Week 37: Last Second Sunday

Yep good thing we are good at winging it.

We walk into gospel principles class, and our Ward Mission Leader asks if we have the lesson today. Very short notice, but the lesson was on the atonement. That is easy to ramble on about. I tried looking at the chapter in the manual, but I didn't just want us to read from it, so we kinda did our own thing. Shared some scriptures, and a Canadian Mormon message that Sister Mandin loves. I love teaching with her! We just have a good flow of picking up where the other left off. Before my mission I would have been so nervous to let alone teach, but on the spot; now not so much. I like teaching last second actually. #giftofthespirit The people in the class were very participant, so that helped. Afterwords we got a few comments about how well we did. I have found that when we teach a lesson by the spirit I do not remember what the heck we said.
After church we were asked to come to a meeting. I didn't really know what to say, and I look at Sister  Mandin to see if she had anything to say. Nope she didn't. Everyone was waiting for us to speak. Haha we finally figured it out.

After that the sister training leaders asked us if we would take a sister from a trio for the day that way they could go on exchanges with the other two. Why not? The sister had served in Columbia Ward before, so we took her to see a person she taught, and taught a lesson about prayer. Then we took her to dinner. That was fun. It was my first time eating over there, so we got lost trying to get there. Our evening continues and then it is time to go to Bishop's for our meeting. We forgot he has having a fireside last night, so we were standing outside his window all stalker like wondering if we go in or not. He sees us, and waves us in. There was a bunch of kids and chit chatter, so we made conversation, and talked to Bishop about our week. At this point in time everyone has left except for one of Bishop's counselors. The sister we have for the night is telling a story, and everyone is listening. As clear as day you hear Mandin toot right in the middle of this story. Nothing was said. Bishop just walked away, and the story continues. Sister Mandin was in tears she was laughing so hard. Then I look at her and I start laughing! No words can can describe how funny it was.

A lot of crazy stories this week, however I can not share them all. One story I will share with you from the perspective of my companion because I am to lazy to write it out. 

My first story requires a back story. Awhile ago my comp and I were tracting and we came across a lost cat poster. It was worded really weirdly and made us laugh so I took a picture of it. We then on referred to it as cat Benjamin. A couple weeks later I air dropped cat Benjamin to my district so we could share laughter.  And as always cat Benjamin delivered the lols. Fast forward to this week... I was washing my hands in the washroom and I heard a knock on the door. 

"Hwaaaaaaat??" I asked

"Elder hewhoshallnotbenamed is on the phone for you." Sister Slattery said through the door. 

"Hwaaat?" 

"HE SAYS THEY FOUND CAT BENJAMIN!!"

"HWAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!"

I swung the door open and yanked the phone from her hands. 

"You found cat Benjamin?!" I asked calmly.  Actually that's a joke I was screaming. 

"Nooo nononononooo that's not what I said at all!" Elder hewhoshallnotbenamed replied. 

"You guys are tracting in our area!"

"Ummmm what do you mean?" I asked. 

"We were tracting in OUR area and we came across a cat Benjamin poster. We compared it to the one you air dropped us and the picture was the exact same as where we were. YOURE TRACTING IN OUR AREA!!"

At this point I was pretty confused. I am a new missionary I thought to myself there is very high chance that I would get confused as to where our area borders were in this strange land of 'merica. But it didn't make sense! My comp was a pro missionary how could we get our areas confused? I marched over to a map to double check. Nope. They were tracting in OUR area!

"I think you guys miiiiiight be mistaken." I said. 

"No. We are not." These elders were standing firm. 

We debated back and forth for a bit then I heard his companion in the background say,

"Give the phone to me."

It was about to go down! You see, we love these elders to death but they can be very intense sometimes. I shook my head at the determination they had. I had a map right in front of me and they still thought I was wrong! #newmissionaryprobs

"Sister Mandin." He said trying to sound all authoritative. 

"Yes?" I replied all sweetly and not at all passive aggressively trying to communicate through my tone of voice that these elders were horrendously wrong and that they should just stop trying because the hole they were digging themselves into was almost deep enough to reach China.

"You're tracting in our area!" He declared. 

"Nope." I responded. 

This continued for longer than I admit to say. Eventually I handed the phone over to my comp and they came to the conclusion that they would check their area map and get back to us. 

A few minutes later they called us back. 

"Hi sisters." They said. Their voices thick with humility. 

"We were tracting in your area. We have seven referrals and two new investigators for you."

We of course responded kindly and thanked them. I felt pretty bad for them but we all knew that the whole situation was also kind of hilarious. 

That same day we had a few hours in the evening to go finding. Now there are areas that I do not feel comfortable going at night. We try and stay in the more nice areas with street lights. We say our prayer in the car and we go knock on the first house. No answer. My companion tells me that she feels like we need to be somewhere else. Okay, so we get back in the car and pray to know where we need to be. I got the impression that we needed to go to the area that I do not like to go to at night, so I didn't say anything, and probably looked disgruntled while I sat there waiting for Sister Mandin to say something. She knows how much I do not like going there at night. She said that she felt like we needed to go there as well. Then she gave me a cop out option to tract this other area. What do we do? We go where the Lord wanted us to go. First door we knocked on was a new investigator. He is this dad of three kids, and super awesome! He told us the day before he and his wife were talking about how they needed to go back to church. HERE IS YOUR SIGN. Haha we actually said that to him.

Well I think that is all this week. Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a great week!

Sister Slattery

 

 

 

District lunch

This sweetheart reminds me of Renae.