2 Corinthians 4:5

For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Week 1 of Transfer 3! (It's so much easier to keep track of the weeks this way!)

Hey y'all!

Sorry, there was no big email last week. Needless to say, transfer week is freaking INSANE, so I was just glad I got a quick note off at all!

I am truly blessed---I had an amazing trainer, and now I have an awesome follow-up trainer! And now, I have a cool nickname---"The Assassin." See, I "killed" Sister Dansie, and now I'm "killing" Sister Pennock. I just feel lucky because I get to glean as much wisdom as I can from these awesome women! (That's still weird to me, calling girls my age 'women'...yup, I still think of myself as a girl. I'm not that mature yet!)

Sister Pennock and I are going to have a really fun transfer. She is very smart, and she's an artist! She said that if I wanted, she'd paint something for me, which, if you ask me, is freaking sweet! :) I would be lying, however, if I said I didn't miss Sister Dansie. And it's totally okay, because Sister Pennock served with her too, so she understands, and she misses her too. However, she's probably more optimistic about it, because seriously---she'll be home in five weeks, and can go visit Sharon. (THAT'S SO WEIRD!!! It's Sharon, not Sister Dansie! AAAAHHH!!!) ;)

Transfer day (Wednesday) was a VERY long day...probably the longest I have yet experienced here on my mission. Sister Pennock was coming down from DeRidder, so she wasn't going to get there until 5 or 6 that night. And since Sister Dansie was leaving, we had to be there at 6:30 that morning. Plus, I'd stayed up with Sister Dansie that night. I told her I was there to help her; mostly I just talked with her a bit, and cleaned the apartment, and helped her get stuff down to the car. In the end, she stayed up all night, and I got an hour nap. It was pretty crazy, to say the least. And then, once we were at the church, she left and returned three or four times. We were not sure which time would be the last one I saw her, so I spent most of the day either in tears, or fighting back tears. I'm such a girl, I know! :) So add emotional stress on top of everything else, and I'm pretty sure I had every elder in the building nervous to be around me. Ha ha ha. To their everlasting credit, they were all very sweet, and kept asking if I was okay...which of course made me cry harder and made them feel even more uncomfortable. Go figure, huh? :) Big Elder Jones (not office Jones) told me that he wished he could give me a hug, and gave me a "hand hug." That made me laugh. A hand hug is this: hold your hand out like you're going to give someone a high five. Then, instead of slapping hands together, you keep them touching, and fold your thumb around the other person's hand, while they do the same. It was pretty funny. And Office Elder Jones gave me a "man" hug---you know, where you grab hands, pull in, and bump shoulders---and that made me smile too...though mostly cry in that case. :) I was an emotional basketcase...oh well. I'll get to do it all over again in five weeks, when Sister Pennock leaves. Hooray. (Yes, I can even type sarcasm.)

And even though Elder Jones is now gone, I still get to talk with my good buddy Elder Jamsa a bunch---he's our district leader now! Yup, that's right; on top of all his crazy duties and responsibilities as senior companion, fleet manager, and office elder in general, now he has to worry about two crazy sisters. Poor guy. We promised we'd try and keep his worries (about us, at least) to a minimum. He said he'd appreciate that. :)

This week has been a rough one. Of course, all weeks that include transfers are a little crazy, so it wasn't totally unexpected. We've just had a plethura of problems getting a hold of our investigators, and our recent converts. It's a little frustrating at times, but I just keep reminding myself of Sister Dansie's motto---It's All Good. To give them credit, our investigators have (for the most part) all had legit reasons to keep them busy. It definitely could be worse, and since it isn't, I am counting my blessings. We did get to pick up a new investigator, which was cool. Her name is Blaire McCracken, and she's got two little girls, Grace and Eve. They are a handful, that's for sure! But in spite of them running around all over the place and being typical kids, Blaire listened to our message, and said she'd like to learn more. So there you have it---as long as we do our part, the Holy Ghost picks up the slack!

No other real exciting news to report for this last week. But never fear---next week's letter will be full of fun stuff to tell you! I love you all, the Church is true, and God ROCKS! :)

Love,
Sister Pedersen

No comments: