Monday, July 1, 2013

YOLO

Darling Family,
HI!! All is well by the news that trickled in!
This week was one of those weeks that shows me that missionary work is not only the greatest work ever...But it's also FUN TOO! Seriously, Sister Scott and I had way too many chances to giggle this past week. It was a blast.

Sister Scott has taken it upon herself to fill me in, occasionally, on some key phrases that I should know when I go home.  This past week was "YOLO". (For those of you who don’t know...YOLO means “You Only Live Once”. It’s kinda like Carpe Diem) She said it...I looked at her like she was strange... She said it again... still strange look... and she just shook her head while mumbling "wow, you are old".  Haha

Some other fun adventures with Sister Scott this past week, took place yesterday.  With our busy schedules, we tend to forget to schedule in meal times... and the meal times that we do have are with members and they feed you so much food that it makes you not want to have any other meal for the day! When we go shopping every p-day, we tend to get nothing more than what is needed to survive at breakfast time, and for the past 7 weeks that has been perfect!! Well...Sunday night found us without an appointment... and without any food in the house... Well, no...that's not true. There was food. This is what we had to work with: 2 slices of bread.  Eggs. 1 lemon. and a little bit of baking goods. What did we have for dinner, you ask??? We had french toast, pancake like "biscuits" ((we didn't have enough of.. well everything.. so we just kinda winged it!)), and lemonade! It was a dinner for champions! Now we REALLY don't have ANY food in our house! haha Luckily we are going to Costco today! whoot.

Fun moment #3.  I am convinced we have the worlds coolest Ward Missionary Leader. EVER. He works for the Department of Defense in the US gov.  He is the one that signs off on any operations that go on in the military.  In his words "things that you never will know about and never should. And things that you will never know about and probably should".   That night we were supposed to have MCM, but it turned into a question and answer session! haha Though some of the answers were cut short with "that's classified" or "I can't officially say".  Needless to say it was the coolest entertainment we missionaries have had since reading Alma 52 this morning! Other highlights of the night were going to the meeting at his home on the 53 floor of the tallest and nice apartments in the area and seeing Haeundae at night! Yeah, I could wake up to those 180 views every morning.  This man in his 30's has a pretty interesting life!

On the other facets of missionary work, this week was really neat.  We were able to meet with our progressing investigator and had some pretty key lessons on the commandments this past week. The spirit was there as we sat by the beach talking and teaching of the Word of Wisdom and The Law of Chastity.  To contrast the eternal laws we were teaching, to the world around us at the time, was powerful.  She knew that she too wanted to change and luckily there isn't anything standing in her way for living them from that point on. We might have to push back her date because school and work makes meeting during the week hard, but every time we meet, I am amazed at her pure and humble heart.

This last week was lots of fun, but it wasn't without some tears. This past week we had a zone meeting... it was my last zone meeting as a missionary. There are still zone conferences (2 zones combined) but in this smaller setting the Zone Leader, Elder Gomez, and I gave our 'good bye' testimonies... It gave me a neat time to begin to reflect a little bit about what has happened and what has been learned over the past year and a half.  So many things really, it's hard to put into words.  But as I was thinking about it, I kept thinking about Stairs. In our mission, with the teachings of Sister Gilbert, we have talked a lot about Stairs. There are the steps of life, the steps of progression, of moving forward and going heavenward.  Each step takes our efforts in the pursuit of knowledge, understanding and intelligence, but we can never rise to the next step without the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Then, at the landing of the next step is the refiner’s fire. Think of it as a bucket, sitting there waiting for you to empty out whatever would be there keeping you from going through the same progress and rising again to the next level.

These steps are in each of our lives, yet we cannot and we are not meant to take them by ourselves. We need our companions, our leaders, our family, and our Savior. These steps have taken me closer to my purpose, closer to my call, closer to my Savior, and closer to who I am. People may ask me how I feel like I have changed while I have been on my mission, and my answer will simply be "I have become more ME". I am different then I was before, but I just feel more like me.  The Me that Heavenly Father created me to be.

I still have more steps to climb these last couple weeks and MANY more to climb after this time is over, but I know that with every step we take, we draw closer to Heaven and closer to Home!

I love you family!! Thank you for all that you have done!
Be safe, Be good, and Behave!!
kiss love hugs!!!

No comments:

Post a Comment