How in the world is it already October? Wasn't it just May like last week? This has easily been the fastest year of my life! Also, just because I know you all want a weather update, it got COLD this week. We walked out of an appointment, and actually SHIVERED. It was so glorious. We had a couple days like that where there was a chill in the air, and the humidity was way low. We felt like we had died and gone to heaven. You wanna know something funny? It was 80 degrees :) Yup. I have officially become a wimp with the cold. The coldest it got this week was 79 degrees, and we were pulling out the sweaters and scarves and hot chocolate. Coming home to Colorado in December is going to be quite the adjustment!
This week was blazing fast! We've just been meeting a ton of people in the branch and from our area book, which feels so amazing. I finally feel like we're getting on top of this area again after being hit or miss for a couple transfers. Also, conference weekend is like Christmas for missionaries. And hopefully for everyone else too, but we got so excited on Friday night and it honestly felt like Christmas Eve! And then every single talk was like a present to us because Heavenly Father just had all these bits of gold waiting for us. I honestly can't tell you which talk was my favorite, because they were all so amazing. One thing I was praying about was one thing I really needed to improve in my last couple months, and I definitely got my answer. My prayers need to be a whole lot better. I loved the quote that said, "Are you really praying? Or are you just saying your prayers?" That hit me so hard! Prayer is such a vital and beautiful tool that our Heavenly Father has given us, and at least for me, I think I take it for granted a lot. So that's my goal in the next couple months to really improve my prayers.
We watched conference at the stake center on Saturday, and then we had breakfast/watched conference at the mission home on Sunday morning. I can't even describe to you how much I love President and Sister Hansen! They are amazing people, and so sweet and loving. They are our parents here for sure.
Funny story about the Sunday afternoon session... so we car pooled with the other sisters we live with to the mission home, and about 3 seconds after they dropped us off at home on their way to an appointment, we realized that our keys were in the apartment. We spun around to catch the sisters' attention.... too late. So our car keys and our house keys were in the apartment. And get this. We had accidentally left our phone at the mission home. So we had no phone. No car. No apartment. Great. We sat on our porch chairs for like 15 minutes hoping they would turn around... no go. So we decided to pray. And pray hard. We knew that God clearly needed us to do something different than what we had planned, and we wanted to know what that was. We prayed for a while, and neither of us felt anything. No direction, no impressions, nada. So we kept praying, and I kept asking if different things were right, nada. So then I thought, okay so what in the world are we supposed to do?? And a small little thought came into my head, and it was a scripture in 1 Nephi right before he goes to see Laban, and it says something like "and he went forth, not knowing beforehand what he should do."
So, we decided to just start walking. We ended up going to a park by our house and we did a whole lot of park contacting. We actually met some really cool people. We went back to the apartment about a half hour before the afternoon session started, and prayed harder than ever that the other sisters would get a prompting to swing by the apartment before going to the stake center. ... Well that didn't happen. So we definitely missed that session of conference.... Sad day. We'll watch it later though. We didn't just want to sit there and do nothing, so we tracted a little bit of our apartment complex, and then we just went back to the park. We met so many amazing people, and got a bunch of new investigators from it.
My favorite was this 4-year-old girl named Pati. She needed help getting on the swing, so we helped her up. And then she just became our best friend! She kept coming over to us and talking to us with the most adorable Spanish you've ever heard. She asked us who we were and what we were doing, and we told her we tell people about Jesus. We asked if she knew who He is, and she said no, so we pulled out a pamphlet and showed her a picture and she just got so happy. It was so cute. She held the pamphlet close to her heart and said, "Is this a present for me??" I melted! Then she asked if she could share the pamphlet with her nanny who was across the park, and with another kid at the park. Best little missionary ever! We wrote down the address of the church, and she said, "Are you doing that so that we can come to church too???" This girl is FOUR. Amazing stuff. Also, she totally hustled me out of all the stickers in my bag because she was just so dang cute. I also showed her some pictures of my family because she wanted to know what else was in my bag, and when she saw the picture of me and Megan with Goofy at Disneyland, she pulled it out and held it close and said, "Can I keep this one??" I told her, "Well I should probably keep that one so that I can remember my sister" and she said, "But it's so beautiful and I love it!" with her big brown eyes, and I was so close to letting her take it, but she got distracted by something else, and I put it back in my bag! :)
Overall, it was a great day. The weather was beautiful, we met a lot of awesome people, and who knows, maybe Pati will grow up, and meet the missionaries someday, and she'll remember two sister missionaries who gave her a pamphlet about Jesus, a picture of the temple, and a whole lot of stickers. Our day went 0% according to plan, but I think that's why I loved it so much. I learned a lot of patience (we ended up being locked out for 6 hours...) and a lot of trust in the Lord's plan. I also know that when we just get out and go, miracles happen. We can't sit around and wait for inspiration, we just have to go forward, trusting that we'll be guided.
I love you all so much! I hope you have an amazing week!
Con amor,
Hermana Sorensen