 

We were planning a youth FHE for H, who is 14, but she ended up being a no show after the FHE had started. But it turns out that the FHE was really for Luke. He's 17 and considering serving a mission. I mean, it also helped the other five youth there, but I really think the experience was for him. We had an awesome interactive lesson on prophets and he answered a lot of the questions. It was so awesome!

And then it was super awesome because yesterday we had a Fireside on Prophets. President Ashton was actually the speaker and he had a super incredible conversation with Luke. He called us after to let us know what they had talked about so we could follow up. Luke would be such an incredible missionary. He just loves the gospel so much. 

And we had a perfect opportunity this week to show a less active and investigator how much we love them. H has just started high school and she is on Color Guard. That's the flag people at football games. Apparently Utah and Texas are even more different than I realized. They wear army uniforms and some of them twirl rifles. It's so weird. So I went to my first Texas football game to support her. It was so crazy. Just...wow.

But I didn't even realize that this whole time, there have been little moments that prepared us for the bigger ones. Talking to Luke about serving, or planning the FHE, teaching tons of little kids to create object lessons for D.. Basically, I'm watching Alma 37:6-7 happen before my very eyes. And just like learning and practicing the basics and dance, the Lord has been preparing without me even realizing it.

Contemporary

Ballet and Contemporary dancing are basically opposites. Ballet is based on set movement with names and rules. It is about lines and form. Contemporary is modern, it doesn't have rules or even conventions. It is whatever you want it to be. The two forms don't see eye to eye, but dancers who challenge themselves, and are able to do both, are stronger.

note from mom:  At least I got this posted a day after her email. I mentioned to her that her readers are hungry for news of her mission, so she has provided!

Ballet in this analogy would be a normal week. We teach, we find people, all that fun stuff.

This week was definitely contemporary.

It was full of new experiences and crazy situations. It was hard, but I got to be creative and challenge myself. And have fun too, that's always a bonus.

Here are some crazy things that happened this week:

1) It was Christmas in September

To start off, I completely forgot about 9/11. No joke, all day I was wondering why the flags were all at half mast. Isn't that so sad? The days don't stay separate anymore, even with a daily planner. It is has been super unusually cold this week. I don't know if it was the rain or what. It has been humid mid-70's all week. Normally that's beautiful weather. I'm so used to burning heat now that I've been wearing sweaters. Double sad

Then Sister Thompson and I were decorating for fall (we have a package of autumn leaves) and somehow that made us feel Christmasy. So we've been listening to Christmas music. Yes, we are very strange people.

2) Tons of out of normal things happened. I'll just list and describe why they were unusual:

- We were given a free meal. That in and of itself isn't so strange. People here love to feed the Sisters. But we went to the Jay Cafe when our dinner appointment cancelled on Tuesday, and they ended up giving us our meal free. Helps when the owners are members I guess.

- A inactive member we've been working with came to church. Sister Thompson has been working with him since April.

- After almost a month of no contact, R showed up at church. He's blind and he walked. That was definitely a miracle!

- There was a Emergency Preparedness fair. I actually learned a ton. They had booths about alternative cooking, hurricane preparedness (Not applicable in UT), and canning. The fire department also came. The kids got to play in the fire truck. If anyone wants info on canning/alternative cooking methods, write to me, I'm sure I can get you the information.

-District Meeting. That wasn't so abnormal, but I gave a study for the first time. I ended up bribing my district with candy. Not really. It was an object lesson, but they still got candy.

-We stayed up almost an hour one night singing sound of music. It was so much fun.

 3) Members randomly and awesomely started being missionaries.

No joke, it is so awesome. If you want to make the missionaries in your area happy, give them referrals! Or go out teaching! 

The young women activity this week was to go find the inactive girls, and they invited us to come along. They made it a point to visit all of them and invite them to come back. They are reaching out and it was so awesome. 

Two different families have started being fellowshippers. They invite our investigators over to their houses for dinner or lessons and be their friends. It helps people progress so much.

One 16 year old boy decided he wants his Jewish Grandmother (who already comes to church and bears her testimony of the truth of the Gospel but won't get baptized because she can't accept Jesus Christ is the Messiah) to have the missionary discussions. She is absolutely ready to get baptized but in the past she was totally against lessons. 

He was sneaky and told her he wanted to practice for his mission on her. It worked. And it was one the best lessons I've had yet. No joke. She is so ready. She knows it's all true, and she knows Jesus is the Christ. She just doesn't want to accept it. Grr. Pray for her please. I know she's ready.

See? Contemporary week. I love it, it was quite an adventure. But missions always are. But in all the craziness, we still have to remember why we are here, to find the pointe. Go look it up. Preach My Gospel pg 1. That's our purpose. It's why I'm here.

Releves

note from mom: sorry this is late, busy week!

Relevés are essential in ballet. They are simply the movement of rising up onto the ball of the foot, or if en pointe, the toes. Most of ballet is done in this elevated position, and therefore, muscles have to be capable of maintaining this position for long periods of time, or getting there repeatedly. So you practice. You practice many in a short period of time, and many drawn out in longer movements. Sometimes they are part of larger movements. But however necessary relevés are, they are boring to practice. Sometimes they are painful or exhausting. But much can be learned from them as you endure and learn to enjoy.

Basically, this week was like Relevés. Boring and difficult. Well, no, not really. Nothing is boring in the life of a missionary. There has been lots going on and tons of crazy little stories. But nothing big and monumental.

Actually, zone meeting was pretty big. I love zone meeting. I love my zone. The Vietnamese Elders were on a sugar rush or something, because they could not focus very well. They were so funny to listen to. And we had a ton of missionaries fresh out of the MTC. I remember so well how they must have been feeling. They handled it well though. Zone meeting is like the fun relevés that are part of turn sequences or arabesques.

We've been having a hard time finding this week. Those are some of the hard relevés. I'm still not very comfortable OYM-ing. It takes a lot of effort for me to ask inspired questions. 

I've also been eaten alive this past week. Mosquitoes love me, and I don't love them. Those are one legged relevés. Those hurt. My legs itch. Each bite swells up to at least quarter size. Welcome to Texas. I'm gaining a lot of self control.

There have been so many miracles this week though. Don't get me wrong. Even if a week has been boring or hard, it is never bad. There is never any reason to hate relevés, because there are always results. The Lord is blessing this work. We are saving souls. The field is white, already to harvest. I'm not kidding, it really is. 

Act II

Acts are super important in Ballets. Every Ballet has at least two acts. They keep the plot progressing, but the change of acts allows for change in time periods, scenery and if necessary, cast. Acts are so important because they also help keep the audience interested. It makes the time fluid and logical.

A mission is also comprised of acts. They happen every six weeks and are called transfers. The things about acts in a ballet is that they are the opportunity for change, but changes may not always happen. Transfers don't always change either. This time, there was no change, EXCEPT that I am now companions with a Senior Sister Training Leader. Sister Thompson spends a lot of time on the phone now. But that's ok.

I don't know what it was about the new transfer, but so much happened. Quickly, I'll summarize all that has happened.

Spiritual lessons: the Diaz family has been progressing so much! All because of a family who invites them over for lessons where they can actually feel the Spirit. The dynamics of that family are changing so much! Friday night into Saturday, Sister Thompson and I received a commitment from our ZL to pray about a former investigator getting baptized the next day. 2 hour prayer. Well, no not really. But the several prayers and discussions took 2 hours total. The answer we got: NO. But that's ok. It built our faith and helped us bond.

Trust in the Lord: Our toilet overflowed. Seriously overflowed. Like, the entire floor was covered. I didn't know that instructions on how to fix a toilet could come through prayer, but it did. I guess if Nephi can be told how to build a boat, instructions to flush and plunge are pretty simple. 

So yeah. This is the start of Act II of my mission. I don't know where the plot will go yet, but I'm excited to see.