Last night, Sister Patrick and I were personally called by the APs (Assistants to the President)--or as I like to say, The Elder Wilcox™--because we had crazy transfer news. We are both leaving, meaning Cortina will be getting white-washed (two new missionaries being put in). But not only that, but one of us will be white-washing an area that is being split, and the other will be opening a brand new area. I hit sixteen months today, so I think this will be the area I "die" in. More news to come next week!
Last Monday was a fun adventure. We played Ultimate Frisbee with the Bella Vista Zone (and I tried really hard to keep my loyalties to Queen Creek, but BVZ is lyfe). One of their zone leaders is Elder Janda--the French one who says he's from French Fork because the kid knows my Utah bubble is where it's at. I told him that every time I see a baguette I think of him and he just looked at me and said, "Where do you see a baguette in America?" I'm really glad Elder Janda knows to ask the real questions (if you are wanting the answer, I see them on Mondays at Walmart and anytime we get to go to Kneaders).
Later that day, I got to eat lunch with the Richards. It was so fun to talk to them. Sister Richards might have slipped up and called me Emily. I guess you don't know how weird it is to hear your name until you haven't heard it for 16 months.
We went on splits with a YSA named Brinley again. She's been pondering going on a mission, and this week, she told us that she is going!! I'm so excited. It's been fun to get to know her and be here through the experience of her first going on splits to deciding she's going to serve a mission herself.
Oh, and I did get taken hostage this week. I should probably mention that . . . but it was by one of our bishops and it all worked out well. There was a thick dust storm, so Sister Patrick and I ran for cover at Bishop Potter's house. He let us in, and we thought we could be effective with our time and correlate. Nope. Bishop told us, "We can correlate anytime! Let's play a game", calls all his children in, and proceeds to have us play multiple rounds of Sleeping Queens and Exploding Kittens. And we were not permitted to leave because of dust storm. It was fun and we got to know the Potters better, and hey, now I can say I've been taken hostage. We also got to share a message with his son who is fellowshipping another boy in the neighborhood. We showed him the video "Reach Out With Love", and it was cool to just feel the Spirit there. We were able to tell the Potter boy just how much Heavenly Father loves and trusts him, and I think it was a really good moment for both us and the Potters.
Eventually, the dust storm did clear and we went on our merry way. We were going to go to a less active members home because it was 8:30 at night, but on the way, we saw a referral pull into their garage. We have never been able to contact them because there is a locked gate before we can get to their front door, so I went for it (and probably gave Sister Patrick another heart attack for cutting her off on my bike). They sat in their car for a while and just didn't get out, but I felt like we really needed to just stand there (righteous power struggle, perhaps?). So we did until they got out of the car. They said hi quickly and like they were trying to brush us off so they could get in and said, "No, there's nothing we need you to do or want you to do," and I don't even know how it happened, but somehow, we got talking to them. We ended up in a really good conversation. I found out later that they are very anti-Mormon, but at least they like us! The wife dubbed herself as my mother and told me I needed to get inside because it was dark, and she ended up giving me and Sister Patrick each a hug before we left.
I've been learning about relying on the Atonement of Jesus Christ (again). It seems to be a lesson that God is trying to teach me and I'm just not very good at picking up on it. I had the chance to read a talk I really like called "Becoming Perfect in Christ", which taught me a lot, but then just to make sure I got the message, there were talks about it in Stake Conference, too. I really liked what one young woman said. "[During the Atonement] Christ didn't lessen His pain; He enlarged His ability to feel it". I think when I get stressed or upset or whatever it may be, I try to shrink away from the problem. I try to minimize it myself. But I think that when we open ourselves and enlarge our ability to feel it, that is how we can allow Christ's Atonement to help us. He never shoved our pains under the rug, and He doesn't expect us to either. He asks us to lay them at His feet and let Him help us.
Hopefully that all made sense. I've just developed an increased appreciation for the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I seriously have no idea how He did it, but I'm grateful to see the benefits of it every day in my life. I think that is one of the reasons I was sent to Cortina. God needed me to be in a place where I could open my heart to Him, and Cortina was the best place for me to learn how to do that. There's lots of people I've come to love here, and I will definitely miss them, but I'm excited to see what lies ahead. Hopefully I've caught onto everything God was trying to teach me so I can just go hand-in-hand with the Savior and give it everything in my next (and probably final) area, but if not, I'm glad I have a Savior who is perfectly understanding and will still go hand-in-hand with me as I learn the lessons I need to learn that will enable me to better give it my all. Missions are great. I'm glad for the time I've had and the time I still have. It's going by too fast, but I love the work and my Savior more than I ever thought I could. I love you, Family!
Sister Emily
1001 N Burk Street
Gilbert, AZ
85234
1. Don't worry--it's dead and doesn't have a stinger
2. I'll be honest. I took this so y'all could see my Polaroid with Sister Donaldson and the scorpion I caught.
3. We had Elder Gordon's (extra) name tag most of the transfer and took pictures with it all over the mission. This is the final picture (which we took on the car he and Elder Holland drive). It was included with the other pictures, his name tag, and a letter from his name tag of all the places it had seen. We then put it in an envelope addressed to him inside of another envelope addressed to Sister Partridge in the Mission Office. He then carried this envelope to the mission office, and it finally came back to him through the Queen Creek box at the aforementioned mission office. Elder Gordon thought it was funny.
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