I got to come back out to Spokane on December 4th, and man let me
tell you, it has been one crazy week jumping back into the swing of
things. I'm in kind of a quad-panionship right now with the 3 Spanish
sisters, but since I don't actually know Spanish, I've been with Hermana
Lindsey doing the work in their English ward for the most part. It's
been so busy! We have 3 kids on date to be baptized December 23rd. They
are the cutest family ever! They remind me a lot of Anastasia and her
family back in Plummer, actually. It's been really cool :). And I got to
go to the Spanish Branch on Sunday, and that was actually an
eye-opening experience! I could catch about 5% of what was said....
which was enough to maybe write a thesis statement about the talks.
Maybe next week I'll use a headset, but I kind of like trying to
understand what's being said. It keeps me awake.
Speaking of
staying awake, I forgot how tired missionaries are all the time. Holy
cow is it a long day of adventure todos los dias. I have gladly welcomed
back my old friends, "bagsundermyeyes" haha. I do have the world's
sketchiest top bunk though. Pretty sure if I sneezed too forcefully, it
would fall down and smash Hermana Mallett.... so I try really hard not
to have to roll over in the night. It's fantastic haha.
There
were some really great things that happened this week though! I ran
into a couple of incredible insights that I want to share with you
all!!
The first one was while we were teaching our on-date
family! The parents are Traci and Jeff. Jeff's not a member yet, and
neither are their 3 sons, but they're all awesome and they pretty much
believe everything and I'm certain they'll get baptized pretty quick
here. Anyways, we were teaching a lesson about keeping the Sabbath day
holy, and decided to read and dissect the Sacrament prayers with them.
We talked about the word "sanctified" for a minute, about how it means
to make holy or pure, and Jeff asked if it had anything to do with the
word "sanctuary". But in the midst of all the kids and the chaos, his
question got kind of lost in the lesson. BUT! I totally thought about it
the rest of the lesson. How does "sanctified" and "sanctuary" go
together? And apparently so did Jeff, because at the end of the lesson
he asked if "sanctuary" could be applied? Like a sanctuary in a war zone
(he's in the army). We then had a really good mini discussion on how
when we are sanctified by the gift of the Holy Ghost, we become our own
sanctuary. We become our own safe place to be, no matter what's going on
around us or how hard life has become, because we are sanctified. I
left the lesson feeling so excited about that connection! Because for
Jeff, it really spoke to him, because it applied to his life outside of
the church as well. Ah! The Lord is just so good at helping people make
connections. It's amazing to be a part of again! :D
And then
the other fantastic insight I came across was while we were sharing the
new #LighttheWorld Christmas video with a member couple after dinner.
(Go watch it again. It's good every time!) We asked them what they liked
about the video, and Sister Southwick said she liked how smoothly the
pictures flowed into each other, the present things with Jesus' life.
And I thought about that literally the rest of the night. That's the
goal! To smoothly transition the life and character of Jesus Christ into
ours. I thought about it a lot in context of going home soon (again),
because who I am here on the mission, with all the great things to do
and the desire to help and love others, needs to be who I am when I get
back home too.
The work is just SO GOOD! There's nothing like
being a missionary. This is going to be a fabulous 3 months you guys.
I'm so grateful to be here. :)
Love you all!!
Sister Johnson :)
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