Milagres

11/26/12

Milagres

Did you eat the piece of pumpkin pie?

You better have.

Well helloooooooooo familia! It’s been a wonderful week. Hard, but wonderful.

Primeira, Our Thanksgiving celebration was the most legit thing ever. Irma Patterson made turkey legs that were enormous and we had pretty much everything but the stuffing. And pumpkin pie. But we had so much fun and it was definitely what we’ve needed as a district. Irma Patterson and I basically just talked the entire day and got to spend time together so it was really great. It was also Elder Herycz's birthday so we had cake for him and everything. That kid is spoiled. Well, ok, both of our Elders are spoiled because they have a district of four Irma’s. They get way more baked goods than they deserve at meetings. But after our Thanksgiving celebration we had all been invited to a member’s house for dinner and they also had cake for Elder Herycz ha-ha so we ate a lot that day. It was really nice to feel a little bit like home for this time of year and we’ve been listening to a bunch of Christmas music too.

Segunda, We had interviews with President Fluckiger. It was.... interesting. It was hard medicine that I definitely needed. I got put into my place and then some. But, I really needed it. I didn’t realize how discouraged I’d gotten because of the work and my physical therapy but it’s had a really big impact on me, my companion, and the work here. So we talked for a while and at the beginning he was not very happy with me. And then some things were said and then he felt really bad for me (I think) because he just kind of looked at me FOREVER and then asked, "Sister Dean, Would you like me to give you a blessing?" I was kind of like, “Uh... Yes President, that would be wonderful.” Even though, in my head I was like, “Why in the world did he feel prompted to ask me that?” Then he talked a lot about his responsibility as our leader but mostly as a priesthood holder in general and said, "You know, it’s hard sometimes to know if you’re fulfilling your priesthood responsibility.” “ I’ve never walked on water or raised someone from the dead, so sometimes I have moments of questioning if I do enough" and then he read a scripture about priesthood calling being that of "doing good" and said that he found comfort that as long as he was doing good things to help then he could know the Lord is happy with him. And then he said "let's find out what the Lord has to say." Poor thing, I think he genuinely just doesn’t know how to help me and its worrying him. Because I’ve been really blessed to be out here for so long with the back condition I have. The fact that I’m still here and haven’t been sent home or reassigned yet is HUGE. The fact that I’m allowed to travel outside of my area for half of the day, three times a week and do physical therapy while on the mission is not normal. It puts him in a hard position and I know he wants so much to do what is right, so after our interview I’ve been trying a lot harder to show President, but most importantly, the Lord that I appreciate this blessing and that I still want to be here. Our leaders are definitely called of God because they are exactly who we need!

Terceira, After said interview and change in my effort level, we have seen so many miracles! We found ten new investigators the next day and are so excited to work with them. We kept finding more people all through the week and we had a ward activity that the missionaries were in charge of and it went so much better than we expected. Also, in church there were so many lessons and talks on missionary work and afterward we got so many invitations for meals. Almost every single day this coming week we have lunch and dinner with members! That is huge! Last transfer we ate with a member twice the entire six weeks!

Quarta, Are you aware that fasting works? You should all try it and have a lot of faith and gain a testimony of it, because mine was definitely strengthened this week. On Friday during our planning, we prayed and felt really strongly that we needed to have this one man, Simões in church on Sunday. Like it was vital. Only problem, that’s the only thing we know about him. We’ve seen him at the train station and bus stops a bunch and he’s always saying hi to us and asking about church but EVERY TIME we try to get his contact his bus comes and he doesn’t have time to give it to us. We had no way of getting a hold of him. The only way we were going to be able to invite him to church was to have miracle and happen to see him somewhere on the street between Friday afternoon and Sunday night.

I started a fast immediately after physical therapy that afternoon and I prayed so hard the whole time that we could see him on the street for two minutes, invite him to church, give him the address, and remind him what time it starts.

Then Saturday after I broke my fast, the day was getting really hard and frustrating and it was pouring and my boots broke. Both of them. So I was walking with puddles in my shoes and just saying over and over in my head, "I love my mission". I ran around like a crazy trying to find a pair of shoes that I could use and couldn’t so I finally had to go buy super glue and just try to do the best I could until I can buy some new shoes today. I was getting really stressed because with the shoe issue, we were going to miss our bus and be later than expected to prepare for the activity. When we could finally go to the bus stop to leave for the chapel, we sat down on the bench to wait, and thirty seconds later Simões came walking across behind us and said hello to us. I freaked out. I was so excited. We invited him to church and he committed to coming and literally shouted “Yes! I want to come! I will see you tomorrow!” As he ran across the street to get on his bus that was arriving. So we still didn’t have his contact, and I’ll be honest, he didn’t show up to church, but that’s not what I fasted for. I fasted and prayed for a chance to speak with him long enough to invite him and I got it! It was amazing. We’ve seen him around before but seldom long enough that we really needed a miracle for it to happen. I have no doubt that the Lord constructed that and he answered my prayers and he will answer yours as well.

I love you all, hope your Thanksgiving and Black Fridays were great. Have a great time in Hawaii Mom and Dad, go to Haleiwa Eats for me and get some yellow curry and papaya salad.

Love you all!!!

Irma Dean