Sister Wilson is a Trainer..Senior Companion

June 24, 2013

So this morning Sister Honomichl and I got up at 6 (half hour early) to get ready and all of the luggage out to the truck. Its 3 hours to Philadelphia, which we thought it would take us 4 so we were there a little early which was good). We were taking an extra desk and end table to the sisters in our district on the way down. So we stopped there and dropped off the furniture and then headed to Philly.

We got into town around 11 and we had to find a post office and eat lunch since neither of us ate breakfast and so we were starving! So we mailed off her two boxes of books and extra weight that she couldn't fly with.

Then we went to subway, one of our less active members gave us gift cards on Sunday so we went and used those. It was good. But then we had to go to the mission home.

Oh and by the way it is humid in Philly! It’s not in Montrose, oh how I love my Montrose area :)

So we get to the mission home and its filled with Elders, Sister H and Sister Gawu were the only two departing sisters and we were there first. So we went out and sat on the deck but it was way too hot, so we went in and talked to the assistants who she knew while we waited for everyone.

Then the other sisters came and so we said goodbye to our trainers, took a few last minute pictures, hugged, said goodbye and I left with Sister Daniels. We are in I don’t remember where I am actually. But I am an hour from Philly and the area has the mission boundaries in it. So I might be in Jersey actually, that’s a weird thought. I don’t even know what state I’m in currently. Well I guess I’m in a state of prayer as of late!

I got a phone call from President Schafermeyer on Saturday night asking me if I would be a trainer. I said I can do that and he said 'I know you can' which was nice to hear from him.

So not only do I lose my trainer and have to take over the area this next week, I also have to train a brand spanking new GOLDEN! (Greenie) Which is exciting, and giving me a little bit of anxiety.

Everyone keeps reassuring me that I will be fine, well other than Sister Zenefski, she told me that I better bring home a cool golden, or at least one as good as sister H because if I didn’t people wouldn't feed me... so as long as I get a good golden I shouldn't starve! But I am excited to get to have a brand new missionary, they have a fire about them and an excitement to get out there and do, which will be good for the duo. Oh and we are going to call ourselves the 'green team' ... maybe the 'gold team' I don’t know. Sister H just kept telling everyone on Sunday that they would be having a green team so be nice to us.

Oh and transfers are tomorrow, I think we go to it to see everyone and the meeting that they do. But I won’t get my new golden until Wednesday, so I still don’t know anything about transfers, so I am excited for that!

Other than training... well that’s the most exciting / news worthy thing yet.

We did get to see the broadcast which was awesome! It was long, but it was very informative and I learned a lot. If you came in at Elder Holland introducing people than you were still at the beginning so you didn’t miss a ton. I’m glad you got to see it!

And I like what you were saying in your last email, about how God lets us roll over and grow and learn and that he also feels sad about our trials. He knows the pain that we are going through, but he knows how good it will be for us to learn such things. I have been thinking about that too when I read my scriptures and read the phrase 'and God suffered that...' we usually read that as 'he let something happen' but God know what is going to happen. I have been thinking about the fact that our pain causes God pain as well and that he does suffer through our suffering.

I was talking to Bishop Rawlins before I left and he told me to read the book

"a God who weeps, how Mormons make sense of ..." I can’t remember off the top of my head, but you should ask him about it and read it this summer and tell me what you think. It sounded like it talks about this very thing, and I want to read it when I get home.

Sounds like camp was fun! Tell Keira to write me about it! That stinker, I’ve only gotten one letter from her so far! DONT BE LIKE GARRET!!! :) Love you Garret :) (but he never wrote Stuart or only wrote him once, so write more lil stupid!). How’s the weight loss coming mom? And not having seminary and still getting up early? Sounds like the apartments must be slow now if your full and the pool sounds like its not being too much for you yet.

Hope all is well! I love you! And thank you everyone for the letters! My momma would tease me about getting more letters than her, I said it was because more of my friends are RMs and they are re-living their missions through me! haha. Love you all! I will try to write back but I’m not sure how much time I will have today.

The Gospel is true, I know it, I live it, I love it! And you should too!

Love to all, Sister Wilson :)

Happy Father’s Day!

Sister Kindra   9:11 AM  June 17, 2013

Well today we are going to Susquehanna to the Priesthood restoration site for a Zone Unity Activity, so I have zero time to email this week. Mostly I wanted to warn you that I do not know if I will be able to email at all next week. My trainer is going home so we have to go to the mission home which is like 3 hours away and we have to be there by 1.... so I wont have time to email before. It will depend on what the sister I am assigned to is doing.

We are predicting that I will be training a new little golden, which means that my trainer I drop off on Monday and the new ones don’t get here until Wednesday so I will get a temp companion who is close to Broomall. So I don’t know where I will be or who I will be with. So be prepared for little or no email  next week. I will try to write you a letter, but I won’t be able to today. Were only allowed to write on Monday and only from 9-5 I think. And we will be at the activity all day long. Well from here on out.

Anyhow, know that I love you! All of you, not just mom :) I got letters from Sister Whitnah and Sister Painter, I will respond probably next week. And I got a few other ones. Estrella, I got all of your letters, all 3 of them. Lynsi I got yours too! And I got one from Janelle :) and Matthew and a few other people.

Thank you Thank you Thank you! I love getting letters from everyone. Your support is inspiring and I love you all! Keep em coming and I promise I will respond, just not as quickly as I would like often.

Love you all tons!   Sister Wilson

oh and Happy Fathers day! Hope everyone got to celebrate it with goodies. We went to a members house and played that game where the quarter sits on top of the flour and you cut away portions. We did it to Scripture trivia but as I passed the cutting board to the next person I dropped the quarter! So I had to fish it out and it was messy!

June 10, 2013

We had a few adventures this week!

It has been raining quite a bit so to start off the week we went and got me a pair of rain boots. Good thing too because it just keeps coming, and on the dirt roads... it’s just mud. But the boots are pink Leopard print :) Yeah know, it’s what I do.

But one day we were driving down this really bad dirt road, Salt Springs. The sisters went down it in the winter and swear they only made it through alive because they stopped and prayed so much. It was all ice and water and soft ground and a cliff. But its summer now right? So no ice so it’s safe right? Right! So we went for it. And  we were going along fine and Sis Honomichl is driving and we come to a great big mass of water. I would say puddle but we have no idea how deep it is because its murky. I figure, since its on a path its not that deep right? right so I tell her just drive through it, don’t hit your breaks though because if its muddy enough we can get stuck and we would literally have to walk miles before we could get reception to get someone to help us out. So she gets scared and tells me 'go poke it with a stick!' and I’m like what? no. So she gets out and decides that she is going to poke this water with a stick to see how deep it is. So she literally gets out of the truck and pokes the water with a stick. Well your arms are only so long so that really tells you nothing about how deep it is, so she throws rocks in it to try and figure it out. The whole time Im like its fine! its not that deep just drive through it!

So I finally convince her were okay and she drives through it and its super shallow. And she laughs, but then we run into another one and she gets out again to check it. So funny! We were fine both times but she was not going to be convinced! She thought we were going to ruin the mission truck.

So one of our investigators, well call him Keith. Cause that’s his name....

We went to find his house and set up an appointment, which he did. But as we are leaving he yells 'yeah, when you come back we can talk about my Temple. Cause I have my own Temple!' So we are so excited to talk to this exuberant man.

We go back to teach him and he is working on his car in his garage and has chairs set up for us to talk to him. So he invites us in and we start talking to him about the Lord. He then proceeds to tell us that: "I'm like Moses. I am preaching the good word to every body but no one likes me because they don’t want to listen. I spend 17 hours a day, a DAY on Facebook preaching the Bible to everyone.  I’m going to be beheaded for Christ. Because that’s what the Bible says, that those who believe in Christ will be beheaded for their belief. I knew when I was young that I was going to die for Christ. I  KNOW that I am going to die for that Man! Cause Christ is the man!" and on and on. It was very interesting to talk to him.

Sister Young taught him about the Book of Mormon and how it is all about Christ. He took one, told us he was a slow reader so he needed a week to read it and asked when we were going to come back to talk about it. So we are excited to talk to Keith and see what he thinks of the Book of Mormon. He says "There's something off about this book, I'm gonna find it!" So we shall see what he thinks.

We also talk to a woman who was baptized into the LDS church but she was never confirmed and given the gift of the Holy Ghost. She told us that she questioned the divinity of Christ. She grew up Jewish, was baptized Episcopalian and went to Catholic school. So she has a lot of information thrown at her! That was a new reason to not believe in the church for me to hear.

And OH MY GOODNESS! The coolest thing happened this Sunday. So we were told that the Keys of the Kingdom were coming to talk to the Scranton stake, but we didn’t know who and we didn’t know why. So we went to the meeting prepared to hear anything an Apostle of the Lord thinks we need to hear. And guess who it was!!!! It was Elder Bednar from the 12 Apostles :) So cool! He talked about where the name of the church came from, not the Jesus Christ part but the Latter Day Saints part.

He told the member to STOP praying for the missionaries to find people. The saints need to find people! He said, "I wish someone would get up and give this prayer in Sacrament meeting, instead of praying for the people who aren’t here I wish someone would pray ' We know the people who aren't here and Heavenly Father we are not going to have another meeting to plan how to get them to come back, or how to measure statistics. We are going to go and get them and bring them here. And I know that Bishop is probably sweating listening right now, but if he disagrees he will stop me and ask me to sit down, and if not well I guess he agrees" Basically telling members that we need to step it up.

He said the call to raise the age change was not to the missionaries. We have been doing that for years in other countries! That’s not new. This is a call to the church to step up.

He promised us that if we would rise to the challenge then the light would shine through us, through our countenance, family, branches, wards, stake! That we will be a light unto the nations.

It was a very powerful talk. I love Elder Bednar. He also talked about how once we are baptized we now have representative agency. 'Agency is not having the right to make choices, Representative agency is about having the ability to chose the right'.  Very powerful and insightful. 

I love you all! The church is true! I love this gospel. I am learning more now than I ever have in my life. I know that this gospel and the knowledge I have gained from it are what have made me into the person I am today. I am so grateful for its presence in my life. I know it, I live it, I love it!

Love you all! Thank you for your letters! Love, Sister Wilson

June 3, 2013

Well this week was a slow one, but a fun one with lots of service! I think we helped build a fence this week, if I’ve already talked about it than it was last week. But we did service at Salt Springs here and helped them put a wire fence up around their garden area. It was fun and all, but it definitely rained on us! It was nice and sunny all week and we wake up to rain the day were outside doing service of course! Oh well.

We also got to help with a septic tank issue. Turns out it was definitely ghetto rigged by whoever put in the system at this members house and it finally had problems. So they had to dig though all of that gross sewage mud and find the pipes and the tank and fix the problem. Well we heard about it while we were at the hospital visiting an old lady member who fell off her retaining wall and broke two bones in her foot... ouch! But then while we were in the hospital we also found another member who no one knew was there and since we already had the Branch President and another member there they both were able to get blessings. What a miracle! Since it was after visiting hours when we found the second.

But the next morning we went to go help with the septic tank issue, and we got there right as all the men were leaving! Of course. But we went and talked to the member and he said that they were ready to start packing dirt carefully around the pipe so they could dump all the rocky dirt on top and not crack the pipes. But he had to go get ready to leave and what not. So the family went inside and showered off all their gross sewage mud and sister Honomichl and I shoveled dirt into the wheel burrow and then dumped and moved and packed that dirt. We only had about an hour but we got done more than we thought we would! So it was good. But so gross and sweaty! Humidity is ridiculous, and it’s not even bad yet!

The weather goes from super-hot and humid to rainy and humid every day I swear. But while we were working we were sweating so bad that as I liked my lips I could taste salt, like I had just eaten potato chips or something. And when we got home there was a huge sweat spot on my back lovely! I tell you.

We also helped a member spread mulch all over his front yard, which was faster than I thought it would be. It was rubber mulch too so no splinters yeah!!!

We also do service at Interfaith I’ll tell you more about later, and at Gracious Living which is an old folks home. But it’s huge!

And don’t worry, we don’t just do service, we do knock doors and find people and teach and we are fed almost every night by a member! I think we ate dinner at home once so far... I’m pretty spoiled out here! I love Montrose!

Well I emailed Stuart and sent some pictures so sorry the email is short but I will try to write you a letter or something. I’m glad you had a great birthday!