11.23.15
Hey Y'all!
We had a great week this past week in Christiansburg, VA!
Learned lots, went on 2 exchanges, volunteered at a Christmas clothing store,
and one of our friends came up to us in church on Sunday and said that he was
going to get baptized on Saturday! Yes you read that last little bit right, we
have been teaching this guy for about a month and told us that he was ready to
get baptized 2 days after Thanksgiving! Let the preparations begin! Now I
thought last week was crazy, this week starting today, we had 4 lessons
scheduled and usually we only proselyte 3 hours on P-day, tomorrow we have to
go to Charleston, WV for a meeting and get home in time for one lesson. Then
Wednesday is going to be our almost normal day, Thursday as we all know is
going to be crazy because it's Thanksgiving, Friday we have a zone meeting
where we have to teach a couple handful of missionaries and then Saturday we
have a baptism. So sneak peek for what next email is going to consist of... the
life of a missionary is CRAZY! haha
So this past week we have been trying to help one of the
people that we are teaching quit smoking so last Monday when we went over we
asked him what was holding him back from quitting and what could we do to help.
He mentioned that he had one cigarette every morning around 5 or 530 and that
was the one that he was having the hardest time breaking so I told him that we
would call him every morning at 5 and we did and he had not smoked since then!
getting up that early was not easy but when people succeed like that it makes
it ALLLL worth it!
Sunday the one friend of ours that is getting baptized this
weekend came to church for the 5th time in a row and we were going to push his
baptism back a few weeks because we were not sure if he was understanding the
doctrine but he came up to us at the end of church and he told us that he
really wanted to be baptized this Saturday and he said that he was willing to
do whatever it took. We went over that night and finished teaching all the
commandments and explained to him that we would see him everyday this week. We
met him at the end of October and he had been studying before we even met him
and went over the baptismal interview questions with him and he is super
excited for this weekend!
Hard things really are possible! So our friend that got
baptized in September had surgery, like life or death, a week and a half ago
and the Sunday after she had it she was in a lot of pain so she didn't come to
church. We went over on Friday to check on her and she was doing better and was
trying to not take any pain killers, She is crazy and is way tougher then she
needs to be, but she asked us to call the elders in our area to give her a
blessing and they went over later that night. Then when we went to church
Sunday We had planned to go over to her house after church to see how she was
doing and she was at church because she did not want to miss taking the
sacrament. She is amazing!! Hard things are possible when we keep in mind what
really matters!
So we went to a fireside on Saturday that was all about
Family History and we had one of our friends there with us that we have been
teaching for about 2 months and it was really cool to see the spirit of Elijah
work on her. She struggles believing that Jesus Christ is more than a prophet
and has a hard time with the basics. But when she was there she felt the spirit
and got really excited to do more of her family history. On my mission I have
really under estimated the power that it family history has when teaching people
about the restored gospel. She is progressing and Hopefully we will get her to
church in the next few Sundays.
Those exchanges we went on this week were really cool. The
first one I left my area and in the other sisters area we were able to find
like 4 new people that were interested in learning more and also had dinner
with their bishop which was super fun!! Then the second exchange I stayed in
the area and a brand new missionary came into our area, she has only been in
her area for 2 weeks. Before the exchanges we always ask the sisters to come up
with something they would like us to study for them and then in return ask them
to study something for us. I asked both the sisters I work with to study hope
in missionary work. The new sister asked me to study confidence for her and as
I did that I realized that it has everything to do with hope. Hope is an
abiding trust in the Lord, that he will keep his promises. Hope is sure when it
is referring to the gospel. Hoping for the weather to be good is a different
kind of hope because there is uncertainty there. Confidence is trusting in
ourselves and not worrying what is to come. Having faith that the things that
we mess up will be taken care of by the Lord if we are trying our hardest!:)
Funny story from this week! Sunday night (last night) we
went home and I was not driving because I had a pretty bad headache and I was
moving pretty slowly and my companion had already gotten out of the car. So as
I go to pick up my bag that lied at my feet I hear this super scream and look
up and open my door really fast to see what had happened to my companion and I
saw her stop dead in her tracks and start running toward my side of the car.
"did you see that??? There is something under our porch!" I about
died laughing. She said she thought it was a dog and I told her that it was
probably a skunk just joking around. I sat there for another minute trying to
get myself together and then as soon as I stood up to walk toward our house,
low and behold a skunk walked out from under our porch... What the?!?!? My
companion ran toward the door and was having a hard time unlocking it after
that, pretty funny.
Funny story #2 from earlier in the week. So on Thursday
night we had correlation and so there is a member that lives in town houses and
then another member that also lives in town houses, the house that we were
going to and the second members house has no parking and their house is down
the hill from the first members house who we parked at. So Sister Kelly and I
were walking to correlation, laughing and joking about something and all the
sudden I stepped in a hole and slide halfway down this hill. My companion looks
back and run back as I sit on the grass looking like I was trying to slide down
the hill, needless to say it was dark and not much light from the street and we
were trying to see with our phone light that is not very bright. She was sure
that I was not going to be able to get up but I got up, limped down the hill a
little and then during correlation we were not able to keep it together because
we were laughing under our breath half the time haha.
I hope you all have a wonderful gratitude filled week! Thank
you all for who you are! Thank you for the examples you are to me and keep up
the great work!
Love Sister Mauck
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