Monday, March 5, 2018
Burke, Virginia
This week was full of excitement. As are all the weeks.
O* is still going strong and is preparing for his baptism on Saturday! We had a couple lessons with him this week, and it was just awesome. We met with him on Tuesday night at a member's home and taught him the rest of the commandments, mostly about Tithes and Fast Offerings. We were a little hesitant to talk to him about that, thinking that tithing would be the point that he would just say, "That's it! I've had enough!" But he didn't! After we invited him to keep the Law of Tithing, he said, "Of course. I would like to dedicate 100% of my life to God, so I will do everything that he asks of us to do." We were excited about that answer. We had a lesson scheduled with him on Friday to go over his baptismal interview questions and make his baptismal program, and he said that he had to work, so we couldn't go it. But thanks to Facebook and our smart phones, we were able to have a lesson over Facetime! (It was also a blessing because I was in pants because we were weekly planning, and I didn't have to change out of them for our lesson.) He's having his official interview tomorrow, but as we were going over his program, he asked us to give the talks on Baptism and the Holy Ghost. We're excited about that, but I'm also nervous. I hope I don't botch this. (Although, I'm speaking on the Holy Ghost, and if I say something wrong, it will already be after he is baptized, so I'm good.) Before we said goodbye and hung up on him, he said that he was grateful that we take time to help him understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ better. He also said that he was worried that the ward thought that he was only getting baptized to hopefully "get one of us." He said that we need to tell the ward that it was because he wants to start over and not because of us so that they don't reassign Elders to work with him. I thought that was the funniest thing that I have ever heard in my life. We had another lesson with him last night, and he brought us some dessert for after dinner. It was delicious and appley and gooey and crunchy and lovely. And there was ice cream on top, so it's a winner in my book. We taught him about the Laws and Ordinances of the Gospel, and he is excited to get the Priesthood! We are too!
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| Facetime Teaching with O*. |
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| Messaging with O* |
We also had exchanges this week. I went to Lincolnia with Sister Bargeron. She is a fantastic missionary -- so incredibly bold and so great at teaching and helping people understand the Gospel better. I want to be like her. We had a fun day, though! We got to walk across a pedestrian bridge -- one of my favorite things to do -- and we snuck into a heavily guarded lockout building and got lost inside, so we stumbled upon some people that we shouldn't have, and, thanks to security, we were invited to leave. I'm just waiting for my chance where I get to stand on a box or a bench and cry repentance to the world and not get kicked out by security or arrested. I mean, I haven't really tried it yet, but I don't know how long that will last if I can't even peaceably walk down the hallways without being herded out the door. One day...
We also got to do service at the office with the senior couples again, and it was so much fun! I love them oodles and bunches.
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| Lunch with the Parkers. |
The backstory of my subject line is because we didn't have power for almost 24 hours on Friday and Saturday. And you know why? Because of the blasted wind, that's why! There was a severe wind warning that said that wind was gusting from 60-80 MPH all of Friday, and that power might be lost. School was cancelled, so the Burke ward put on a volleyball day. We decided to go so that I could get to know the ward members better, so we went for a little bit that afternoon. They separated us into teams, and I introduced myself to everyone and apologized for the imminent failure on my part. People just laughed and said, "You can't be that bad!" And all I could think was, "Just you wait..." They didn't have to wait for very long before they realized the validity of my previous words. My poor team. They ended up positioning all the good players around me so that whenever the ball came my way, someone could dive in and save it from either creaming me in the face or bouncing off of me and creaming someone else in the face. But at the very end, the very last ball that was served, the ball came my way and I shrieked and put my arms up and it bounced off of them! We ended up losing that point anyway, but everyone congratulated me because of how brave I was. I know. But back to the story! Friday, we got to be inside for a while because of weekly planning and such, so we missed most of the storm. While we were camped inside, the power went off. It didn't really affect us at that point because it was still light outside and there was still some warmth left over from the heater. But our dinner appointment had to be cancelled because there were trees all over the road and crazy drivers and cops and just a lot of wind. So we sat at the table until the lights went out and the whole world went dark. It was delightful. We drove to one of our member's homes to have a meeting with them that night, and as we pulled up, the husband was on his way to our apartment to make sure we were okay. Turns out, all the towers were out of commission, too. They all just started to cry when we walked in and said that they were so worried about us! Apparently, it was a lot more crazy outside than we had realized. They gave us two flashlights because we didn't have any source of light. The next morning, we woke up to a freezing cold apartment. It was about 50 degrees in there, and it just kept getting colder and colder. Sister Huntsman was a sweetie and brought us breakfast because we couldn't open our fridge and let cold air out and nothing worked (isn't it incredible how much we depend on electricity for everything?). We stayed in our beds all morning and just did everything from there. Then Bishop contacted us and asked us to check on a bunch of people in the ward who hadn't been checked on yet. We spent a few hours on that. Anyway, it was, overall, a pretty great day. We got power back and everything was just dandy.
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| Planning in the dark. |
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| Breakfast in bed. |
But then yesterday there still wasn't any power in the church building, so we had to go to the Stake building and crash another ward there. There was a nice man there who can barely see anything. He said very loudly in the middle of Gospel Principles, "Hello, Sister! You look very good today!" (now, he's legally blind, mind you) And I just said, "Well, thank you!" And then he said, "You know what would make you look even better? Being in the temple dressed in white." And then our teacher just came over to us and said, "Wouldn't we all, Tom. Wouldn't we all. Go sit in your seat." It was hilarious. ...Maybe it was a "had to be there" moment.
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| Yesterday, before Church. |
Love from Burke!
Me
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