Miracles in Rio Rancho and By the Way, Sisters Aren't Old Maids 2/22/2010

Hello from Rio Rancho!

From Monday of last week through Wednesday of this week, we had a total of four different sister missionaries staying at our apartment due to transfers. Sister Ormsby who is from Australia spent a day with us while she was waiting for her new companion who was transferring to our mission from the Chicago mission. We worked as a trio with Sister Ormsby for a day, and it was fun to see her door approaches. I think she can get away with a lot due to her accent. I was impressed with her ability to tell people like it is. While we were tracting with her, we met a family that belongs to what was once the RLDS church, now known as the Community of Christ. Their mom just became a priest, but they were eager to invite us back. Should be interesting to say the least.

Update on Tavern Guy from a few weeks ago: We stopped by to see if we could meet again, and we asked him if he read the pamphlet. Not only did he say yes, but he also gave it to one of his friends, and told him all about the “girl missionaries.” It’s so great when you can get non-members to do missionary work for you! I don’t really know if anything will result from this, but it’s a fun little update since most of my stories in this area are “beginning” stories. There aren’t too many “middle” stories yet, but I’ll try to keep you posted.

So, Relief Society yesterday was super funny. This woman was telling a story about how much her mother didn’t want to serve a mission, although the Spirit was prompting her to do so. She didn’t want to serve a mission because, at the time, Sister Missionaries just became old maids, and she really didn’t want to be an old maid. As it turned out, she went on the mission, had a good experience and married one of the Elders. Later on in the lesson, the Relief Society President made a comment about missionary work and made sure to tell Sister Allred and me not to worry, we wouldn’t be Old Maids. So yeah, kind of awkward, but Sister Allred and I have been laughing about it. We are agreed that marrying an Elder isn’t the most appealing idea, if that’s the moral of the story. Some consolation.

As I have written before, when I first came to this area, my goal was to see miracles. The other day I thought to myself, “Ok, then Sister Waters, what would a miracle look like here?” It was interesting to think about, and I’m starting to realize that maybe we’ve seen some already. As much as I wanted to see more baptisms before the end of my mission, I’m starting to think that our purpose in this area lies more with an 18-year-old recent convert and a less active sister who is only 16. Sure, we have some potential baptismal candidates, but we haven’t really had the opportunity to meet regularly with these new investigators yet, and the only “regular” investigator we have keeps making comments indicating that he’s scared of church and would rather stay with what he knows. After trying for a transfer, we finally set up an appointment to teach our less active-recent convert the new member lessons. She is awesome, and I think the Elders just scared her a little bit (heck, I think they scared the members a little bit sometimes!) But Heavenly Father is so aware of this daughter of his, and maybe that’s why he sent Sister Allred and me here…to be persistent with her. Maybe the miracle is that we get to line up with specific people who have specific needs. Heavenly Father loves her so much, and wants her to have support, since she is the only member in her family…so far anyway. I just hope our appointments with these girls don’t fall through.

We went around yesterday and tried to contact a lot of people, I feel like people are starting to warm up. Hopefully, we’ll start to get invited in more, and our days of doorstep conversations will decrease. The work has to progress! There are too many promises in the scriptures for it not to. As I continue to pray for the missionary work in this area to progress, I’m sure there may be miracles occurring of which I am not even aware.

We met a man who was leaving for Afghanistan in five days and he said he wanted to read the Book of Mormon. So we left him a copy. Its situations similar to these, that I like to imagine are the beginnings of miracles. The kinds of miracles of which I may never be aware.

In sacrament meeting yesterday, someone said, “Bearing your Testimony is Never Wasted.” I think that is so true, and good to remember especially in this area. We as members should never shy away from bearing our testimonies. There is power in testimony, and it is never a waste to bear it. The speaker was talking about how the Holy Ghost can bring all things to our remembrance, and if that is true, we may never know when the Holy Ghost can bring our testimony to someone else’s remembrance. Think of the prophet Enos in the Book of Mormon, who remembered the words of his father, and they sunk deep in his soul!

Well, I don’t have much else to say, aside from, I love you, and continue to pray for you!

Love,
Sister Waters