I just can't believe it. Last P-day!? Never thought I would make it here, especially near the beginning of my mission. It just seemed so far away and I couldn't fathom doing it for 18 months. Surely something crazy would happen where I couldn't finish, but nope. Here I am. It just took a lot of sitting down after being utterly overwhelmed and thinking....all I have to do right now is....
Yesterday was my last day at church in Lamar and my last time seeing a lot of people, but instead of leaving in tears, I left blushing...this is why:
After the lesson in Relief Society, the lady conducting stood up and announced transfers were this week and I would be going home. Well, another lady who was sitting in the back (she goes to the ward about half the time, because they just bought a giant property in Coolidge and her single son (Kent) and married daughter moved here, but she still lives in Arizona) looks over and was like it's your last week! Can I give you Kent's number? I was like oh my gosh and all the ladies giggled. Then we said the closing prayer.
Well, she came up to me afterwards and I thought she was going to apologize about embarrassing me in front of everyone...nope...she handed me a paper with Kent's number on it and was like I kept telling him to give it to you, but he kept saying no we had to wait till it was closer to the end for you.
For the record Kent is a guy my parents would probably term 'a nice boy'. This whole situation now explains some things in the past such as why Kent drove an hour each way just to be in our nerf war at the church. And at the nerf war he asked me questions such as do you like it in Oregon or here better and are you coming back to Lamar to visit. The real reason I went on a mission? So I won't have to talk to boys. It didn't work. I knew I should just been a nun!!
We did have a less active that we have been working with since I got here come to church for the first time since April! It was good. Nothing much else exciting happened. The elders let us borrow the car AND it had a full tank of gas! I almost died of shock- nothing short of a miracle.
I keep getting less and less sleep, no idea why because I feel like I should be getting less stressed, but I guess not so. Last night I couldn't go to sleep till about 11:30 and I woke up at 5 and gave up trying to go back to sleep at 5:45.
So probs what'll happen the rest of this week is I will leave Tuesday evening to either Garden or Dodge. Then weds we will drive to Wichita, watch a world wide mission broadcast that is coincidentally happening that morning, then transfer devotional where I'll say my departing testimony, then at some point my departing interview with president, then Thursday I high tail it home.
Well it's been fun! I can't even begin to describe everything I have learned out here. The importance of charity. What it means to have a prayer in your heart. How to repent. How to develop Christlike attributes. How to read the Book of Mormon. How to not punch your district leader when he keeps distracting you while writing your blog.
Guys, the church is true! This is Christ's church on the earth. We will finding lasting happiness as we draw near to Him and honestly seek out His will for us. I know, with everything I am, that He loves each one of us. He truly is our Heavenly Father and Christ is our Savior.
See y'all on the flip side!
Pics:
Melanie and me!
Volunteering at healthy places, fixing up bikes with kids.
Getting an iPad set up to take a video of the second nerf war...elder
style and my last pancake. :(
Lacey is doing awesome! But there's this thing (something that I'm banking on for when I get back home....lol jk) where after you go through this refiners fire of a process and the light of Christ envelopes you, you become naturally attractive and therefore her ex-boyfriend came back into the picture. We were devastated at first, but he seems to be respecting her standards. He also is interested himself and we have taught him a couple lessons and he enjoyed church yesterday. So cool all the timing of everything. The elders met Lacey right when she broke up with him and I think she had to get solid in the gospel and now that she's a rock he can also be built up by it as well. #eternalfamiliesFTW
Let me tell you in two words what it's like getting close to the end of your mission. It sucks. Not to brag on how awesome of a missionary I am and look how spiritual of me not wanting my mission to end, but because there is so many emotions (excited, scared, sad, happy, relieved, anxious, depressed, nervous, etc.) that I just want to ignore the whole thing, or at least not talk about it. But then we had specialized training in Garden and naturally everyone that came up to talk to me before it started wanted to talk about me going home. I was also just feeling depressed, because I kind of have a hard companion. So I avoided people which led to me awkwardly standing by myself. My stellar district leader spotted me across the gym and bee lined it towards me with a threatening look of, if you don't lighten up I'm going to punch your face in. In a matter of two questions he got to the root of the problem and built me up from there. So inspired the people that you serve around and the timing of it all. I've learned so much from everyone, even though I feel like an old geezer more than ever.
Also, what it feels like to be close to the end is that you just left the side of someone who is in the midst of dying and you go outside and see the lives of people unaffected by the fact that there is someone dying. It's like HelllOo, my mission is coming to a close, why are we inviting people to be baptized after the 21st and doing all these trainings and crap! Anyways, enough of this trunkiness.
We are also teaching Lacey's sister and her family. She is super set on the fact that she will never quit weed, but I think after a few weeks of seeing her potential, we can help change that. Cool how the atonement can work sometimes.
We hiked two buttes last p-day. It's the highest point in our mission...which just goes to show how pathetically flat our mission is. Two buttes is 45 mins. South of Lamar and still very much so in our area. There's a member here who served in New Jersey and her mission is smaller than our area. It was super windy.
Another tidbit...
We beat the record for pancakes eaten in the Lamar district. Don't know if that really is something to be proud of, but we are. :D we hit 95. I personally ate 15.
We try to get a group together of members/investigators to do sports with us Saturday mornings and this last Saturday we had a good turn out to have an epic nerf gun fight.
LACEY GOT BAPTIZED!!! THE greatest miracle on my mission. The Lord really knows us and has the timing all right and He truly has the power to change our characters. She was in a really bad relationship when I met her two months ago and just not living a good life style and within weeks she has forsaken all of the bad. A couple days ago she was listing off all of these things that she has sacrificed for God and she said she just knows that she will get blessed, but now she just has to be patient and let Him work with her and her life. Her whole demeanor has just changed so much.
Yesterday we were riding in the car together and she asked if I will get a Facebook when I get back....yes...okay just don't get corrupted, there's a lot of bad stuff on it. It's okay though, your strong. I was about to tell her I had one before my mission too, but before my mission gay marriage was still illegal, it was illegal to smoke pot in my home state and Robin Williams was still alive. I think my recent convert just insulated me...(insulation lessons are lessons you give to investigators before they get baptized to warn them about ways the adversary will try to deviate them off course.)
We invited like everyone to the baptism and we had a good turn out. We had a little potluck afterwards and it was all fun. Lacey got the Holy Ghost on Sunday and that was also legit.
We also went on my last exchange with the STLs this week. Huzzah!
The Wednesday before the Thursday I go home we are having a world wide mission broadcast so that should be immensely exciting.
On Thursday, we borrowed the car from the elders and they left an upside down cup on the dash. Naturally my companion picked up the cup and we found a big hairy spider underneath. Screaming ensued and we called the elders and they were like oh how's Reggie doing? Well, it climbed into a vent and we had to go, so you can imagine the fear of when we had to go back in the car. :(
I forgot my journal so I kinda forgot what else happened this week.
Thanks for the prayers! Here's some pics.
