Hey Y’all!!
Another email from your favorite Sister Missionary! :) So first I will give y’all an update on my “wittle teefies” as my mom so lovingly put it, I went to the dentist and he filled another tooth-this one had a cavity of my own making and then one that had developed underneath a filling. Oh geez! So I have one more dentist appointment and then I will hopefully be able to call it quits until I go home and get some insurance- dentistry is expensive!!!! So the day that I went up to San Antonio to go to the dentist, Sister Partridge took us since she was headed up there anyway for a doctor’s apt for her mom. We got to my appointment and then by the time I was done theirs hadn’t even started. So we were gonna be stuck in San Antonio for a few hours without a car. Hmmm, so we put our little missionary heads together and figured out whose area we were in and called those elders. It was the west zone zls and we asked if they had any work we could do. They said, SURE do you want to knock some doors, we said of course! So they came and picked us up and we went to an apartment complex. They knocked two buildings and we knocked two buildings. They found a less active who didn’t have their records here yet and we found two college guys who study religion and we taught them and gave them each a Book of Mormon. SO it was a successful knocking session in San Antonio. So anyway that is my teefies situation.
As for the work- well we’ve been burned A LOT this week!! I am not gonna lie this week has been one of the rougher ones of my mission. Melrose who we set with a date last week avoided us for a few days and then finally when we got a hold of her she said she was going to go ahead and stick with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, since she had been with them so long she couldn’t just drop them now. Sister Johnson was just heartbroken so she stood there in quiet shock- I on the other hand was, well, mad. I looked her in the eyes and said, is this about them or is this about God. She said God, so I said ok, well have you asked Him about this decision? Have you prayed about this? She said no. I said well than I think you had better do that then, considering He is the one that knows everything. Our own logic is nothing, so you better get on your knees and pray- we will be back in a few weeks once you have had a chance to pray. Then I turned and left with Sister Johnson following behind me still in shock. Our other investigators that we had also burned us and we started the week back off at square one. We taught this guy Oscar who Sister Johnson found last Saturday while I was sick at the Swaims. He was way cool and we had an awesome lesson and we set him with a date and the man didn’t come to church yesterday! Geez!!! So we are once again back at the beginning, but honestly as hard as this is I know that it is just gonna make me stronger! We will find someone here in Pleasanton to teach and we will work our butts off till we do!
So as this week was a bit on the difficult side I had a hard time keeping a float, but I discovered something so amazing this week that I have seriously started to devour!! Guess what it is…. It is this super sweet book that was written by prophets in the ancient Americas and it is also known as another testament of Jesus Christ. Any guesses? Yup you got it; it’s the BOOK OF MORMON!!! I don’t know why it has taken me so long to fall in love with this book, but I finally have. I can’t put it down, I find myself trying to sneak reading verses during meetings or comp study and sometimes it’s gotten so bad as having to make sure the book isn’t in front of me when we say prayer cause I will open my eyes and start reading!! Ha ha So what started this love affair you might ask? Well, it was my deep feeling of depression and sadness for the current situation of our area. I was feeling really down and then I read an article in the good old Ensign by Joseph B. Wirthlin about the importance of the Book of Mormon. It hit me HARD!!! I picked up the Book of Mormon and haven’t been able to put it down since. I am so grateful to have a book that brings such peace in my life and can help me to feel my savior close to me. Yesterday I was blessed to have a very neat experience with the Book of Mormon. We were reading a chapter with this Less active lady and her non member husband and we read 2 Nephi chapter one and it was fine and the spirit was there but I felt an urge to read the second chapter as well. So we proceeded and it was such a neat experience for me. If y’all recall the second chapter of second Nephi is all about agency and opposition and the fall of Adam and Eve. It talks about our consequences being a result of our actions. Well this couple that we were reading with have made some very poor choices in their life and are living with the consequences. They are trying to get back onto the right path but keep making bad choices. As we read this chapter it hit them so hard and it brought so much meaning to the chapter for me. I guess it’s kinda hard to explain, but let’s just say I got a firsthand experience in what it would feel like if you were making the choices that will lead you to death and destruction, and now I am making much better choices that will lead me to eternal life and peace. So to see this couple making those same poor choices over and over it was such a neat experience to show them this chapter and have it really sink into them that they needed to think about their actions because they have eternal consequences.
I have a bit of a little “soapbox” for ya’ll if you will. I am taking a page out of Kev’s book for a minute here. So there was a talk last conference by Elder Hales about service and at the very end of it he talked about going to church. He said that sometimes we get stuck in such a rut thinking “what can I get out of church this week” when instead we can realize that when we attend church we have the opportunity to give something to others. Each of us has special talents and abilities and there are people in our wards who need us. I got a personal testimony of this principle yesterday. I was having a rough day, heck I was having a miserable one, and when it came time for relief society I was pretty down in the dumps. Well then as I was sitting there waiting for the class to start in walks my Mama Swaim with a big smile and a giant hug for me! She hadn’t been at church for sacrament and Sunday school (her baby was sick) but she and her husband traded off and she got to come for the last hour. What a blessing that was for me. I needed her more than anything at that moment and I am so grateful that she came to church. During Relief Society she sat by me and I laid my head on her shoulder and just felt loved. Then after the meeting she talked to me a bit about what was going on and then when I told her she was like well, “change your attitude, stop throwing yourself a pity party! I know what it really is- you are upset cause you wanted to be transferred, but guess what you’re still here- you are in Pleasanton, there is a reason behind it, so get to work” It was just the kick in the pants I needed. How grateful I am that Sister Swaim came to church, and how grateful I am for the unselfish service of others. Hopefully we can all realize that going to church isn’t just about us, you’ll never know just whose life you can touch by showing up to church!! Ok end of soapbox. :)
OK well that’s all I have got for you today. I want to thank y’all for the letters and packages. Thanks C and Kilie and Aunt Elaine! Y’all rock!
SMILING ALL THE WHILE
Hermana Kleisler
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