Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Firsts and Lasts

email 02 June 2015

This week has had a lot of ups and downs! 

This week started off with one of our investigators named Zack. He's AWESOME. He's from Indiana and he's amazing at guitar. So every time we have a lesson I bring my hymn book and I play my ukulele while he plays his guitar and we all sing together for the opening and closing hymn! It's so fun:) Well, we went with him to a rest home to sing to the residents there! It was so much fun but we had a crazy experience there! All the ladies were getting their nails done so they asked if we could go to the memory unit. We were like "Sure! They'll love it!" And I sing a lot of older jazz music so I was thinking maybe they'll enjoy that and remember it! Not so. We walk in and all the ladies have dementia. This one lady comes in and starts asking us, "Who authorized this and how long is it going to take?" We told her God authorized it. She didn't like that answer. Hahaha. Then this OTHER lady comes out starts yelling at us to get out of her house. The nurses were trying to calm her down and get her back to her room. But she wouldn't have it! She kept clapping her hands in our face to, "Get a move on"! And Sister Magsayo tried convincing her that we're all patients there. hahahah. She didn't like that either. So the nurses said, "Let's go get you ready for bed." So the lady said, "Okay", AND STARTED TAKING OFF HER SHIRT!!!!! Zack was just like looking around and freaking out and we were all nervously laughing. Hahaha. We had NO clue what to do! Finally they had us leave so she could go to bed. Then we went back in to sing. So we were singing and in the middle of the song she comes back out and starts yelling at the nurses! I was scared but then she went back in her room. But then she came out again.....WITH. HER. CANE!!! She was going after the nurse!!! So we all ran out of the room with the nurse. And the doors lock so they can't go out of the unit. So the lady pulled up a chair next to the door and sat there with her cane waiting for the nurse to come back in. It was soooo crazy. hahaha. Those are very patient people who work there. This was a first for me and I'm hoping it's a last, too!

As crazy as it was, that experience was an up to the week, haha. We've been trying so so so hard to find people this week. Finding isn't the most fun. But it can either be a huge Up or a huge Down. This week had a lot of both. We started off by getting a referral for some Elders in our mission. This teenager told them he wants to be baptized and he lives in our area!!! That is a GINORMOUS miracle!!! So we go and try to find his house and it literally does not exist!!! We spent 2 hours trying to find it. Nothing. We were thinking maybe it was just a phony referral. Sometimes people don't want to say no to the missionaries so they just give false information. The next day we went on splits with a sister from that ward and told her about it and SHE KNEW WHO HE WAS AND WHERE HE LIVED!!! Miraaaaacccllllleeeee. Well we get there and it turns out that he goes to church with his grandma who lives there. But he actually lives in inner-city Ogden. So we have to turn the referral over to the Elders where he lives. Even if he goes to church in our stake. So we are kinda bummed that we can't teach him. And we had just prayed for someone to teach in our area. It's taking a lot of faith for us to still see this as a miracle. Even if we don't reap the fruits of this miracle. We know the elders that will teach him are praying just as much as we are and are working just as hard to find people to teach. We know blessings and miracles are coming our way! But it's definitely been trying my faith. 

We've had a lot of leadership training this past week. It's been amazing and very needed! I love my calling as a STL (Sister Training Leader) but we're supposed to have our area as an example for them. And sometimes I ask myself, "How can I help them when my area isn't succeeding a lot?" But we had a training that really struck my heart. We were reading the story in Mark 6 when it talks about Christ feeding the 5,000 with the loaves and the fishes. We talked about how the apostles first asked if they should go buy something. Kind of sarcastically. Like, "Well, what do you want us to do? Go buy a million dollars worth of bread?" And Christ asked them how much they had. And then He took all they had and provided the rest. And that really struck me a lot. That all Christ is asking of me is to give it my all. To work my hardest. To provide what I have available. And then He will provide the miracle. When they shared that I really needed to hear it. It was right after we had found out that the boy wasn't in our area. I was feeling discouraged. And that was a direct answer to my prayers that I was doing what I needed to do. But Christ needs my efforts (or my loaves and fishes) to make the miracle happen. He couldn't have done it if they hadn't provided all that they had. And that's what I'm here to do! 

We also had our last interview with President Hiers this past week. It was a very very good interview!!! We had talked about how much I've changed on my mission. We were looking over the past 9 months together and he told me that I'm not the same person that came into the mission. I'm forever grateful to President Hiers for not letting me go home. Even at the times that I wanted to. It was a really spiritual experience having him tell me what he sees in me. And we talked about my future a little bit. In the near future, Sister Betzold and I are in charge of the next musical fireside! Boy, am I excited! We're already starting to throw around ideas for a theme. I don't know if we can beat the last one. But we'll try! 

Like I said, this past week has been a roller coaster. But I'm so grateful for this opportunity to lean even more on my Savior. My chin is up! And miracles are in the near future! I can feel it in my bones! ;) 

Love y'all! 
Sister Sarlls 





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