Sister Emily Sabey: Sweet is the Work

Hi Family!!

Transfer News: I'm staying, Sister Rogers is staying. Now onto me telling you about my incredible week. Last week, I went on RelativeFinder.org and tried to find where each line of my ancestors joined the church. It was a little confusing, but I think I found it. It was cool to look at all the names of those who first heard the gospel and faithfully raised children to gain their own testimony that ultimately resulted in me. I think there were about 63 different people on my list, which comes to 126 missionaries. (Probably a little less since some of them were families, but still). One-hundred missionaries that served faithful missions to find my family members so that I could have this great blessing. It's definitely something that got me thinking.

At the start of the week, the weather here has been absolutely amazing! I couldn't believe it was actually June. It felt too nice. I was grateful for the nice weather, but now the sun is doing it's job to bring that good old Arizona heat. My members still think I'm crazy because I still tell them that the weather is great. I'm just happy that it isn't cold.

We had the ultimate Arizona experience on Sunday. We baked cookies. But here's the fun thing: we did it while we were at church . . . by leaving cookie dough in the car. We had bought cookie dough the week previous, and Sunday morning, we rolled it into balls and placed them on a cookie sheet. We left the cookie sheet on the dash of the car, went into church, and let nature take its course. At 5:00 when we finally got out of church, we got to come to a car with fresh baked cookies just for us. This is the real reason why Arizona heat is a beautiful thing.

I also had a real putting-things-into-perspective moment this week. We were doing service with our zone again, and we got to clean the playground at a park. We were talking to one of the town workers, Mark, who was there to help us. He was very nice and talked about how he knows the stake president of my area. He sat and talked with us as we all worked. At some point in the conversation, he made a comment about how he always has good things to say about missionaries (Side Note: Mark is not LDS), which made me smile to know we had that support. And then he said, "I always see you going the speed limit in your little cars." Mark notices enough to realize that missionaries are going the speed limit???? It was very kind of him, but it also made me realize that I do have a great responsibility to represent my Savior well because people are watching whether I know it or not.

We had a lesson with our friend Jeff this week. He has been taking missionary discussions since last December, and he is committed to being baptized. He has just had a hard time picking a date that feels right. We committed him to pray about July 15, so if you could keep Jeff in your prayers, that would be wonderful.

Last night we were trying to find the motivation to go out and give it our all for the last few hours until P-Day, but after a frustrating lesson with a member (members are not supposed to be the ones saying no to our commitments, but such is life), I began to feel sick. I was not about that, but I had to lay down for a while, but promised my Heavenly Father through prayer, "I'm going to lay down for 15-20 minutes, get some Ibuprofen, and then go back out to work, and I need Thy help to get me through it." We went back out, had a great lesson with another member family, and by the time we came back in for the evening, I felt great! It was a tender mercy to have the Lord answer my prayer.

And just to finish off, I want to share my favorite miracle of this week. This week I learned that God is in the details of our lives, and that was a funny and miraculous learning experience. Earlier this week, we were having a rough time finding motivation. No one was answering and we just didn't feel a huge drive to be out working--but we kept working. And still nothing. Eventually, we were at one house, and they still weren't answering. I was just frustrated by this point, but I remembered Sister Wheeler saying that if we were having a bad day to just go get ice cream. I turn to Sister Rogers and ask, "Where is the nearest McDonald's?". She had no idea, so we were talking about other ways we could get ice cream. Well, right then, we hear the familiar tune of the ice cream truck in the background . . . and it's getting louder. Being mature adults, we ran to the ice cream truck with nothing but Sister Roger's $2 and my promise to pay her back. We get to the ice cream truck just praying that we can both get something for less than $2. We get to the truck, and Sister Rogers asks the lady at the window what we can get with $2. She responds, "Don't worry about it. You can get whatever you want." Turns out this lady is taking the lessons from the Elders. We tell her thank you and tell her how we had been just barely talking about how to get ice cream. She laughs and says, "Ask and ye shall receive." So we got to get Choco-Tacos (it's like an ice cream sandwich, but it's a waffle cone taco with ice cream inside and covered in chocolate--and if that's not Arizona, I don't know what is), and I swear, I have never said a more heartfelt thank you prayer to my Heavenly Father. With a new perspective and chocolate covered faces (okay, hopefully not the latter), we went back to work and had a great day! I was so thankful for a Heavenly Father who gave me a boost simply by putting ice cream in my path when He knew it would help me.

I think that is the best part of missions. You really get to see the Lord's hand in everything. He is so very aware of us. I am thankful for him and all that He has done for me, from the big things to the seemingly insignificant. And with that, Family, I love you!

Sister Emily

1001 N Burk Street

Gilbert, AZ

85234

Queen Creek Zone