[Insert witty salutation here.]
Another week happened! This Sunday is our daylight savings (I don't know how or why we decide to do it later than the western hemisphere, but that's what happens) and I'm a little nervous about it. Why? Because last year we found out about daylight savings in the manner of our zone leader CALLING US at 5:30 in the morning and saying, "Hey it's actually 6:30 now! You have to wake up!" and my poor companion hyperventilating and panicking because she thought a call in the dark in the perceived middle of the night meant some kind of natural disaster or emergency. But also Bulgaria is thinking about getting rid of daylight savings? According to "word on the street." Anyway.
Some interesting happenings! Um, let's see. We are officially with eight new investigators this week? You know, in the numbers. Which is kind of cool, but of course counting someone who agrees in a first lesson to be like "Okay, I'll be your investigator and meet regularly!" and someone who actually ends up investigating in the long-term have a big gulf between them (what was that sentence structure?). But it was nice this week to meet a lot of open, new people who are willing to discuss ideas with us, and gave me hope that there are people who will be open to what we have to say. We met an interesting family tracting in the area of a former investigator, Shukri (Panti, you know who I'm talking about!), who told us to come back in a few days with the book, and when we came back at the appointed time they let us in, the mom and husband and a son (have no idea how old he was) and listened and there was a really hot heater on making me fuzzy and sleepy but they were really nice and agreed to learn with us. AND this is the most important part: I have actually, in my whole mission, never been let in tracting, readers. Yep. I mean, the other important fact is that I haven't really tracted all that much on my mission either (mostly street contacting, tracting when it's cold or night). But I have sort of had this secret thought in the back of my head that tracting doesn't actually ever lead to finding anyone who is taught. And this is my first experience with that! So that's cool.
Also we went back to go follow up with a cool lady and her two English-speaking sons who Sister Bingham and Sister Turnbow met last transfer, and she was very nice and let us in and gave us "homemade juice" (this thing people jar here that is basically jarred fruit with lots of sugarwater in it that you drink) and her sons agreed to talk to us and were all very nice. So that was REFRESHING.
And finally! We met this really cool lady (I hate using the word cool, but what to say - "excellent?") named Ivanka, who I only talked to for about two minutes on the street streetboarding one day, but we randomly set up an appointment for Saturday and went half-heartedly to go meet her (appointments that involve going to meet someone somewhere who you met on the street once, unfortunately, actually turn into lessons about 1% of the time)
But she showed up! And actually we passed her on the street and didn't notice she was there, and tried stopping and talking to a few other people, and as we got to her, she said, "I saw you talking to those other people! I was sad that they didn't stop and hear what you had to say." Which was AMAZING because no one has that attitude about us, almost ever. And then we took her back to the church, where the Relief Society birthday party was going on (mom, how did that end up going in the Seattle ward?) and had a first lesson with the second counselor in our branch presidency here, who is awesome. And she showed us how she always carries around some tiny spiritual pamphlets/books with her, because she says they help her with her life, and one of them was an Articles of Faith passalong card from about ten years ago! So someone had given that to her long ago, and now we are teaching her! She agreed to be baptized April 20th, and came to church this Sunday and stayed all three hours, and even made comments during Sunday School and Relief Society. Pretty cool, and a pretty big blessing. Even if things don't end up going the exact way we planned with her, I'm still grateful for those tiny miracles and the way Heavenly Father directed us to her and her to us. Also I had a cool experience on a bus going to tract out in a neighborhood called Vladislavovo one night. I saw a lady at the bus stop in her 50s or so reading a tiny pocket Bible (which made me STARE because it's so unusual here) and immediately set my sights on sitting next to her on the bus so we could talk to her. It turns out (as I expected) she's a seventh-day adventist, and we had an interesting little conversation in which she asked why I don't obey the fourth commandment (of course) but mostly we just bonded over loving Jesus and the Bible and having a spiritual life, and I gave her a Book of Mormon handout even though she probably won't believe in it. But it was a sweet experience (to use a corny overused expression) and made me realize how our tiny acts of seemingly pointless service are actually part of one big whole (like a doughnut hole). There are no tiny acts of service. Only tiny doughnut holes. The only "big" act of service was the Atonement. So.
Anyway, learning lots and missing everyone and I LOVE YOU. Keep your long sleeved shirts on or bad weather will come! (according to custom here.)
Love,
Sister Crandhole
No comments:
Post a Comment