The Week. Cool

On this week's episode of Sister Cale in Columbus-Sister Cale taught a two year old to love Ammon, we saw the miracle of divine placement, Sister Cale found the TARDIS and resisted the urge to run away with the Doctor (pictures to follow on a week when I remember to bring my camera cord), Sister Cale continued to have no idea what she was doing and looked forward to exchanges for the first time EVER. 

Hey Wonderful Humans,

It has been a seriously crazy kind of week. Being a trainer is rough. I don't think it would always necessarily be rough, but the last week with Sister Brown has been trickier than I initially anticipated. I think there were two days this last week that I didn't make her cry. Yeah, I've become the kind of person who unintentionally makes people cry when trying to help build that person up. It's been a special kind of hard. I think it's remarkable that Sister Brown is here on her mission as a convert. She forgets that she does in fact know enough, so when I ask a question (trying to set her up for success) and she doesn't know the answer, she cries. I get it. I would cry too. I just hate that my questions seem to be the catalyst for that particular reaction. If it were possible to just not teach the doctrines in Preach My Gospel, I would drop it entirely; however, it is crucial to know the doctrines within the Message of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I want her to see that she can and does have the understanding that she needs to share the gospel with those we come in contact with. She has such a wonderful perspective to look at our investigators and empathize with how they feel. And I know that if she will just trust herself, and trust Heavenly Father that she will be able to have the understanding that she needs. Needless to say, any prayers sent in our direction would be greatly appreciated. We need all the the help we can get. 

Aslan has finally arrived in Ohio...sort of...and spring seems to be here. I don't know if I just didn't notice blossoms on trees before in Utah, or if we just didn't have as many blossoming trees, but things here are getting gorgeous. I find that I particularly love magnolia blossoms. SO PRETTY! I have been so excited to see that Ohio really isn't just a wasteland with skeleton armed trees and dull skies. Things are getting green, we see the sun from time to time, and I haven't had to wear my coat in almost two weeks. Major wins my friends. 

One of the coolest things that happened this last week was that when we went to teach Gabbie, who is a recent convert, she had invited a non-member friend over. The way that everything worked out really was through divine help. The whole way over to Gabbie's Sister Brown, Sam, and I had been discussing what message to share with Gabbie and couldn't really come up with anything. When we got to her home and got out of the car I looked and them both and told them that this was clearly one of those instances where we just needed to have enough faith and the spirit would direct us as to what message to share. They both looked at me like I was insane. I'm not. We're promised as missionaries that when we have the spirit and open our mouths that we will have the words given to us that we need. When we got inside Gabbie told us that she had invited Donna to come over and we still didn't really establish a specific message to share with her. When Donna came I was able to witness and take part in the miracle that was being an instrument in the Lord's hands. We ended up teaching about how the Book of Mormon and the Bible are meant to complement and testify of one another and bore testimony that she could know that the Book of Mormon was true for herself. Sam (who is actually one of our investigators who can't be baptized because her parents want her to wait until she's eighteen), shared the story of Lehi's dream and about how we are best able to reach Heavenly Father by holding onto the rod. It was one of the coolest teaching experiences that I've been part of up to this point in my mission. I'm really excited to get back together with Donna and teach her The Restoration this week. 

Among other cool things that happened, I taught the Law of Chastity for the first time ever to a sixty four year old man and his recent convert step-father. That wasn't awkward at all...haha. It was honestly really okay. Sister Morgan came to our lesson with us and was such an additional support when Dan was giving us push back about what the difference between pornography and classical art is. He was of course just being stubborn to be stubborn, because that's what he does, but I was glad Sister Morgan was there all the same. 

One of my favorite people in all of Delaware is Karen. She is seriously the sweetest little old lady. She has actually started listening to us teach the lessons, and even though the only thing that we got through this week was The Pre-Earth Life, it is still such a pleasure to teach her. She wanted to know if the doctrine about our forgetting before we came to Earth was something that was revealed through Joseph Smith or if it was in the scriptures. I didn't know at the time, but now I know that we can find talk of the veil in Ecclesiastes, Hebrews, and Ether. I'm so grateful for the scriptures, and especially for the topical guide, index, and bible dictionary. I'm also glad that I don't have to have all the answers. Karen is honestly one of my Ohio Grandparents (I'm going to have to start a club and they can get t-shirts or jackets or something). She is so sweet and helped to lift me up and make me feel good about my efforts in a week when I have otherwise felt rather lowsy about everything. I'm grateful for the angels that Heavenly Father has placed in my path to tell me to keep going and that I'm doing great. 

On our way to the mission office on Tuesday, Sister Brown and I drove past the TARDIS. Of course, we had to stop on our way back. There was no sign of the Doctor, but that's probably best as I would have been tempted to kidnap him and run away. People in time and space probably need the Gospel of Jesus Christ too, right? It was fun to find a little bit of wibbly-wobbly magic in my corner of the world. 

Well friends, it's been a crazy sort of week. Hopefully this next week will be a different kind of crazy and I won't sound so melodramatic in my e-mail. I love you all so much!

The Church is True, Life is Good, God's in Charge, and Satan Hates You (trust me, as a missionary I get to see how much Satan hates us, but I also get to see the mercies of Heavenly Father and how much he loves us. It ends up being a pretty fair exchange). 

Jessica