Monday October 27, 2014

What Matters Most is What Lasts the Longest

So since my thoughts are usually scattered on my emails I am going to try to go through my week and remember all that happened.

Monday-after preparation day we went out trying to contact some less actives but were unsuccessful. We had Family Home Evening with a family and two of our recent converts that are teens.  They both have been struggling coming to church so we have been trying to work with the more and more.  We played a game with them called "Catch the Wave Catch Phase" and tied it into opening their mouths more with their friends that are around them and we have found out that we have to play some sort of game with them in order to keep their attention.  We talked to them as well about why they aren't coming to church and why it is important to.  We have decided that we are going to try and do FHE with them every week so if any one has any good game ideas for teenagers that would be great.

Tuesday- So our zone decided to do a little special training that day and do some exchanges where we went out a tried to find people in different areas.  It was pretty good, I went to the other sisters area and we tried to contact a few less actives and knocked on some doors.  We didn't see much success but it was good to just go out and try to find people again.  We were only able to go for a few hours with them because we had something come up for us in the evening.  A member ended up taking us out to eat, which I feel like we did a lot of that this week.

     So in the morning we got a phone call from some sisters that are serving in the Summerset ward.  They called to tell me that Ursula Wilkenson was getting baptized that night!!!!! I was so excited, such a tender mercy from the Lord.  She is one whose story just broke my heart and I had a deep love for her.  I knew that one day she would get baptized but it would be when she decided to.  Her daughter was the one who got baptized back in April I believe.  I guess she wanted it to be a small low key thing and so she only asked a few people to come.  I was the only other missionary that she asked to come, I was so surprised and felt honored that she wanted me there.  Sister Lomu and I were the ones that found her and started to work with her.  It was a tender mercy from the Lord that through out my mission I would run into her from time to time and talk to her about how things are going and how I knew she was going to get baptized.  It was so neat to see her all dressed in white and enter into the waters of baptism.  I got to talk to her afterwards for a little bit and it was so great to see how much the spirit had been working on her and how much she had changed.  She has been one of persons that I have grown close with because I feel like she really challenged me as a missionary.  It is funny that those that are the most stubborn that I have worked with are the ones that I have a deep love for.  She is someone that I hope to keep in contact with for a long time.

    So after leaving the baptism I started to get a pounding headache, but I had a thought of letting my companion drive home but I felt like I would be okay.  Well I guess I got what I deserved for not listening to the promptings of the spirit.  Eagle is about 20-30 minutes away from where the baptism was at and as we were driving home we hit every single red light.  And as time went by my headache got worse and worse.  I started to get really sensitive to light and the car headlights going in the other direction were for sure not helping at all.   At red lights I just tired to keep breathing deeply and close my eyes while trying to focus on the conversation with my companion.  When we were about 5 minutes away I started to get super nauseous I wasn't sure if I was going to make it home or not.  I guess I am a pretty stubborn person because I just pushed through until we got home, but then I ran upstairs leaving all the lights off while I ran into the bathroom.  This is the first time I have ever experienced a migraine and it was something I did not like experiencing on my mission.  I felt horrible I spent the next hour in the bathroom either throwing up or laying on the bathroom floor.  I took some Advil and just laid there.  I felt bad because my companion ended up having to weekly plan by herself.  She knocked on the bathroom door around 10:20 and I just got ready from bed and crashed trying to avoid as much light as I could.  I was determined not to allow me being sick effect my missionary work.  Luckily the next day I felt total fine, a little weak but I was able to go out a work.  Tuesday was a day where I felt the highest of highs and the lowest of lows on my mission in such a short period of time.

  Wednesday- we had district meeting, nothing really too special for that day

Thursday-We did exchanges with the other sisters that are serving in Eagle.  The zone leaders actually asked us to do weekly planning with them because their area had really been struggling.  It was uncomfortable for them I feel like, but i think it was really good.   We found a lot of potentials and people that they could work with in their area.  I really helped them to organize things, which for some reason is something I have really enjoyed doing on my mission.  As heck-it as it can be I love coming into areas and having to organize them, it makes it so much easier for the missionaries that come in after.  We also discovered that they were counting numbers wrong which just blew my mind.  One of the sisters has been out as long as me and has been doing it all wrong.  You could tell they were trying to justify things for their numbers.  We explain what counted and what didn't and how they shouldn't focus on the key indicators but people.  It is not worth it to lie about something like that.  I was really hoping to help the sisters find some new investigators, but we didn't have much luck.  But we were able to meet with some less actives they have had a hard time trying to catch.  We set up some return appointments for them as well, so I felt like overall it was a pretty successful day with them.

Friday,Saturday- These two days just seem to be blurring together for me.  We did some service for some people in our area.  Invited tons of non-members to the ward trunk or treat and did lots of tracting.  We found lots of potentials as well as lots of people that aren't interested.  We try to talk to everyone that is on the street, but not many people are out and about now that it is starting to cool down so we have been knocking on doors.  Not spending too much time doing that, but we park our car and then walk the area trying to contact members and knocking on randomly.  We thought our dinner was cancelled on Saturday, but apparently we had called a different family so we ended up getting a call and having to rush to dinner.  I felt so bad, but that is just how it goes in the missionary world.  The ward trunk or treat was pretty good, they did a chili cook off but kept it outside which I was a little disappointed about because it was a little cold so not many people wanted to stay.  I wish they would of done games and such inside the church like how they do in the homeward.  These two days we ate out as well a lot.  I don't know what it was but members just wanted to take us out to eat for lunch and dinner and we ate out when we had our special zone training.  I can defiantly see how people gain weight up here in eagle.  It is nice and everything to eat out but sometimes it is just too much.  I know what the missionaries mean mom when they say they just want simple meals.  Just trust them with what they want.  Ask them what they want, even offer in-n-out or something to them as well.  I bet they would love that.

Sunday-  We had church for 6 hours again and it was the other ward's primary program.  It was so cute. We saw some tender mercies catching some less actives that we have been trying forever! They were super nice and seem receptive to us.  We also had some people who were HBH(home but hiding).  Those people just make me laugh.  My joke I have been telling people is "that it is Halloween everyday for us because people are always scared of the missionaries". I don't know why some people don't just open the door and tell us they are not interested, other wise we will just come back hahaha  There was even one house where the husband use to be in the stake presidency, we walked to the door and saw him in his office.  As soon as we knocked on the door the light went off, we waited and then rang the door bell and still no one came.  I just laughed as I walked away.

   Overall this week was good, we saw a lot of tender mercies and we are really seeing some of the less actives that we are working with progress.  Brother Van Dongen is just being prepared by the spirit you can just tell that he knows he needs to change but is becoming resistant and doesn't want to commit too much time.  I just know that he is so close to coming back to church.  I am loving the work up here and the people that I am working with even though it can be slow at times.  Today I read a talk about the atonement and it talked about applying it to our lives individually and one person at a time.  It talked about parents and missionaries that every single person counts and matters to the Lord.  This week is transfer calls!!!Where has the time gone, at times this transfer has felt slow and at others it has gone by fast.  I would say to hold off on sending anything to me.  Everything is up in the air when it comes to transfers I feel like.  Next time you hear from me we will no if I will be finishing up my mission in Eagle most likely or somewhere else. 

    Also this Friday is my last Zone conference, they moved it up because Elder Godoy from the seventy is coming.  I am gonna have to give my trunk-a-mony(my last testimony in front of the mission).  Where is the time going? The holidays are around the corner! I am not ready! If someone could tell me how to slow down time that would be great.  I feel like as I have been trying to sprint to the end the time has been going by that much faster!!! 

   I love you all so much! I am so grateful for all your love and support! I hope that all is well with all of you!

Love

Sister Metcalf 

Monday October 20, 2014

"500 houses and 500 Mouses"-Krispy Kreme

Sorry for the lateness of my letter, sometimes the library gets pretty busy and the computers kick you off after a certain amount of time.  So after the first time getting kicked off we decided to go off for our preparation Day and go do some fun things.  We went to go race some slot cars, I will have to send you some pictures next week(i don't have the cord to moms old camera on me to send you the pictures).  

    Things have been going pretty good here in our area. This week has been an up and down week once again.  It feels like this is the week where we did a lot of filtering either by us or by the people themselves.  I guess the Lord is pushing me to increase my faith in him.  If there was a key indicator for the number of people not interested this week I think we would win hahaha Some people were first contact visits, but there were a couple of people who we had been working with that dropped us.  Those ones were hard for me because they were people that I had grown to love and it breaks my heart that this isn't the time for them to come back to church.  We also decided this week that one of our investigators that we had been working with we will probably drop as well.  She just isn't keeping her commitments and she really isn't willing to change at the moment.  She says she wants to reconnect with the religion that she grew up with(catholic) before she makes any decisions.  But honestly I know that we are filtering the people to better focus on those that are prepare and to find those that the Lord is preparing for us.  It reminds me of this video found on the Mormon channel(http://www.mormonchannel.org/) That sometimes the Lord cuts us back and sometimes our teaching pool to better prepare us.  It might not make a lot of sense to you, but to me it does.

    I felt like this happened this week to me with the Lord.  On Thursday we went on exchanges with some of our sisters and I ended up staying in our area.  The night before I was super excited because we had an appointment scheduled from 10am all the way until 8pm at night and a couple of them were with some potential investigators.  Well as the day went on almost all of our appointments cancelled except for dinner and one with our recent converts.  That night I felt defeated, I felt like what the current bush, I was just baffled that this had happened especially because some of our appointments we had are ones that we have at the same time every single week.  It was in that moment where the Lord broke me down and revealed something to me that I had been doing this whole week.  Because to be honest up until that point a lot of our week had been pretty much.  It was during our weekly planning session while setting goals for myself for this upcoming week that I prayed to the Lord to find out what I needed to work on or learn this week.  It came to me that I needed to have more faith driven prayers.  It was in that moment and those next few days during our study sessions that I realized that I had almost been pleading with the Lord/ hoping that these people we were planning on seeing would be home.  I realized that I needed to pray with faith and have the confidence that those people were going to be home and that they were going to let us in.

    Those next two days after that realization totally changed my way of thinking and as I applied it to my life it was amazing to see the changes.  We were able to get a lot of unplanned lessons and to get into some peoples homes that we have been trying to see since I have been here.  I know that it was a tender mercy from the Lord, I noticed a lot of them that he put into our path.  One of them that sticks out to me was on one of our long days.  We went to go visit a less active family that got home from Africa a few weeks ago because they were down picking up their two sons that they had adopted.  When we went to go try them the wife answered the door with a knife in her hand.  We all kind of started laughing because she didn't realize she was still holding onto it.  Turns out that she was making cardboard houses for her kids.  We asked if she needed help and she agreed.  So we got to have a little fun with the kids(ill have to send the pictures next week) and we got to visit with the family and talk to them a little bit.  It was a little stress relief that we needed while still doing missionary work of course, i consider that service hahaha

    So story for the week: so Sunday morning my companion and I went out to our car to head to church and when she opened the door, there was a mouse in there!!! Yep a mouse in our car!!! It was crazy, we were freaking out.  We thought it ran out the car, but to be safe we left a cracker on the floor of the car during to church to double check.  Well after we got out of church(7 hours later). the whole cracker was gone! Like no sign of it missing! No crumbs! We thought that we might not of left it there for a minute.  But that night we set up a mouse trap(which took us like 10 minutes to figure out hahaha) Went out this morning and we had caught it!!!! It was kind of gross, but we hope that that was the only one.  Everyone we have told, our district leaders, other sisters, and the people in the office have laughed at us.  They said that was the first time that they had heard that before.  I guess the Lord gave me a little taste of what it would of been like serving foreign hahaha

    Yesterday in one of our wards was the primary program, it made me think of back at home with our primary programs.  Those kids were so cute, and it is just amazing how you can feel the spirit when little kids sing and speak.  It is also pretty inspired by the First Presidency that the theme for this year was "Families can be Together Forever"

   I love you all so much and am so grateful for your love, prayers, and support.  I hope you all have a great week! Here are some pictures of our last few pdays(1-playing sports in the rain and a ditch turned into a fun puddle to play in 2)fishing, not much luck but I caught 1!)

Love

Sister Metcalf

Tuesday October 14, 2014

This one is probably going to have to be a short one, we didn't get a chance to e-mail yesterday because the libraries were closed due to Columbus day and today we don't have as much time.

  This week has been a pretty good week, we had MLC and received some good training about using the Book of Mormon more when we teach.  We found out that Zone Conference got moved up to the end of this month because Elder Godoy is coming in to do a mission tour.  It is weird because this will be my last zone conference in the mission. Where is the time going? The next day we also got to go to the mission office to watch "Meet the Mormons". It was such a good movie, I would highly recommend you all seeing it. I felt like it was really well done and that it wasn't preachy but it had good underlining messages about each person.  It is defiantly a movie I would recommend taking non-members to.

   A tender mercy from the Lord this week: A few weeks ago I got into contact with a less active man in the ward and we have been working with him every week now.  This past week we went by and talked about the Book or Mormon and read the first chapter with him because he says he doesn't quite understand the scriptures when he reads them.  It was so a great experience to be able to do that with him, you can see the spirit working on him and changing him.  He even watched General Conference last week! We actually had quite a few less actives watch general conference which was amazing to see.  It is so great to see the spirit working on these people and to see them making progression.  While leaving Brother Van Dongen's house(the less active we are working with). He asked us if we would come back next week again, usually we are the first ones to ask him if we can come back next week.  Although we don't see as many baptisms or have as many investigators as we would like I feel so much satisfaction from working with these less active members.  I think of Brother Van Dongen, who is in his 80s and how if the Lord hadn't been hastening his work here in Boise where missionaries are able to work with members more and more, he might of never of been able to find his way back to the gospel.

    Things have been going well in the area, and we are keeping pretty busy, but of course we can always be busier. Our investigators are moving along, they are progressing but very slowly.  I still have been trying to figure out how to get the fire going with them.  Every week is an up and down week I feel like. Some people progressing along and really want to meet with you and then others that want to drop you or aren't interested in meeting with you. For example we had set up an appointment with a less active man to meet with him and work with him.  He seemed really wanting to come back and we were going to see him today, but he called this morning to tell us that he was unsure now. That he had some feelings of uneasiness. I tried to talking to him for a little bit, but you could tell the advesary had been working on him. We agreed to allow him to take a couple weeks to continue to think and pray about it and we are gonna follow up.  Sometimes things would be so much easier if the Adversary wasn't progressing his work along as well.

    I hope that things are going well for all of you. Again so sorry about the short letter hopefully I will be able to write a longer letter next week. Love you!!!

Love 

Sister Metcalf

    

Monday October 6, 2014

Another week 

This week we went on exchanges with Spanish sisters that we are over, my companion was defiently excited about that.  She got to go back to her old area, she is more bold in Spanish I feel like.  I think she is just hesitant in English and I have been trying to get her to be pushed out of her comfort zone little by little each day.  It is a struggle at times but it is helping, or at least I think it is.  I do feel like it was a game of good cop/bad cop though.  The assistants had called us the previous week about talking to the sisters about some things.  Well when it came time to talk to them my companion kind of sided with them because they are friends so I was kind of the one that had to deal with it all and was the bad cop in a sense.  The sisters that I am over are actually the two that I double trained about a year ago.  They are companions again and serving together in Spanish which is kind of crazy and weird.  It is hard at times being over them because I trained them, but I just have to be straight honest with them about things.  Sometimes it is hard to help sisters out, there are things that they turn to you with things they are struggling with and there is just nothing you can do to help them.  For example if they want to get up on time they have to decide that for themselves, there is nothing that I or the Lord can do to help them with that.  That is something thing I have been grateful for on my mission from playing sports.  That I have the inward desire and drive to motivate myself to do things.  Being out for over a year it is hard to get up at 6:30 and I am tired too in the morning, but I still get up because it is what I promised my Heavenly Father I would do when I accepted my call.  There is nothing that makes it easy, you just have to get up and get moving.  I don't have dad there anymore waking me up for seminary 5 times and making me breakfast, meaning toast :) There are so many life lessons I feel like you learn on the mission having to do with yourself, friendships, callings in church, family relationships, and future family relationships.  I truly believe that the mission is the MTC for the rest of my life.

     This week we had interviews with our mission president, it went really well.  We had a good discussion about a bunch of different things and he even brought up to me different options that might happen to me for this up coming transfer.  He said a lot of things that I needed to hear, at the end I put in my "dying" request.  Which is just telling him what we want towards the end of our mission.  Not saying that he always gives it to you or will even consider it, but I just felt like I needed to give in my two cents.  I told him that I really wanted to train one last time before I went home, which sounded crazy when I was telling him.  He seemed a little intrigued/surprise at my request.  I told him that I knew there were so many other capable sisters that were able to train and I know that I got my fair share at training, but how I have really missed it.  It is funny how when I was training back to back to back I wanted to be done, but now that it has been a while I miss it.  I feel like i grew so much when I trained and it really pushed me to never slack.  It seems crazy to me thinking about it because I have been getting warn out on having everything on me and to lead an area and training is asking for that even more.  There is just something different when you getting a missionary fresh from the MTC who is just so excited to just go to work and is wanting to learn and trying to soak everything in. Well we will see, I am not getting my hopes up, but it is a desire that I have. 

   This week we did well lesson wise, but it still felt like a long one.  Things seem to be moving slowly here with our investigators, I have been trying to dig deep and really study and pray about what they need to progress even further in the gospel.  We have been trying to find new investigators as well, there seems like there are a lot of people who are nice out hear that are willing to listen, but aren't wanting to change.  Saw some tender mercies this week though as well.  We watched general conference at peoples homes all this weekend which was really nice, it felt like I was back at home with our family.  For the Sunday afternoon session we went to a members house who she invited over her non-member friend.  He investigated the church over 5 year ago and then stopped.  Right now he is going through some tough times and going through a divorce so the member invited him to watch conference.  You could tell that it effected him a ton, we had a good discussion with him afterwards.  He kept throwing out all these questions to us and was wanting them to be answered.  He mentioned how years ago when the Elders taught him they never could answer all his questions.  I explained to him that he needed to first gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon.  That is the keystone to our religion, that once he gains a testimony that 1-Jesus is the Savior of the World 2- That Joseph Smith did see God the Father and Jesus Christ and was called to be a Prophet to restore Christ Church and 3- That the Book of Mormon is the word of God and another testament of Jesus Christ, then none of else matters.  That those questions and concerns he has will not matter.  It just hit him, and he committed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon.  Sadly though he doesn't live in our area, but that is how it usually goes I feel like in the missionary world.  I really do see great things for him and his two kids in the future.

    Speaking of Conference, I just loved General Conference this weekend. It was so good! Each speaker was so good and powerful, I could just tell they were called and inspired of God.  Some of my favorites were

Elder Anderson-I loved his talk on Joesph Smith, it is what I needed to hear.  I feel like so many people out here on my mission try to tear him down and it just hit me how important my testimony of him is important to me and how I need to continually strengthen it.  As well as that as we near the second coming more and more will try to discredit him.

That is why i also loved Elder Uchtdorf talking about between logical and spiritual.  That is what is hard sometimes for people to grasp, that when you have a spiritual question you need a spiritual answer from a spiritual source(i.e. the scriptures, prophets, prayer).

I just loved Brother Klebingat of the Seventy, he is one of my new favorites.  I feel like there is always one person where you think, where did he come from? I like to refer to him as a miniature Jeffery R. Holland.  I also loved Elder Eyring and I think the one that was the most powerful for me was Brother Godoy.  Those two talks is what I needed to hear about personal revelation, I feel like they answered the questions that I was wanting to be answered during general conference.  What was also a little tender mercy to me was that I have met Elder Godoy a few times, he has come to our mission to talk to all the leaders.  I felt like that was a sign from my Father in Heaven that he knows me by name and he knows the desires, questions, and concerns that I have in my heart.

   I cannot tell you how much I know this church to be true.  I know that Thomas S. Monson is the Prophet of the world today, that he is here to lead and guide us back to Our Father above.  He is called of God and inspired by him as well.  I am truly grateful for this short period of my life that I get to declare the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the people of Boise, Idaho.  It is all true, every single bit of the Gospel is true.  Joesph Smith saw Our Heavenly Father and Our Savior.  Our Savior sole purpose of being here was to fulfill His Fathers will.  That is what our purpose is here as well, to fulfill our Fathers will for ourselves.  That is a lesson that I feel like I have been continually learned on the mission and I know it is one that I will continually be learning for the rest of my life.

I love you all so much! And I hope that you are doing well.

Side notes:1-We are able to see Meet the Mormons, we are actually going to see it this Wednesday as a mission at the mission office before the release here in Boise.  So that is pretty exciting.

2- I heard that Utah State beat BYU, that kind of brought some joy in my life.

Life is good. The Gospel is good.

Love

Sister Metcalf