Yes, I was shocked too! Transfer calls were Saturday night and we did NOT receive a call. This means that Hermana Clark and I get to kill Hermana Penaloza!
It's kind of difficult, because I feel I'm ready to leave
Stafford. I really love this place, but I've also spent my entire
mission here (besides 2 or 3 weeks in Mechanicsville, and one companion
was sick so we hardly left the apartment). By the end of this transfer,
I'll have finished 10 months. I also want to be a trainer some day!!
Most of the Sisters I came out with have already trained. It's a little
different now that I'm an Hermana, so I need more time to prepare. In
December, about 6 or 7 Hermanas will go home and I'll be the next one to
go home after them--and I don't finish until April. (I'm also the only
Hermana at my "age" because the other one was sent home for medical
reasons.) So I think my opportunities to serve as a trainer or Hermana
training leader will come then :) I'm really grateful that Hermana
Penaloza is my companion now, because she's an Hermana training leader
and I've learned a lot from her! It's kind of humbling to spend another
transfer here, but I'm so grateful that I love my companions and they
love me!
*Anyway, here's all that's going on!
La
familia Gomez didn't keep their appointments this past week. The work
has been pretty difficult because most of our investigators do this. We
teach them once or twice, and then never again. Hermano Gomez seemed
interested in reading the Book of Mormon, so hopefully we'll be able to
get into contact with them again!
Nancy was our miracle lesson a few weeks back. We
taught her and then put her on date for baptism and to be married. And
then we haven't seen her since. We finally caught her outside yesterday
and met her husband. She can't make her date anymore (she needs to
attend church at least 3 times) so we'll try to help her really start
progressing.
We had a miracle lesson with a woman named Delia! We
were visiting some potentials, and we heard someone talking on the
phone in Spanish. She was in her backyard across the street and she
talks loud--kind of like Grandpa Kelsey in the Temple. We went and
knocked on her door. She was still on the phone but invited us in. Then
she told the people on the phone (long distance to Peru!) that three
lovely ladies had just shown up and she needed to talk to them! This was
after about 1.5 hours of fruitless knocking and we still had 2.5 to go.
And it gets HOT and HUMID in Virginia. We taught Delia a little about
the plan of salvation. She accepted a baptismal invite and said she
wanted to go to church! After the closing prayer, she drew a cross on
her chest. She gave us a weird look and asked if we do that in our
church. We said no and explained how we focus more on the resurrection
of Christ, not his death on the cross. She said she agreed and that if
she died in a car accident, she wouldn't want her children to wear
mangled up cars around their necks :)
The work has been pretty slllooooowwww because of
Mundial. We're going to start keeping track of how many lessons fall
through because of partidos. On Sunday,
we tried to visit a Honduran family. They didn't answer the door, but
we could see that Honduras was playing France through the window. We
know it's half time when we're in the trailer park and all the kids come
out to play calle (street soccer) and the dads start barbecuing. We're
going to stop by McDonalds this week to get a calendar/schedule of all
the partidos so we can plan around them!
We've also had three exchanges this week. We're
supposed to have 6 each transfer (for Hermana Penaloza's calling) and we
kind of procrastinated a bit. It was pretty exhausting to have people
in and out, but we made it through:)
On Wednesday
we also had Sisters Meeting! President Wilson said that at the Mission
President Seminar/Training last summer, former Mission Presidents were
talking about how the number of Sisters will go from about 15 per
mission to 30 per mission. We all started laughing, because we have over
100 in the Richmond Mission! The theme was spiritual gifts. I learned
that missions are great training grounds to receive all of the spiritual
gifts! If I'm diligent and obedient, I can qualify for the gift of
tongues, charity, wisdom, knowledge, differences of administration,
discerning of Spirits, working of miracles, prophesy, etc. After the
meeting, I studied my patriarchal blessing and identified the spiritual
gifts I have, and the ones that I want to have in order to accomplish
the things I'm supposed to do in my life. It's been a great topic of
study!
Last month we had a party for Mothers Day that the men were in charge of planning. Friday
we had the Fathers Day activity that the women prepared. We were able
to help set up and the decorations were really cute! It almost seemed
like a competition between the Hermanos and Hermanas to see who could
plan the best party. I think the Fathers Day one was better :) at least
the food and decorations were! The RS and YW also prepared dances and it
was really fun! I miss dancing and I hope I can do more of it after my
mission!
Sunday
was Fathers Day! In Sacrament meeting all of the talks were about the
Word of Wisdom--I don't know why. But I learned a lot! Hermano Manriquez
talked about the Scripture in Alma 37 where Alma teaches his son to
"learn wisdom in thy youth." He applied this to the Word of Wisdom and
encouraged the youth to take care of their bodies NOW so that they can
be healthy when they're older. It's so important to develop good habits!
My mission has been a great experience for me because I've learned to
eat better and exercise more. I LOVE exercising! Next to personal study,
it's one of my favorite times of the day! My patriarchal blessing
specifically mentions the importance of living the Word of Wisdom. I
hope I can qualify for all of the blessings that apply to it!
So yes. Fathers Day! Happy Hapa Day to my Daddy, who
is my best friend! I wrote a little about him last month for his
birthday, but I will now share this story: Once when we first moved to
UT, my Dad kidnapped me. He snuck into our room early one Saturday
morning (I shared with Millie) and said that he was going to kidnap me.
We went to a grocery store and got donuts for the whole fam in my PJs:)
This is one of my happiest memories! Thank you Dad for all you do!
And tonight we have the most exciting and scary
lesson of my life. We're fasting which is good because I'm super
nervous. I don't want to give a ton of details, but we're kind-of-ish
working with a part member family and we really feel like it's the right
time for baptism. We're not sure how she feels about it, but I guess
we'll find out tonight!:)
*TOMORROW IS MY 20TH BIRTHDAY!!! :D
I love you all so much:) Have a happy week!
Hermanita Crandall
*PS
Shout out to my sister Darci who received her endowment in the Temple
this past week! I can't wait to be with all of my family in the temple
some day:)
*PPS Shout out to my other sister Lindsay who will probably most likely hopefully give birth tomorrow to my favorite sobrina Claire!:)
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