Week 9: We Didn't Start The Fire

      Goodbye Sister Haviland!

Birthday :]

Bye Sister Ray!  hello, creepin Elder Spence

  It's my golden birthday.  22 years old on
                   September 22nd!

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Remember how I said the rains would come in due season?  This week was a monsoon.  Both literally and regarding missionary work.  I've never been happier or more excited about life.

Tangled? I will fix.

Sister Brimley really is a princess.  And no, she was not too good to be true.  She's basically a combination of Giselle from Enchanted and Rapunzel from Tangled with a little Snow White and Pocahontas in her - she has some sort of spiritual connection to willow trees I think.  Every time we pass one, or any tree for that matter, she has to touch it.  Also, I love her immensely for making sure we plan effectively, adhere to those plans, pray together often, and waste not a moment.  Sometimes, I show that love by making myself run in the mornings because she is an athlete and it makes her feel good (while it makes me feel dead), other times by manually untangling the knots in her beautiful red hair.  As pictured.



New companion!

Just as I suspected, with transfers came a change in the work.  What I didin't suspect was how immediate and amazing it would be.  We have one solid investigator, one part member family with kids more excited to learn from us than their parents, and we found a family headed by a stellar woman who desires to make hers an eternal one.  We've had two lessons with Jenn, who initially was just someone looking for a good church to go to and now, if nothing else, knows that we were put in her life at this time for a reason.  Her life is a whirlwind and we did our best to teach her a principle that I'd always taken for granted.  That God is her Father, that He loves her and knows her, and that He does both hear and answer prayers.  That's a principle we've been teaching a lot lately, that no matter your circumstance, no matter how long its been or what you've done in the meantime, your Heavenly Father wants to hear from you.  He wants you to pour out your soul to Him in prayer, because he cares.  Not only that, he wants to bless you with peace, with comfort, with love, and with whatever else you stand in need of, according to His will.

"...for I do know that whosoever shall put their trust in God shall be supported in their trials and their troubles and shall be lifted up at the last day."

Sister Benjamin's Owl Towel

{Alma 36:3}

We taught this to the children of a less active member, who were not raised in the church, but who's Baptist friends have introduced them to the idea of God and Jesus Christ.  Their curiousity sparked when I told them that they could pray about anything, even help with tests, because of the nature of our relationship to God.  We taught this to the stellar woman I mentioned, who feels the exact same way about her children - our feelings for our families are a reflection of our Heavenly Father's feelings and desires for us. 

I know, right?  I've done so much teaching in the last week, probably as much as I've done the whole last transfer.  And I've been thinking a lot about an expression others missionaries use to describe the work in those areas that have been having a lot of more constant success - "It's on fire!" they say.  "This town is on fire.  This ward is on fire.  These missionaries are on fire."  But what does that take?  Are all these incinerating areas a result of freak lightning accidents, sent down by God's hand alone?  I don't think so.  Rather, I think he's been dousing every part of the mission field in gasoline, preparing it as He has promised.  So who starts the fire?  We do.  God placed the fire in our hearts when we, as missionaries or members, decided to serve and become a part of His great work.  So we as missionaries must be always holding torches, being that bright and set-apart standard, making our testimonies loud and present.  We must also be handing out matchsticks to members, for the desire is in them too.  They just need a task to do, an invitation given with love, a place to strike and drop the match.  Yesterday, for example, two less active sisters we'd been visiting finally came to church, because members of Relief Society had visited beforehand to make them feel welcome and loved before they even stepped that cautious foot back into a chapel.  Others have accompanied us to lessons a couple times, offering little more than sincere friendship and humble testimony to back us up.  And maybe these are just matches, just trifles, but drop a match in the right place and the flames will jump and spread.  Shreveport can be on fire too, I truly believe that.  We just have to start it.

The Shreveport Sisters

"Teach them never to be weary of good works, but to be meek and lowly in heart; for such shall find rest to their souls."

{Alma 37:34}

Ain't that the truth.  With all the walking, and planning, and prayer, and diligence, and keeping time commitments, and spiritual exertion, I've never slept better in my life.  Be not weary in your pursuit of obedience, and you will never be weary in spirit.  Keep your good desires burning, and your Father in heaven will prepare a place and way for it to give light.

Sincerely,

Sister Valdez

Week 8: Due Season

I don't mean to sound prideful in this - indeed, I boast not of myself but of my God - when I say I've given some pretty bomb-diggity amazing spiritual lessons in my head.  I was pondering on the possible needs of this one part member family, in which only the father is a member and he's not active, and suddenly a rush of inspired questions and accommodating doctrine came to my mind, and it's as if I could see them all sitting before me.  I'm pleased to announce that the desk chair in my living room knows who it is and its relationship to God and is getting baptized next month.

Last Tuesday, we racked up a whole lot more potentials for which I hope these in-my-head lessons will prove useful.  We walked to the apartment complex where we'd always had some sort of luck before, and handed out three books of Mormon, and got five return appointments, one of them being from a woman we swear is golden - she had questions for us the second I brought up the Restoration and it's clear that she's looking for something her churches before were lacking.  And all this before lunch.  It was our greatest day yet.  Most of the return appointments were made tenatively for sometime Friday, so of course that's when we went back.  Let me tell you a thing about Friday.

Everyone had been readily and gleefully predicting rain, and lots of it.  Thursday night was rocked with thunder and a little bit of lightning, and we all hoped it would continue.  And boy did it continue.  Despite a flash-flood warning we'd recieved via text, Sister Haviland and I went out, her with an umbrella and I in a rainjacket, to walk to the apartments because of course the other sisters had the car that afternoon.  The precipitation was refreshing at first, and Sister H was okay tiptoeing around puddles in her flats while I hopped through them in boots like a preschooler, but then the drops swelled and gained speed.  Minutes later, we were sloshing through an inch of rain on every sidewalk, cringing and fleeing onto strangers' lawns whenever cars went past through the pools that flooded the gutters and streets.  The worst was a city bus, speeding and relentless, that sent a tsunami over our heads as it flew past.  Not an inch of me was not wet.  I had to literally pour water out of my apparently-not-waterproof boots.  Fortunately, our miserable state invoked the sympathy of two previous contacts who let us in to teach them a bit.  Here we discovered that despite our efforts to protect our bags, a few Books of Mormons suffered from moist bindings, and several pamphlets perished.  But we got 1 and 1/2 lessons out of it (the half because we had to leave one early when the kid's family texted from the next room, probably saying "stop talkin to them Mormons!").

I want you to know that the fact that we still haven't gotten any second lessons with anyone (any of which would have moved "potential" to "progressing" investigator status) has not had any negative effect on me, i.e. has nothing to do with the fact that I've maintained the diet of a pregnant woman for the last week or so.  It probably had more to do with the cake and Oreos I got for my birthday.  I celebrated my golden on Sunday, the 22nd, and it was wonderful.  I can't think of a better place to spend my birthaversary than in the mission field, doing something meaningful with my young life.  (Irony of the moment: I'm the oldest person in my apartment and the youngest missionary in my apartment.  22 years old and I've been out the least amount of time, six weeks.)  We spent most of day after church visiting teaching with a sister in the ward, and then at dinner (tender mercy!) they happened to have cupcakes left from their son's birthday the day before and lit one up for me with 22 candles so they could sing to me.  It was fabulous. 

All my love and thanks to those of you who remembered me this week and sent gifts or cards.  I felt so loved!  And my whole apartment was blessed by the Oreos to indulge in, new CD's to play while we clean, and flowers for our table.  Yesterday, my dear companion and roomies threw a mini combined birthday party for me and Sister Harker, who's birthday is on Thursday, at the church in the cultural hall - pinata included.  Then upon returning to my apartment, I learned that stringing your room with streamers, stealing your mattress and shoving it in the bathroom, and leaving candy on your mattress-less bed is the common elder's way of saying "I love you and happy birthday."

my gift from the elders

transfer calls

Today is actually transfer day, so I'm currently in limbo, companionless.  I said goodbye to my "mother," my trainer Sister Haviland this morning, and am awaiting my follow-up trainer Sister Brimley to arrive in Shreveport, whom I know nothing about except that she's got the personality of a Disney Princess straight out of Enchanted.  I'll bet she's got her own Happy Tracting Song and all.  I'm hopeful for what this change will bring, and I know that if we continue in obedience and trust (despite the awkward early stage of every new companionship) that we will get those second appointments and I won't have to do the majority of my teaching to empty desk chairs.

"If ye walk in my statutes and keep my commandments, and do them;

Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yeild their fruit."

[Leviticus 26:3-4]

Remember how it was unbearable hot and gross not too long ago?  Well the weather preceding that stormy Friday has been beautiful and perfect and a testimony to me that all good and promised things come in their season from He that keeps the earth turning.  Wish us luck!

Sincerely,

Sister Valdez

 

Week 7: DON'T PANIC

They say a point comes for every missionary when you suddenly realize the gravity of the choice you've made and the things you're doing and you compare your life to what it was just a few months ago and snap.  None of my roommates thought it at all odd last week when they found me both sitting in my chair and doing a headstand at the same time (picture it long enough, you'll understand how that worked) and laughing uncontrollably while my skirted legs tried to walk on the ceiling.  My trainer just pointed and said, "She hit the breaking point."

That one might have been extreme, but it was not the only one of its kind.  Once in awhile I think about where I would be if I hadn't gone on a mission, or worse yet if I wasn't a member of the church.  That makes for one chilling discussion between missionaries, let me tell you.  And then I think about all those who don't know what this is like, to have the answers to life that men and philosophers have speculated for centuries and centuries, or to know who you really are and what simple things one must do to find true happiness.  So many are kept from the truth "because they know not where to find it," and when I think on their state as compared to mine, my purpose become all that more urgent.  So yeah, I know I'm doing a crazy thing, making a weighty sacrifice, and trying to do a work that I would never have considered myself qualified for, but - I know that the knowledge I have is most valuable and precious above anything else and someone out there wants it so, so bad, they'd go so far as to let two complete strangers into their home, inexperienced and barely adults at that, to teach what they know.

I also know that I am not doing this alone and that I of myself am nowhere near qualified.  I just do the studying, go out, and open my mouth, and God's got it from there.  Indeed, I don't so much as pick up the phone to make a call without this my most commonly used four-word prayer, "Father, be with me."  And once in awhile, He throws us a bone, as my district leader promised.

Last Tuesday, we stopped by the apartment of a woman who'd seemed promising, but to no answer.  So we decided to tract more of the same apartments.  No joke, the first door we knocked on, the man behind it invited us in.  That never happens.  His name was Jerry, and he was an older guy, old enough to have worn his share of chapel pews and been jaded to the idea of high-profit superchurches.  We shared a bit about the restoration of Jesus Christ's church, and about the Book of Mormon.  He then told us he'd read a bit of it before, met missionaries before, and even been to our church before, back when he was dating a girl who was LDS.  Any of you that know my personal history will understand why in my heart I promptly exclaimed "Prepare to enter the waters, Mr. Jerry, for I WILL finish what that young woman started!  Her heartbreak over your non-conversion will NOT be in vain!"  And though we haven't gotten our second appointment yet, it will happen.  I am determined.

The Sister Training Leaders came to our area this week, which meant splits and a sleepover.  I went out with Sister Mongie who had been in Shreveport before and thus knew a bunch of members already who she wanted to see.  Here's the thing - not only does she know these members, she's basically best friends with them.  We chatted for half an hour with one sister who happened to be home (and she's never home, let alone with time to chat) just about life and family and things.  Then another sister drove all the way over to where we were to pick us up and take us back to her home to teach her family.  I am nowhere near a point where I can ask for favors like that;  "Oh hey, we want to come teach your fam tonight on zero notice, and also can you drive out here and pick us up first? Cool."  It was amazing how much they adored Sister Mongie, and I realize how vital not only trust is between members and missionaries, but friendship.

I'm working on that, I really am, but my thing is that I find it so much easier to be friends with members that are half my size, i.e. the children.  I don't worry about saying the wrong thing or about impressing when I'm talking to five or six or twelve year olds.  On a visiting teaching tag-along (part of our initiative to get to know members) I spent the whole appointment throwing paper airplanes with three-year-old Autumn and her brother.  Max, who just turned eight and got baptized on Sunday, became my bud the day we played charades in the car from here to Bossier.  I have a drawing on my wall from my fave little artist Ivy, who made me two more when I told her how much I like her depiction of an orange bird of an obscure species.  Taylor, Cabri, and Cameron, however, abused our friendship when I was sitting in the car the other night at the Sonic and they snuck up behind me and banged on my windows, just so they could laugh when I hollered and jumped a mile.  But they're adorable girls, so I'll find it in my heart to forgive them.

I've wondered if it's doing me any good as a missionary to form such tight bonds within the confines of the local Primary, but then I think that if my love for the little ones eventually translates to a positive impression of missionaries, then someday they'll want to serve missions too, or at least introduce their friends to them.  And if this positive impression occurs for their parents as well, all the better.  In the meantime, me and five-year-old Ashling have found that drawing pictures in sacrament meeting can be a most uplifting activity at any age.  I draw scenes from Christ's life and ministry while she draws stick men and bubbles.

In closing, I have to tell you this story because it was such a bizzare moment in my life.  So, it's a Friday, like any other.  Study, weekly planning sesh, and then go out.  We met with a returning member at the church, gave her Nephi's pep talk (2 Nephi 4) because her life sucks right now, and were delighted to see that her faith was still strong and she's been reading in the Book of Mormon, even though she hasn't made it to church yet.  We toured the building with her too, and I showed her the photos of the all the children in Primary, because let's face it, kids are awesome.  But then Sister Haviland and I went out to do some contacting and things started to get... off.  We contacted a list of potentials, who either weren't home or weren't interested, all the while feeling strangely tired and sluggish.  Then we decided to tract in our own apartment complex, stay local and whatev, and the first building we entered smelled strongly of weed.  More than one door was all but impossible to approach with all the fake potted plants in the way, and others had dead roaches in place of a placemat.  Not a single door approach was not freakishly awkward or with a normal-looking person.  I honestly don't know how to describe it, but after that first building, Sister H took the words right out of my mouth - "I feel like I'm on drugs."  Neither of us have ever been high, but we're fairly sure that tracting experience came pretty close.  We both felt sluggish and confused and couldn't stop laughing at the fact that neither of us knew what was going on or if this was even real.  Our last attempt was a member referral close to home, and again it was horrendously awkward because the couple was eating dinner and said "yeah, you can come back another time, bye" so we handed them their escaped dog and went back to the car.  She was hit by a fit of laughter, and I by unstoppable, unexplainable tears.  The other sisters took one look at us, a giggling and weeping mess, and said "I don't know what happened, but you two are not okay" and forbid us from trying to proselyte any further.  They dropped us at the apartment where we crashed. Hard. The worst feeling was realizing that I could barely muster the energy to pray - what I did muster was something like this "Father, whatever evil this is... please deliver us."  Two hours of heavy sleep and fever dreams later, we felt a little more normal.  Nothing a milkshake and ice cream flurry couldn't relieve.  Thank goodness, 'cause it was getting scary.

My companion and I came to four theories on this incident:

1. Multiple rejections are psychologically damaging.

2. Heat exhaustion.

3. Something Sister Harker calls "hotboxing" and I call "secondhand stonage."

4. Heavenly Father decided we need to experience what its like to be high, so when we get an investigator that's a drug addict, we can empathize and promise that the Spirit feels so much better than this.

Just as in those moments where we merely speculated what a God-less life would be like, I can tell you that the nothing the world has to offer even begins to compare with having a member of the Godhead as your constant companion.

"If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you...

But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:

And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning."

[John 15:19, 26-27]

It's amazing what a few words sent heavenward can do in times of panic.  Whether it be "Father, deliver us," or "Father, be with me," I know that "whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you" according to His will and timing.  So "be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee, withersoever thou goest." [Joshua 1:9]  I keep that scripture on my mirror and I refer to it daily as needed.  There is no better medicine for conquering our constant battle with the world.

Sincerely,

Sister Valdez

Week 7 Pictures

So one time, Sister Haviland got a package of weird stuff, including mustaches. An impromptu photoshoot unsued.

This little chica is Ashling.  I love her to bits.  She sat next to me in sacrament meeting yesterday and we drew the following pictures together.

So...we don't talk about this.  But let's just say some keys got locked in a certain car and a certain pair of elders had skills that need not be mentioned but were of great assistance in reclaiming those keys. (Disclaimer: I didn't do it.)

Here's the thing about a zone of missionaries all in one place.  We really like taking pictures of each other.

This is most of us right before a break the fast.

This is my roomie Sister Ray. We are basically the same person.

Me and Sister Martin were buds in the MTC and I love her.

And Elder Tanner just can't take your picture without putting himself in the next one.

Our ZL's insist that Elder Tanner is Aladdin and I am Jasmine.  I'll let you decide.

We're gonna pretend this is me showing you our apartment and not from that time something weird overcame me that resulted in fifty selfies.

Week 6: My Voice Shall Forever Ascend

Tracting is like flossing.  After several days it does stop putting you in horrible pain, and you do it because you know it's necessary, but you will never ever enjoy it. It's all good, though!

As all men have agency, it is a choice to obey all commandments, including this one: "Be of good cheer."  If you're walking through sweltering heat with blisters on your heels and a load of books on your back after having someone persistently accuse you of being a wandering cultist, it is still up to you to decide what face you'll wear on the way home.  It would be very easy to sulk and complain and let a raincloud follow your steps (which would actually be very much a relief in this heat), but when you remember who you represent, who's name you wear on your shoulder, you suddenly have a very good reason to force your chapped lips into a smile, or at least to raise your voice in a refrain of "There is sunshine in my soul today" until the irony makes you smile for real.

As a representative of Christ, I've come to find that wearing his name is the only way I could do any of this, but not just on the outside.  It has to be part of who you are.  To be a true representative, you must come to know Him by doing the things you think He would do and you know you're doing it right when you begin experiencing the things He experienced, which is the most blessed and most challenging part of this work.  Our Savior experienced the greatest of joys, and the greatest of pains, was both greatly loved and harshly reviled.

Everytime someone insists that they don't need you, or don't want you and what you have to offer, when they close their doors to you with so little regard, or even become accusatory, calling you false and hellbound, and even those you thought would hear you inform you instead that they would rather you not come back, you hear the words of the scriptures "He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" and understand.

But then, when you find yourself called early one morning to the aid of a less active sister, and suddenly you're kneeling beside a couch, grasping the hand of a woman writhing and crying out in pain as you wait for help to come, and feel a strange and strong desire to weep with her and take that pain away though you've hardly known her a minute, you hear the words of the scriptures again, "My bowels are filled with compassion toward you" and understand.

Instances like these must surely be the work of my Savior, confirming to me that this is what it feels like, in some small part, to be like Him, to be a witness of Him, to be His hands, to represent His church.  More important is the peaceful feeling the Holy Ghost fills me with, assuring me that I am not doing this alone.

I realize a lot of my writings home lately make it sound like this is all pain and suffering.  I apologize and assure you, it's not, though they are my moments of significant learning.  But you learn to find beauty in every day.  In cooking one of my favorite recipes from my mother, and having a dinner that tastes like home.  In having an impromptu sing along with a member of the ward that knows Saturday's Warrior songs on the piano.  In a boisterous game of ultimate frisbee with ward members and other missionaries, skirts and ties and all.

 

As Nephi says in 2 Nephi 4, "Why should I be angry because of mine enemies?  Why should my heart weep and my soul linger in the valley of sorrow?  Awake my soul!  Rejoice, O my heart!  Oh Lord I have trusted in thee and will trust in thee forever.  I know that God will give liberally to him that asketh.  Behold, my voice shall forever ascend up unto thee, my rock and mine everlasting God."

Sincerely,

Sister Valdez