Preparation day got moved to Thursday this week because we had a mission conference, so it has been a while since I've written. But a TON has happened. I said a lot of goodbyes in Warrenton because I got transferred!!! I am now in Alexandria. Whitewashing. The two sisters who used to be in our ward just barely finished their missions and went home, so now we're whitewashing! My companion is Sister Walton, who took my place when I left Manassas. She's super awesome!
We're on our way back from the temple and the member giving us a ride just got pulled over. Not sure why....oh... Going 25 over the speed limit. (Which actually everyone else was doing too. So.)
So! Whitewashing. We came in to an area with one investigator who is moving in two weeks and all the less actives the last sisters were working with are old ladies in the early stages of dementia.
(She got off with a warning. It's all good. No ticket.)
Anyway, we're whitewashing and the sisters before us didn't...really...actually...do work....As we've talked to the bishop, ward mission leader, and other missionaries in our district, we've realized that not a whole lot has happened in the past few months in is area. So Sister Walton and I have a TON of work to do. Remember how I hate tracting and street contacting and I have never been very good at it? Well, that's basically all we've been doing for the past week since we got here. But I'm getting a lot better at it and I actually enjoy it now! So that's awesome.
Our first full day here was Friday, which also happened to be the ward Halloween Party/trunk or treat and we got assigned to take pictures of everyone that came. That was awesome, because it gave us a great opportunity to start getting to know the ward members. A ton of them also brought their non-member friends, so it was a really awesome night. We put Kleenex over tootsie pops and drew eyes and a mouth on them to make them look like ghosts to hand out for the trunk or treat. It was a hit. Saturday was Halloween. We went to the adult session of stake conference during the day and then at night we got together with some other missionaries. It's not really safe or a good idea for us to be out tracting on Halloween night. People are expecting trick or treaters, not missionaries to be knocking. So we watched Cokeville Miracle (SO GOOD. I'm not a crier. I cried), played speed (like the basketball game. I ended up in the last three one round!), and dodgeball. It was super fun. The rest of the week we've mostly just been tracting, street contacting, and meeting with members to get to knew them better.
Yesterday we had a super amazing experience. We got an online referral a few days ago, and we've gone to try to check on him several times, but he has never been home. Finally last night, someone answered the door. "Hi! Are you Daren?"
"Umm...no. I'm Ron."
"Is there a Daren that lives here?"
"Nope."
"Oh. Well, that's weird. Anyway, we're missionaries from the Church or Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints....." And we taught the whole Restoration. Ron listened intently, and at the end, he said he believed it could be true. We gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and he told us we could come back. It was so awesome! At the end, he told us good luck on finding the other guy. "This is North Alfred. Maybe he's on South Alfred," he suggested. That would almost make sense. Except we were looking for Patrick street, not Alfred. So we had been going to the complete wrong house and wrong street the whole time, but eventually we were led to meet Ron, and he seems super awesome.
This area is already FANTASTIC. On Tuesday we had a half mission conference. Elder Perkins of the first quorum of the Seventy came and spoke to us. He talked about the power of teaching the First Vision as quickly as possible to those we meet. We shouldn't take too much time getting into it. He also talked about how we can turn meetings into revelatory experiences by having questions. He had us write down two questions--a proselyting question and a personal question-- at the start of the meeting that we could have answered during the meeting. Doing that really did make it so much more spiritual and revelatory. I would highly suggest it. Sister Walton and I have been working to apply what he taught about getting right to the First Vision when we talk to people and HOLY COW. It seriously changes everything. So many more people stop to listen to us, and yesterday we had three people say we could come back. It is so amazing. I hope you have all had a great week. I love you all. The Church is true. I am SO grateful to be a missionary. This week I hit my nine month mark and I realized how quickly this has really gone. It moves so fast!
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