I can't believe it's already been 6
weeks since coming to Midwood!! It used to blow my mind that people
could meet and marry their spouse in like a month, but I kinda see
where they're coming from now! You can fall in love with people so
fast! I love the people in this Ward and the investigators we are
teaching SO MUCH. It's been a crazy last week of the transfer but I
think we were able to do everything we needed to.
We spent our P-day in Williamsburg,
AKA hipsterville. We went to Brooklyn Charm and I got like 50
million stickers for my collection haha *nerd alert.* we did a
lookup that night but she wasn't there and it took an hour to get
there and an hour to get back so that's that! Tuesday we had
back-to-back lessons from 10 till 9:30 and skipped lunch and dinner.
Not a good idea. Wednesday we had more lessons, District Meeting,
and we took a member to the temple. Whenever we take a member to the
temple the stress level goes up by like a thousand. The session was
at 6:15 and it was 5:45. The member texted us and said she was just
leaving her house which is like an hour away....awk. So we called
President and he said we could go to the later session which would
get us home at like 11 so we waited and waited for the member. She
finally got there and everything went good, it was a very good time
and so special to see her face, she really love it. It is always
worth the stress to get to the temple because of the peace we can
feel there.
Thursday we did some online training
for our iPads which included watching the district again and some
other boring videos. Then we got an email stating that the software
is corrupted and all the missionaries in test missions would have to
redo the online trainings we had previously done. Haha! That night
we had correlation at our Ward mission leader's house. He is
Filippeano and probably my favorite person here. He is the essence
of hysterical. Anyways there is us and 2 sets of elders so he made
us this big pot of rice soup stuff that was scorching hot. After we
ate it me and my comp started to feel sick. Just another day for us
haha when have we not been sick this transfer? We had the bag of 3
leftover containers of soup and I was trying to tie it shut but one
of the containers fell out and splattered all over their super nice
kitchen. We went into panic mode. We motioned for one of the elders
to distract the member, and his daughter helped us wipe up the mushy
rice, mop and dry the floor. The member still doesn't know haha.
We got on one bus and it took us
halfway home but when we got off to transfer the second bus never
came so we started walking....we ended up walking the whole way
home! Just as we walked into our apartment the bus that was supposed
to come passed by. Oh side note: everyday you have a wake up call
that you're in New York, but some days they are more jolting than
others. As we were walking home we heard "elders!" So we
turned around to see a nice lady and she started talking to the 6 of
us. She explained how she grew up in Utah and was no longer a member
of the church. Elder Choi gave her a card with the address of the
church on it just as another woman who looked like her daughter
walked out of the convenience store we were standing in front of.
"Hi honey." Was the first thing the lady said. It must be
her daughter right? As the second woman approached the one we were
talking to introduced her as her wife. By now we are all pretty good
at hiding our shock when stuff like this happens, but there was def
a pause in the air. We graciously said goodbye and were on our way
*quickly* haha.
Friday was a bit rough because of the
whole food poisoning thing so we didn't get to work as much as we
had hoped to. Saturday we were feeling absolutely terrible and
decided that this had to be the flu, probably given to us by one of
the families we visited or at the hospital. We finally got up the
strength to go out around 2 'o clock and as soon as we got to our
appointment we decided we had better go back before Sister
Christensen threw up all over New York. On the bright side I read
lots of good conference talks! I've had enough of hospitals and
sickness and staying in the pad but I've kind of come to terms that
this is the germ-iest city and I need to deal with it haha.
Ok can we just take a few moments and
appreciate how weird New York is? I cannot even handle how many crazy
things I see in one day. I don't even notice half of them anymore.
People-watching on trains and busses is the truth when all
is said and done. Even just listening to people's conversations is
the funniest thing alive. My favorite is listening to some ghetto
sophomores on the bus talk about their high school drama. Except it's
not just drama, it usually sounds like WWIII is about to go
down in East New York. Like people here get in major fights all the
time! I love watching cat fights I think it's hysterical. One girl
pulls of the other girls wig and then all hell breaks loose. Anyways
I want to just video it but you really have to come visit to get the
full effect. Sometimes I don't even feel like this is America. We
walk down the street and no one is speaking English and people are
wearing turbans or whatever the heck those things are and we are the
only white people in sight. Murica. I love it. Oh and fast Sunday
here is the worst thing ever because the whole city smells like food
and everywhere you go there's food. Food food food. That's probably
why we always get so many blessings on Fast Sunday is because there's
so much temptation.
Sunday was so great. We had a regional
broadcast from SLC and Elder Hales and Anderson spoke to us. They
spoke a lot about the atonement and about living what we believe and
sharing it. It was such a spiritual meeting. A girl from Oxford,
England was visiting and I had a nice talk with her. Afterwards we
had a baptism for Marcel. It was probs the most awkward baptism I've
been to in a while, just because the guy who was conducting didn't
have anything to do while they were changing out of their baptismal
clothes so he called on me and my comp to teach everyone about the
restoration. We took about 1 minute cause obvi you don't want to go
into depth in that situation, and then we just stood there awkwardly
so I was like "let's sing some songs!" So we sang like 4
hymns and then they finally finished changing. It was great haha. We
were still sick and afterwards they had hatian food and some lady
pretty much forced us to eat the fried bananas so we were dying and
went home and threw up some more before our appointments that night.
By the end of the night we felt a lot better and today we are doing
pretty good. As long as no one makes us eat for a few days we should
be fine.
Something I have been studying this
week is Enduring to the End and the Plan of Salvation. I see people
who are about to finish their missions and they are so strong and
stalwart in the gospel! I admire them and look up to them. How are we
motivated to be our best? On a mission, at work, within our families,
in our wards? I think one way is staying in the moment. We can't
live for all the things we want to happen. We must be where
we are and work from there. I was randomly thinking about the bell
curve (at least I remember something from college). I had
the thought that In the gospel of Jesus Christ there should be
no bell curves. We should never have a "highest point"
only to regress to where we started. Because of the atonement we can
always move upward. There shouldn't be any swan dives into Babylon. I
love the scripture "Use boldness, but not overbearance; and also
see that ye bridle all your passions, that ye may be filled with
love; see that ye refrain from idleness." Sometimes it is hard
to hold ourselves back from the things we want. I have learned that
the best way to bridle passions is to let someone else take the
reins. I think of Carrie singing "Jesus Take the Wheel" but
I think this is a little deeper than that. We don't just quit and let
him handle all our problems. We look to His gospel as a way to
overcome the things we struggle with. "Refrain from idleness"
is a pretty good motto to live by. Anyways I sound like a preacher by
now but I do want to say I am so grateful for the restored gospel and
especially for the atonement which allows us to be so much more than
we could ever be on our own. I love being a member of this church and
I love being a missionary even more. Thank you all for your support
and love, I am grateful to have such an amazing family!
xoxo
Sister Wadsworth
1. Some classy graffiti
2 & 3. The temple! This humidity
though...the lions mane is real.
4. Met some cute sisters at the
temple(:
5. Love this family!
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