Hello Everyone!
Transfer weeks are always insane, but it's been really good. I somehow was the designated driver so I drove from Houma to Baton Rouge to Kenner to West Bank, picking up/delivering the Spanish sisters to their new areas. It was so fun to see all of my old companions again and to see all the Spanish areas. My new companion, Sister Burns, is amazing! I love her so much already! We just have an awesome group of Spanish sisters right now so we can't really go wrong with any companion. She has three transfers left (including this one) which is weird because I feel like that's hardly any time left, but then I remember that I'm only two transfers after her.... where is the time going!?
This week has been full of introducing Sister Burns to different people and helping her to learn the area. Taking over an area is stressful, no matter how many times you've done it, because for the first little while, you can't rely on your companion to help you plan who to see and when to see them. It's going pretty well so far, it's just stressful. It makes me feel really old because I feel just as comfortable with this area as I did with Kenner. We were all talking about the next few transfers and most likely, we all have only one area left, or there's a few of them who are probably in their last area. I never want this to end!!
Transfer weeks are always insane, but it's been really good. I somehow was the designated driver so I drove from Houma to Baton Rouge to Kenner to West Bank, picking up/delivering the Spanish sisters to their new areas. It was so fun to see all of my old companions again and to see all the Spanish areas. My new companion, Sister Burns, is amazing! I love her so much already! We just have an awesome group of Spanish sisters right now so we can't really go wrong with any companion. She has three transfers left (including this one) which is weird because I feel like that's hardly any time left, but then I remember that I'm only two transfers after her.... where is the time going!?
This week has been full of introducing Sister Burns to different people and helping her to learn the area. Taking over an area is stressful, no matter how many times you've done it, because for the first little while, you can't rely on your companion to help you plan who to see and when to see them. It's going pretty well so far, it's just stressful. It makes me feel really old because I feel just as comfortable with this area as I did with Kenner. We were all talking about the next few transfers and most likely, we all have only one area left, or there's a few of them who are probably in their last area. I never want this to end!!
I don't have too much to report in terms of crazy stories or anything. I just have a couple things that I learned about this week. This week I've been reading in the war chapters in Alma, and it's hit me more than ever the importance of purpose and preparation. Those are literally the only two differences between the Nephites and the Lamanites at that point. It came down to what they were fighting for, and how much they prepared. I think those two things go hand in hand. If we have a worthy purpose, we're going to prepare more because we care about it more. It's so relevant to missionary work because our purpose has to be the pure love of Christ and of the people we serve. Then, we will study deeper, work harder, seek for the Spirit more earnestly, and therefore we will ultimately have more success. If our motive is just getting through the mission, or because we have to do it, or to just get high key indicators and be on top of the mission, we won't prepare as much as we should. Then, our lessons, and therefore the people, will suffer because of it. I used to not really like the war chapters because people just kill each other for 100 pages, but I'm really starting to love them and see the parallels to missionary work, and life in general, because we really are fighting a war here!
Another thing is that we had ward conference yesterday, which was crazy because the stake president loves to come in without a plan and just call on random people to speak/do musical numbers in Sacrament meeting. He prefaces it by saying, "We're probably going to go over... sorry" (which we did... by a half hour... and then when he taught second hour, it went over by 20 minutes...) so long story short, I ended up doing 3 musical numbers in Sacrament meeting. I knew about one because I was accompanying the choir (an arrangement they had me write last week) but then President Stock called me out in the middle of Sacrament meeting and I had to play a solo! Thank heavens for that one version of "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" that I've had memorized forever. Then, he called out a few girls to sing a hymn and they asked me to accompany them. It was nuts. Anyways, one of the speakers was a member of the stake presidency, President McKay, and he gave one of the best talks I have ever heard. I wish it was recorded somewhere. He talked about the Sabbath day, but in a totally different way than I've ever heard. He started out by asking what we thought the celestial kingdom is like. Like if we had made it there, and it was just an afternoon in the celestial kingdom, what do we think we would be doing. And he quoted L. Tom Perry and talked about how it is a projection of what we do here. It's being together with our families, and being with Heavenly Father. So what we're doing now on earth is building our heaven. It's strengthening our relationships with Heavenly Father and with our families. We're not just doing it for our immediate family, but for our future posterity as well. And what day do we build our heaven? Primarily on Sundays. Sundays are the days when we set the patterns for eternity. We set everything worldly aside and fill our day with things that build our celestial kingdom with our families and with our Heavenly Father. That really hit me a lot. On a mission, Sundays are our craziest days, but it's full of service and teaching about the Gospel. I want to be better about Sabbath days at home. President McKay said it's not at all about what you don't do on Sundays, it's what you do. We can fill it with service and family history and family time and scripture study and things like that, so that we don't even think about all the other worldly things we do the other six days. Seriously, I wish I could just have a copy of his talk because it was amazing!
Alrighty, I think that's about it for this week. I hope y'all enjoy the freedom of summer and the dry Colorado air! We're drinking our 90-degree air here! Have the best week ever!! :)
Con amor,
Hermana Sorensen
Alrighty, I think that's about it for this week. I hope y'all enjoy the freedom of summer and the dry Colorado air! We're drinking our 90-degree air here! Have the best week ever!! :)
Con amor,
Hermana Sorensen