This week is laughable. So gear up.
We got SNOWED IN. All week. Well, almost all week.
Monday, right after emailing, we had to go straight home and sit in our apartment.
Tuesday we probably knocked 35 doors of random less-active members in our ward, and none of them answered, then I went and worked in another sisters' area on an exchange.
Thursday we had zone conference all day. The messages delivered were powerful and inspired. I will make mention of them at a later time! Oh, and they equipped our cars with "Tiwis", fancy little devices that beep at you in a computerized voice if you're driving too fast or not wearing your seat belt, or driving aggressively. I'm surprised we didn't have anything like this sooner. A bunch of teenagers in brand new cars seems odd.
Friday, we got snowed in. And our cars were grounded Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Church was cancelled for...get this... maybe two inches of snow. Oklahoma is so funny. My companion and I were driving back to our apartment on Monday after it snowed and there were cars that had skidded off the road and turned around and taken our street signs. That's the problem. It's not that the roads are bad, it's that people get all apocalyptic and forget how to drive. However one element that's different is the ice. There's a thick layer of ice across all of the snow on top of cars and trees.
Sister Hirschi and I tried to stay busy and come up with productive things to do. We don't live close enough to our area to be able to walk anywhere, and it's not particularly safe anyway because we live under an interstate, so we organized our ward rosters, labelled maps, went through our entire phone, cleaned the apartment, caught up on our journals, cooked food, made snowmen, got really, really good at Phase 10, planned several trainings that we won't actually be giving for about three weeks, the list goes on and on... Our ward mission leader is amazing, though, and he came and picked us up a couple of times and rescued us from our Cabin Fever to eat food and play games. We were able to teach Conor a lesson on the Priesthood at his house with 4 priesthood holders present, which wouldn't have been the case if we hadn't been snowed in. So the Lord knows what he's doing.
When church was cancelled, we were both pretty devastated. I love going to church. It's not something I've always been able to say, but by the end of a week, I crave church and the opportunity to take the sacrament and be edified by others. We live in the same apartment complex as two of the Elders that cover the Spanish Branch in OKC, Elder Cummings, who was in the MTC with me, and Elder Palacios, Elder Cumming's trainee. They called us and told us they had gotten all of the necessary permission to come to our apartment and give us the sacrament, so we had a mini sacrament meeting in our living room. It was powerfully spiritual. We sang hymns and prayed and they brought a spiritual thought. It was very kind, and much needed. The spirit filled our apartment as they blessed the sacrament and gave it to us. The spirit bore witness to me that the Priesthood really had been restored, and that these two Elders possessed it and were able to use it to bless the lives of others. It was a wonderful experience. That spirit continued to linger for the remainder of the day, and the two of us were filled with gratitude.
Overall, the whole week was reminiscent of a memory from the beginning of my mission. One of the Elders stood up in a meeting and said, "I would much rather have 3 solid member-present lessons than sit in my apartment and play Yahtzee for 3 hours." Back then, being a new missionary, and exhausted, I remember thinking, "good for you! I'd rather take a nap." But I can now fully proclaim that I agree. I detest sitting in the apartment when we could be out sharing the Gospel. My companion and I always joke,
"Should we knock one more door?"
"Yeah, why not save one more soul?"
It's funny, but it's true. the work we're doing is so impacting. And the more fully we do it, the more fully we engage ourselves in the work of the Lord, the happier we are, the more accomplished we feel, the more we grow, and the more people we can help better the quality of their lives.
I love you guys.
Photos: Hermana Best and Snowmana Best
Finding most of the Texas Crew at Zone Conference! ( Which is pretty awesome because a lot of the missionaries I have served with have finished their missions. By now :/ )
Love,
Sister Best
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