Monday, March 10, 2014

Monday, March 10, 2014

Holy macaroons!  BEING A MISSIONARY IS SO FUN! 

Okay, for Mom’s sake here is the update of the nitty gritty transfer details! :) I'm just going to puke all my thoughts and hope they make sense!  Haha!

Alright, SO. COOOOOOLEST companion.  Sister May is just the bomb. She is a Spanish missionary.  I have been told that I am the first English missionary to become a STL... so that is kind of a cool fact. Haha!  There are far more Spanish missionaries than there are English.  So, she is a model and likes long walks on the beach... Haha just kidding, well- kind of not. I'm sure she does like those, but more pertinent to missionary work--- she has been on her mission for a total of 15 months, is a great teacher, VERY real, listens to the spirit, she’s a thinker- and really good at it if you ask me.   She is great at making people feel good about themselves.  She is half Mexican, she was in construction management at school and loves to build things!  She has the cutest closet [plus for me! ;)] and will give and give to anyone, she says it’s the Mexican in her :) She knows how to work WITH other, and communicates well. She’s just great. OH! And did I mention that she is only a convert of 2 years! What?! That’s right. So cool.

K- I am currently serving in a place called Plainview.  It is one of the only places in the mission that has a very traditional/large chapel.  I call it the "West coast" chapel... it just feel like home in that building.  This is the building that we go to, besides the office, for our large meetings.  Like for Christmas we went there... Apparently, in the dedicatory prayer it was said that it will become a temple someday.  Cool right?

I am serving in the Plainview Young Single Adult Branch!  We have the coolest branch.  They are great. :) It is great to work with people your own age, a lot of them are RM’s and just killing it. There are even a lot of Sister RM’s! It is a fairly small branch.  There were 37 people at church on Sunday, and so it takes on more of a family type deal.  One of the people that the sisters were working with previously got baptized two Sundays ago.  So next week on Wednesday he is going to go to the temple! :) He is going to move to Florida soon, but he is excited to be a part of the ward there. He is definitely real growth, and will be a great strength to the ward he enters. Finding, is quite different in the YSA branch. Being that you can’t as easily walk the streets out here in the outskirts of the island to find people like you can in the city, you have to find through members- especially since knocking is already ineffective, and double ineffective when you are trying to find YSA’s.  Haha! So we go to all the activities and just encourage them to find and invite people to the activities when we see YSA’s around the town.  I was getting so into fearlessing in Brooklyn that here I feel weird not talking to people all the time. 

It is nice that we are working in an area that is untraditional, while being a STL. Since they are both untraditional, they actually mesh well. :)

A sister from Midwood went to the temple this week to do baptisms for the dead!  She is the recent Convert that got baptized in September in Midwood!  She is great, she got a calling working at the Bishop’s Store House, and is just great!  At transfer meeting President talked about how since there are so many people that are going to the temple to do baptisms, only the companionship that worked with them will be going. So with that I was there in spirit, but we are so proud of her. Her son who is 8 will be baptized in a few weeks! :):) 

This week has definitely been a blur, and we have kept busy.  I am still not unpacked.  There isn't a ton of time to do that.  So at night times- or meal times if we are home I have been doing that. Haha!

This week we have had a total of 20 hours of meetings :) On Tuesday we had a meeting before transfer meeting with the AP’s and Zone Leaders, to get the zone leaders situated for calling out the different companionships.  Then in transfer meeting I was asked to lead the music.  That was fun- it has been a while since I have done that.  President, for the first time, had all of the leadership be sustained.  He talked about the importance of keeping trust with members and not losing it with God either.  We are seeing so many blessings and we just have to be obedient to receive the rest.  Then we had a leader’s meeting with all of the leaders including District Leaders and talked about how to present and set quarterly goals to our units.  I have been noticing that since this is a branch and there is only us, we take the role [a teensy bit] of DL when it comes to presenting and reporting things to the ward.  Normally we always left that up to our District Leader.

Then after the meeting we went to take  a sister to the Airport because she got her Visa! WOOT! :) She is off to Brazil-io now!  We also taught, the recent convert, about receiving the Aaronic Priesthood.  He actually got it yesterday and is so excited to go to the temple and asked if he could take the names of some family members! :)

Then Wednesday, we had a Zone "Get to know you" where we played musical chairs and every time you got out you had to answer their silly questions... :) Then we had a District Meeting for a bit and went to a meeting with the other Sister Training Leaders to coordinate some things for exchanges the rest of this transfer.  It was a great learning experience.  It gave me more of a vision of my responsibility.  Then that night we went to volleyball.  We have been given special permission by President to stay at volleyball until 10, since they get started so late.  It is a great place to get to know the branch, and there are Costco workers that randomly show up and start playing too. Missionary opportunities--boom!

Thursday night we went to Institute- Elder Owen's, of our senior couple taught that, and it was spectacular. :)

Friday we had MLC, Mission Leader's Counsel- which is a huge meeting that was 7 hours long.  We do accountability sessions and go over the things that will be happening in the areas as far as temple trips and baptisms.  The work is hastening, if only you saw how it is starting to flourish!   We had a great counsel on faith and how obedience stems from our faith.  It is always so good to hear the insight from president.  This night we also had a wedding bridal shower thing with the RS.  We couldn’t stay long, which was sad but I guess they all had a sleep over :) I found out that one of the things that goes toward our goals in the ward is marriages :) Haha! I thought that was funny :) 

Saturday I had my first exchange, as a STL.  As an STL, you go on exchanges with all the sisters in our part of the mission.  We are on the east side.  So we went with the Patchouge sisters. I got to stay in the area, which was funny because I don't know anything about the area yet but all went well.  It was so fun to feel of her sweet spirit.  That night was a stake RS meeting and they had a dinner. The meeting was about building relationships and getting along with others.  That day we also helped a branch member with her Sunday School lesson! Since we are YSA our boundaries cover this whole side of the island.  So the girl we helped is a member of one of the families in the Lynnbrook Branch, where I served before! 

Sunday we had a little Correlation meeting.  It went well.  We have hopes of getting everyone on the same page and pumped on missionary work, but we have a great branch mission leader.  We are sad [..but happy for him] that he is getting married. Haha :) We had a miracle at church! There is a man that was wanting to get baptized, he was in another ward- but he wanted to come to YSA so we will be teaching him now and finish getting him prepped and ready to be baptized.  His fiancé is a member and has an immense desire to feel of the spirit and be fully immersed in the gospel again :) We are very excited for them! 

THERE is a HUGE announcement that is proof of the hastening of the work-- LYNBROOK is the only remaining district [as opposed to stake left other than like in Canada or something...] and it is going to be made into a STAKE in April!!!! :) WHAT?! Soooo cool! 

Our district consists of 3 companionships. They are all great. It is still a weird adjustment to not see other missionaries at church as much since they are all in the family ward. 

I was really sick all of last week-- I was told that it is the curse that comes when you get the calling—I guess a lot of the other sister training leaders were super sick the week they were called too. 

Next week is Zone Conferences and we were asked to do a workshop on what it means to be a successful missionary :) We are excited to get everyone pumped on that. This week we are getting geared up for 30 hours of meetings total since we will be going to 4 of the 10 zone conferences-- The Lord is going to help us get everything done, I have faith He will. :) 

I am learning so much, and feel so grateful that I get to be on a mission. Let’s be real here, this is such a cool experience. :) Love you all so much! 

Sister JaLynn Freeze :)