CDSM Transfer 11

Week 1

It's been a more "boring" week missionary-standard wise. 

Some elders in our district were accidentally tracting in our area and found a new investigator for us. He was an interesting guy and we're not sure where his interest level actually is. But he said that he had nothing to lose by learning from us so we'll see.

I guess the biggest event is that my cousin decided to get married. Right here in Denver. That happened this past weekend so my whole family was just down the street from me. So weird. Not gonna lie, I was pretty bitter about it. But the Lord always provides in His own way. One of the recent converts in sister Holcombs last area (which is right next to ours) got married in the church building a couple blocks away and we got permission to go to it. So, I got to go to a wedding. Just not the one that my whole Webster family was at. Don't really know what's up with my dorky face in this picture but it's the best one.

Then one day while tracting we saw this.The funny part of it was, we were looking through records of former investigators and picked this house out to go try. Well, this house happened to have all these people in 70's get-up walking out towards this limo. Of course we asked for a picture! Do we plan on going back? Yeah! We want to find out more about whatever we just witnessed when they aren't busy on their way out.

Other than that, it got super cold (sub 0) and snowed and we weren't allowed to drive for a day. Not fun. But now it's back up to the 50's. I love Denver for that. And yep. That's my boring week. MERRY CHRISTMAS, my friends! 

 The South Glenn Mall is magical this time of year.

Collection of toys for the Salvation Army.

Week 2

Can I just say, I feel like I've just experienced a mini version of Jobs story these past few weeks. Yep, that's the best way to describe it. He had a great life and then God tested him by taking away everything he had-family, friends and possessions and to top it off, he got terribly ill. All he had left was his faith. And that was the test, would he let go of his faith? Smart guy that he was, he didn't let it go and God ended up replacing everything that he had lost 10 fold (or something to that extent). Now, I can't say that I've experienced a fraction of what he went through and my faith probably hasn't stayed quite as strong as his but, you know, things happened on a smaller scale like that for me.

So, I've explained how everything pretty much crumbled in front of us after a few exciting weeks and we've been stuck trying to figure out how to recover ever since. It was getting to the point that our faith and hope was shriveling up. Never good. Our ward mission leader, brother Rice, ended up giving us a pep talk and telling us that we were not horrible missionaries because we were starting to think that we might be. Everything started looking up after that and we had an awesome week!

We've been meeting with a less active member named Carrie who apparently has come a long way recently according to her home teachers. We started meeting with her a few weeks ago and her testimony is growing leaps and bounds. We asked her to pray about whether Joseph Smith was a prophet and her response when we followed up was, "I haven't had any big revelation but I feel more strongly about it than I ever have." Sounds like a testimony to me! We've also talked to another less-active named Yvette a few times recently. When we visited her this week, she asked us why we had contacted her seemingly out of nowhere. The honest answer was that we saw her on a list and wanted to know who she was. As we were leaving, she told us that we are welcome to come by any time. *fist pump*

Then we stopped by to see if we could talk to Isac and his mom. He wasn't home but she was. She let us in and we talked to her for a few minutes. But the important part is that we can start teaching Isac again at the beginning of the year!

We also have a wonderful new investigator named Ashley. She was found by one set of elders but then she moved and they passed her off to another set of elders. Well, turns out, she actually had moved into our area so those elders passed her off to us. It was a great lesson and supposedly she has come a long way in just a week. She committed to be baptized and is super excited.

One night we went caroling with some members to their neighbors. One of their neighbors was a referral that we've been trying to contact for over a month now and have never been home (although we met 2 baby sitters and a mother-in-law in the process). Well, that night as we walked past, it looked like they might be home. We mentioned it to the members we were with and they said they had met this family while trick-or-treating. So, we knocked on their door and caroled to them. They were a super nice couple and knew exactly who we were and apologized that we had missed them so many times-they had just been extra busy with Christmas and all. So, we'll try them again after the holiday madness is over.

For Christmas eve dinner, we joined a family whose tradition is to make a Polish Christmas dinner on Christmas eve. It was preeeetty good.

Flash back: a few weeks ago we were walking down the street when I saw someone in the distance walking towards us. I felt very strongly that we needed to talk to him. So, we did. We found out that he, Mebrahtu (we think that's his name...not 100% sure yet) was a refugee from Africa (still trying to figure out where exactly...Ethiopia or somewhere near there we think) so the language barrier was a little rough but we were able to invite him to Church on Christmas and he said that he wanted to come, he just needed a ride. Flash forward to Christmas eve as we're driving home and have a huge face-palm moment. We hadn't made any contact with him since that day or found a ride. Brother Rice was basically the only person we knew who would be willing to give a complete stranger a ride and at so last minute. Thankfully he agreed to do so. The next morning, we stopped by Mebrahtus apartment to ask if he still wanted to come. His face lit up and he said he just needed to change. The Rices came and picked him up and we followed in our car to church. By the time we got there, brother Rice had already started to try to figure out where Mebrahtu was from and what his language was, etc. With the help of a smartphone, he managed to do so. 

Interruption to that story to tell another one. Last Monday we ran into Alex and Leilani, the part member family that we've been trying to meet with since I got here, at Walmart. Leilani pointed to us and told her husband that, "those are the sisters who keep stopping by" as we approached them. They greeted us and told us that they would be trying to make it to church this Sunday for Christmas. We told them that it would be great if they could. Many people promise to come to church but few actually show up. Imagine my surprise when I walked in the chapel and the whole family, including all 4 kids, were sitting there on the back row. After the service, we went back and talked to them and Alex asked us if he could talk to the bishop. Then we proceeded to introduce the family to several members. THEN Alex told us that he really wanted his 9 year old daughter to get baptized and for us to come start teaching her. I was wondering if I was actually awake and not dreaming. Anyway, that whole scene was a great Christmas present.

Back to Mebrahtu. We sat next to him for the first half of the meeting but then we had to go up on the stand to sing in the choir for the rest. We sang Silent Night in German so that was awesome! As I looked down into the congregation, I noticed that brother Rice was sitting next to Mebrahtu and they were both looking down at something-presumably a phone. After the meeting, brother Rice told us that he had sat there for a good portion of the meeting trying to figure out what language Mebrahtu spoke. He finally figured it out: Amharic. Yeah, I've never even heard of it before. But he found the sacrament prayer in Amharic and apparently Mebrahtu got super excited. So from here, we have to figure out how to get everything we can in the language of Amharic. It's going to be an adventure but we are going to figure out how to teach this miracle of a man named Mebrahtu. He's such a friendly person despite all that he's gone through and his broken English. I'm so excited! To be continued...

After church, we went and volunteered by helping out with a Christmas lunch at HOPE (the thrift store/food pantry that we volunteer at). They made something like 600 ribs and boy were they good. They invited us to eat first so as we did, we sat and talked to this nice homeless man. We talked a lot about BBQ, a topic that I honestly know little about but still love. We got there so late that we mostly just helped to clean up but that was still a very fulfilling thing to do on Christmas. 

And of course we can't forget, I skyped my family! I was wonderful. I can't believe that was the last time that I'll do that as a missionary. I'll see them in person next. Exactly 4 months from today. I promise I'm not counting down. 

And so that was my Christmas week. IT WAS AWESOME! The Lord knows how to give good gifts and I am so grateful for that. 

 Ugly sweater cookies.

 Super cool firetruck.

 The Christmas card that we made for Elder Pratt, our mission vehicle coordinator. 

 Matching star Wars PJs from Santa aka sister Holcombs mom.

Week 3

The week started out just generally meh and then meh lead to tears but the week ended great so we'll focus on that! 

For a few days we thought that Ashley hated us or something. She wasn't responding to calls, texts or the door. Never a good sign when someone you're teaching starts to ignore you. It usually means one of two things, either they're not actually interested or they found anti material and suddenly think that they are talking to horrible people. Haha, yeah, I'm pretty scary. So we had the elders who were teaching her before contact her and she talked to them. We thought for sure she was specifically ignoring us. Finally, we tried knocking on her door one last time last night. She opened the door and looked so exhausted. She said that she had been called into work last minute a few times this week and she was sick so she had been staying at her moms for the past few days. We didn't end up teaching her at all this week but now we know that she doesn't hate us and is excited to meet the families in the ward who live in her neighborhood. Phew. That was a close one.

Update on Mebrahtu is that...we found out he actually doesn't speak Amharic. Haha we were close-ish. We got a Book of Mormon in Amharic and brought sister Gifford with us to give it to him. We tried to explain what the book was and he seemed a little confused. We also kept going round in circles trying to explain to him that we aren't Catholic because he kept asking us about that. Then we tried another approach by finding Amharic pages on lds.org and asking if he'd read them. He would start, then look at us confused and say, "no, Ethiopia!" Finally, we just asked him if he'd like to come to church again and he said yes. The Rices (the ward mission leader and his wife) picked him up and just like last week, brother Rice spent all of Sacrament meeting trying to figure out how to better communicate with Mebrahtu. After the meeting he told us that he had found out that we were wrong before and that Mebrahtu is actually from Eritrea (a small country bordering Ethiopia) and speaks Tigrinya. During Sunday school, it was just us, Mebrahtu and the Rices. So, we took that hour to try to figure out how to teach a lesson that Mebrahtu could actually understand. We picked the topic of prayer. After messing around with some apps on his phone a bit, Brother Rice decided to use Google translate to translate key words of the lesson into Tigrinya. Every time brother Rice would translate something, Mebrahtu would say "Yes! Good! Happy!" Now we know that we have the right language! We've learned through this experience that Google translate is the modern gift of tongues. We just hope that it translated correctly... We're not exactly sure how much of the lesson he really understood but we're getting somewhere. At least we have the right language now.

We had a tender experience after dinner one night. This sweet, empty-nester couple (the wife a member, the husband is not) had a couple grand kids at their house who joined us for dinner. From what we could tell, at least some the kids weren't very familiar with religion. We shared the Light the World video with the family as a spiritual thought. The 5 year old granddaughter was fidgeting and groaning the whole time and asking if it was over yet. Finally, grandma says, "I know you don't know who Jesus is but he is very special to me." She proceed to share her testimony of the Savior and it was so powerful that my eyes started to water. Then she invited us to start the video over and her grand kids to really pay attention this time. After it was over, we asked each person what they liked or thought about the video. When we got to the little girl, she shyly said, "Baby Jesus. That's it." The power of bearing your testimony can go a long way!

We've been delivering cookies to a bunch of less-active members in the ward over the course of the holiday season and it's brought small but wonderful fruits. We've met people who we may never have talked to otherwise. Small acts of kindness can change peoples hearts over time. I know I've already written a rant about home and visiting teaching in the past but here I am again saying, just do it! Let people know you care. It will add up.

Another fun thing we did this week was "heart attack" (leave hearts with notes on them on someones door) a sister who just returned home from her mission this week. She loved it and gave us a bunch of her clothes that she didn't want. Gotta love hand-me-downs.

OK, so, it was a good week I guess. Not many pictures but oh well. Not much to see. 

Week 4

First of all, when you do squats for the first time in a year, don't start with 4 minutes of them. You won't be able to walk for two days after that. My waddle has been real. But I think I've almost recovered.

Second of all, you know you've been helping to set up and take down church activities a lot lately when you have a dream about a machine that unfolds folding tables. I really don't get where brains get the ideas for dreams sometimes. 

Third, fresh potatoes straight from Idaho are actually pretty good. We had dinner with the stake presidents family and apparently they had become best friends with Elder Driscoll of the Seventy while he was here a few weeks ago for stake conference. Elder Driscoll is a potato farmer and had sent them a whole box of them straight from his back yard. Deeeelish. But no, this in no way encourages me to consider BYUI. Just thought I'd throw that out there for my BYUI friends.

Anyway, other than those random experiences from this week, it's been a good one! The part member family that we've been working with is really putting forth a bit of effort. On Tuesday, we stopped by to invite the teenage kids to youth activities that night. The whole family (except the mom who had to work) showed up. Alex, the dad, was playing basketball with his two younger kids when we walked in. Alex, who really wants his 9 year old daughter, Kamelana, to get baptized, asked us if we'd like to teach her a lesson right there and then. So of course we said yes. We're not entirely sure how much she understood because she kept looking around, seemingly not paying attention but occasionally she'd ask us a question pertaining to the lesson and when we asked her questions, she always had an answer. Afterwards, her dad asked her if she wants to be baptized she excitedly said yes and ran laps around the gym. So, we're thinking that she probably was actually listening. On Sunday the whole family showed up to church and we got reports from teachers that the kids did really well and seemed to have fun. In our Sunday school class, Alex and his wife Leolani (who isn't a member) joined us. During introductions, they explained that recently they had been talking about how they wanted to bring their family to church and how important it was to them. So important, in fact, that Alex had gotten up at 3 that morning to do his entire work route (he's an in-town truck driver) before church. It was the first time that he had tried that but he was willing although he's worried that his company might add more stops to his route. Prayers that it won't happen!  Anyway, we decided to teach the Restoration lesson and Leolani said that some questions that she had about the church were answered. Bottom line, this family is great and the whole ward is pumped. I haven't seen this much dedication from anyone in a long time.

Mebrahtu was not able to make it to church because he was sick but brother Rice has been spending a lot of time with him this past week. They are helping each other learn each others languages, they went to an Ethiopian restaurant and just generally having a fun time together. 

The other night we had a fantastic lucky streak. Every single person that we wanted to see answered their door. That. Never. Happens. We didn't necessarily have the chance to teach a lesson to everyone but we got to talk to them. We were running on clouds by the end of the night.

Zone conference also happened and it was wonderful. I always feel like my brain is going to explode by the end but I'm also pumped and ready to go out and work. There are a lot of rules that were discussed that have been tightened up so it's an adjustment in day to day life. But we've seen blessings already so we're just hoping obedience keeps those blessings coming. During the conference we had car inspection. We not only passed but placed in the cleanest car competition. The funny part was when we walked out and our car was missing. They had taken the cars to Sears (which thankfully was just across the street) for maintenance and hadn't told us. Our car was still in the shop and it wasn't done for awhile longer so we were a bit late for dinner. Oh well, new tires and a battery is always good. Especially with winter being here and all. We had a good winter blast this week with lots of snow and very cold temperatures (its a wonder that our car was as clean as it was). But don't worry. Everything is almost melted because its 60 degrees today.

And last but not least, the only picture that I have from this week. A pig grazing in someones front yard. You're welcome.

Week 5

It's been a fairly low-key but still fun week here in Cornerstone Park. Our wonderful part member family came to church again so it looks like they're going to be pretty regular. Alex was late because he had to finish up his route but the rest of the family was still there on time - early even. 

The Littleton elders have passed off an investigator to us who lives in our area. His name is Nathan and he is a little different mentally but seems to be sincere in his learning and changing his lifestyle to be worthy for baptism. 

We were knocking on doors and this adorable old lady answered hers. We found out that her pastor had died recently and she was looking for a new church. Unfortunately, the plumber showed up right then and we couldn't finish our conversation. We told her we'd come back in a couple of days. When we we back, she opened her door and a huge smile came across her face. She said, "When I heard the door bell, I was really hoping it was you! I kept thinking about you these past few days and I was really impressed that you are out doing this. Only Jehovah's Witness ever knocks on my door." We taught her a little bit of what we believed and invited her to church to which her response was, "Don't be surprised if I show up!" Sadly, she didn't but we will keep working on her. Also, a note to my parents, she said, "Tell your folks that they did a really good job teaching you. You know your information." Seriously, the most adorable old lady I've ever met.

Mebrahtu came to church and we had dinner with him at the Rices. It was the first time he had been in their house and he was amazed at how nice it was. Their house is nice but not big or anything. We're slowly starting to learn his story and it's fascinating. He's been in the US for about 7 years now but doesn't seem to have any friends. As far as we can tell, he stays in his house most of the time (so it's a miracle in and of itself that we met him on the street) so he hasn't had much interaction with people making it nearly impossible to learn English. So, we've decided that the first step with him is to help him learn English. Coming to church and being immersed in the language is great as well as brother Rice going and spending time with him a couple times a week is helping too. Despite his simple life away from the familiarity of his country and culture, he is probably the happiest person I know. He laughs all the time and his favorite words are, "Happy! Nice! Good!" Brother Rice found an Ethiopian restaurant that he's taken Mebrahtu to a couple times and brought the leftovers home which we've been able to try. It's so good. You eat everything with this crepe-like food which you use to grab the food and then stuff it all in your mouth. 

Those are the highlights of the week. If I don't write everyone back this week it's because we're only allowed 1 hour if we have to email on a day other than P-day. Those darn Monday holidays.

Week 6

Well, we haven't been able to really move forward with most of our investigators and we're getting a little frustrated that we can't figure out how to help them overcome their roadblocks but ah well. So is missionary life.

Thankfully we have Nathan who is always excited to let us know that he is keeping his commitments. Due to some logistics, he can't be on date for baptism yet but he's looking forward to the day he can be baptized. He was able to attend a baptism this week which just added to his excitement.

There is a woman named Celeste who we've been trying to meet with for months and we were finally able to get it to work. She is this wonderful young mom of three young children and her husband is the head pastor at their church. That's always a red flag but hey, if they let you in at least you try, right? Well, turns out she didn't want to bash and was genuinely open to listen to us and learn what we believe. It took awhile to get through the lesson because her kids needed her attention constantly but she handled it really well and her kids were adorable so we weren't salty. She thought the whole message of the restoration was interesting but the Book of Mormon is what got her attention. She told us that she has Native American ancestry and had always wondered why their beliefs and rituals were similar to those in the Bible. If the story of the Book of Mormon is true, it explains why. So of course we invited her to read it and pray about it. She accepted the invitation! Who knows if it'll go any farther but it's a start.

We went on exchanges and I got to spend the day with sister Walker. She is THE human fireball of exuberance. She loves to talk to everyone and nothing makes her waver (at least that I've seen so far). She's got the "haters gonna hate but who cares" attitude down to a science. In the process of talking to literally every human in sight (which, we're already supposed to do but let's be real...that's hard and doesn't always happen) we ran into a pleasant lady named Kathy while knocking on the apartment door next to hers. She walked out her door and started shuffling things around on her balcony. We asked her if she needed any help and she said yes! Almost no one ever accepts our impromptu service offers. The task she was trying to accomplish is a bit tricky to explain but basically, she had a bunch of stuff on the other side of the railing for the stairs and there used to be enough room to shimmy between the railing and the wall but then the manager put a covering over a window air conditioning unit that was in that pathway so now you couldn't get past it without crawling over the top of it. Sorry, that was probably the longest run on sentence I've ever written. Anyway, the manager had asked her to remove the stuff on the other side but she wasn't about to climb over so she was about to figure out how to get this cover off the unit when we asked if we could help. She explained he predicament and we offered to just climb over the railing and hand the stuff over to her. She hesitated to say yes because we were in skirts but we insisted. So, we scaled this railing in our skirts and got the job done. Who needs a superhero cape when you have a skirt? Haha just kidding. Skirts aren't my favorite but I've adapted. When we first started talking to Kathy, she said that she had a lot of family who was LDS but she had never really been interested and left it at that. But after having a nice conversation with her while we were cleaning, she thanked us and asked us for our number. She said she would actually love for us to come over and talk to her. We also invited her to church and she said, "Wait, I thought non-members weren't allowed to go to your church." We explained that it was the temple that not just anyone could go in but everyone is welcome to come to church! She was super surprise and said she'd love to come some time. Myth: busted. Service project: complete success.

Speaking of myth busting, we busted another common one when we were at the store this morning. We were talking to this guy and mentioned that we had gone down the valentines aisle. He looked shocked and said, "I thought LDS people don't celebrate holidays!" "Of course we do! We love holidays!" "Oh....huh. That's cool."  I love this myth because it's so far from the truth that it's hilarious.

Back to exchanges. The other funny and random story from the exchange was when we were sitting in a neighborhood figuring out what we were doing next. We looked up and saw a huge moose head in a big picture window in the house right in front of us. We admired if for a few minutes and then sister Walker said, "Let's go talk to the people with the moose head!" It was about 8:15pm so I was a little hesitant but like I said, sister Walker has no fear and marched right up to the door. Thankfully, the woman who answered was nice and we complemented on the moose and then went on with our normal missionary spiel. The result was: sure, we could come back in a few weeks. *shrugs shoulders* Guess it worked. 

 Sister Walker and the art of heart attacking.

I went on exchanges with sister Davies a few weeks ago and finally got the pictures. We enjoyed the big snow storm that day. We were basically the only people crazy enough to go out so we didn't have the chance to talk to many people. We had fun anyway.

________

News just in!  A woman named Sara that I taught waaaay back in my Pear Park days at the very beginning of my mission just got baptized! She's come close a few times now but finally made the decision to do it! Way to go Sara. I'm so proud of you!

________

 My life is good. The end.

Week 7

Breaking news! I'm getting transferred. And so is sister Holcomb. We're being whitewashed by elders. As shocking as the news was, in the back of our minds it was an option so we weren't all that surprised. All week leading up to transfer calls we just couldn't get a feeling for what was going to happen (and usually you kind of have an idea). Neither of us felt like we were staying or leaving. Then the day before the call, sister Holcomb suggested, "What if we get whitewashed by elders?" and my response was, "Hmmm...that's actually a pretty good possibility." So when that was the news that we got we were like, yep cool ok. The reason for this change is largely because we are steadily losing sisters faster than they come in. Sister areas have been closing pretty much since I got here so it was bound to happen. SO, here is the call to all you girls who are considering missions: WE NEED YOU! Anyway, as expected as this was, I still wasn't prepared. It's super stressful that we have to have our area book in pristine condition for a smooth transition AND gut and deep clean our house today. And if you know me, you know that I don't always handle stress that well. My old companions know all about my transfer-stress-personality. I've already apologized in advance to sister Holcomb for anything I may say or do that isn't quite sane. Ohhhh what an adventure. 

So, where are we going? Sister Holcomb is going out West for the first time and serving in Craig, CO and Baggs, WY (gonna be fun in the winter) and I will be....*drum roll*...going back to Highlands Ranch!!! This time I will be serving in the Daniels Park and Heritage Park wards making 5 wards that I will have served in over in HR. Also, 4 wards that are named after parks, haha (Pear Pear and Cornerstone Park and now these two)! Enough babbling about transfers. That was probably TMI, sorry.

Other big news of the week, our daily schedules have changed a little bit after a world wide broadcast that we watched on Wednesday. You may have heard about it by now but basically, we have a little bit more flexibility in our schedule and have the opportunity to sleep for an extra hour if we choose to as a companionship. Also, P-day is two hours longer. YUS! The only part that we don't like as much is that lunch is only half an hour now. I honestly don't know how we're going to swing that. Cooking, eating and cleaning up in an hour was hard enough. Now, forget trying to eat healthy. We're going to have to eat whatever we can make in 5 minutes. I'm not a rushed eater so this'll be a test of faith and obedience. *sigh*

We had an amazing, purely spirit-lead lesson with Carrie this week. Her home teachers had been there earlier that week and she had asked them a question that they said that they didn't have an answer to so they'd get back to her. They didn't tell us about this at all. While we were planning for her lesson, we felt strongly to talk about a certain topic and focus on a particular point in that topic. Turns out, this exact point addressed her question and answered it perfectly. She opened up to us about her concerns and we assured her that Heavenly Father would bless her if she tried her best to keep the commandments and do all that she can. To add the cherry on top, she announced that she was finally going to come to church this week. And she did! I may not have seen any baptisms while in Cornerstone Park but I did see a less-active members life change and watched the Lords hand in guiding us to be involved in that change. There were just way too many miracles that happened as we have worked with her to call them coincidences.

Other than that, it was a pretty normal week in missionary life and nothing too exciting happened. 

As hard as I'm trying to stay focused and be fully committed to the end, the trunkiness is real. I have less than 3 months now. It doesn't even feel real yet. It also didn't help that I had a quick phone interview with the Chief Ranger at Philmont Scout Ranch this week. Sounds like I will be going back to Philmont this summer! But lest you think I'm getting carried away with post-mission stuff (this is especially for you, Grandpa) I'm not packing my trunk yet. I really am committed to focus for the last 12 weeks that I have. And it's gonna be AWESOME!

 I met brother Madsen who is a good friend of my grandpa.

 Disjointed district pictures because we couldn't manage to get one all together.

Catch ya next week in Highlands Ranch!