A Week in the Life of a Missionary

Sunday July 13

Spent an hour Sunday evening at the Visitor's Center listening to the Spanish Night of Music and Inspiration.  Somehow I missed the spot at the entrance where they were handing out translation headsets.  I tried really hard to understand what they were saying but probably understood the most by watching the American Sign Language missionaries :)

Monday July 14

Ten sisters on our visit list today but only saw three of them plus one sister's mother.  At least we had our puzzling question answered about a previous visit.  It goes like this: 

May visit--lady answered the door.  "She can't come to the door.  Her mother just died."  

June visit--Different lady answered the door and told us she was the mother!  

Today--We were told it was really the grandmother who had died.  Had a pleasant visit with the mother but still have not been able to meet the ward member we have been asked to check on.  Maybe next time.

Tuesday July 15

We spent three hours of our day helping an investigator who had a broken leg get to her doctor appointment, waited for her, and then took her home.  Then we drove down (40-minute drive in good conditions) and spent a couple hours with the young sisters in Lexington Park.  It started to rain just after we started our drive home, and we drove in a pouring rain for half the trip.  We talk about "white-out" conditions in a snowstorm, but this was a "white-out" rain storm.  We could not keep the windshield cleared and had to pull over and stop at one point.  When the rest of the traffic slowed down enough that we felt it was safe to continue, we pulled back on the road and drove to our next appointment.

Wednesday July 16

We took Marcie to the temple with us and met up with Heidi and attended one endowment session.  About 10-15 miles before we got to the temple, I hit an enormous pothole which made our teeth rattle and then some.  I looked in my rear view mirror and watched my hubcap roll across all the lanes of traffic and off the side of the beltway.  Happy Birthday to me!!

Good News/Bad News

Good news is, my car still rolled straight down the road without vibration or indication of a damaged tire so we proceeded to the temple.  

Bad news is when we arrived at the temple I discovered that my rim was badly dented.  I don't know why or how it did not wobble.  

Good news is I knew the tire problem would still be there in a couple of hours, so we forgot about it and went ahead and had a wonderful session and visit with Heidi over lunch.

Bad news is when we went out to the car my tire now only had 24 pounds of air pressure instead of 32 so we began to pull out the spare tire to change it.  

Good news is a temple missionary couple were just leaving at the end of their shift, and Brother Williams offered to lead us to a service station nearby.  He thought the tire would make the few blocks we had to go and that they could solve my problem. They pounded the dent out and did a pretty good job of it.  It held air and a test drive around the block made the "Low Tire" light go off so we we were able to go home without incident.

Bad news is I now have to buy a new hubcap and tire alignment for my birthday present instead of something fun.

Good news is it could be worse, but I know Heavenly Father was watching over us.

Reward:  Just before bedtime, Sister Gomez from Capitol Ward called and told us she would like us to teach the discussions to a friend of hers.  We are going to give the first lesson this Sunday afternoon.

Friday we had Zone Conference followed by a meeting with Sister Ramon et. al. about implementing Family History in our visits.

Thursday and Saturday we had four sisters who canceled or just didn't show up for appointments, but there was only one sister who told us not to come back again.:) Birthday cupcakes have helped us get back in to see two sisters who were not welcoming last time we saw them.  And we met a sister we had not met before.  We finally found Rosie at home after going to her house for months and never finding her home.  She was very friendly and said we can come back and visit even though she now attends a local Methodist church with her husband.  So sometimes doors close but windows open.

Kristin's Baptism

Saturday, July 12, 2014

We were so grateful this day to be able to participate in Kristin's baptism.  We were introduced to her in May and met with her weekly for the last two months to prepare her for her baptism day.  Kristin's husband is a member of the church, but Kristin was raised in the Episcopalian faith.  She wanted to learn more about the church before choosing which church to raise their son in.  After the first lesson, Kristin told us that she would commit to be baptized but was not sure when.  She would have to work things out with her family first.  It was a difficult thing for her to do because her parents are very devoted to their religion and she was afraid of how they would react.  Her mother was the first one that she told, and she seemed disappointed but said "well, if you think that is a good fit..."  This gave her courage to talk to her father and brothers and sister.  After a few lessons she knew she wanted to be baptized in spite of the differences that her family may have.  The next question was when.  She could not commit to a specific date because they were planning on a friend of John's from Kansas baptizing her and they didn't know when he would be coming to Maryland.  I expected that it could be months, but a week or two later she announced that she had picked the date of July 12th.  We were so happy.

The day went fairly smoothly with only a couple of hiccups.  The ward mission leader thought that the font would already be filled since there was a baptism scheduled for earlier in the day.  What he didn't know was that the previous baptism was changed to Friday evening, and they drained the font when they finished.  So we had to start fresh Saturday afternoon when Bro. Amoah and the Elders arrived to print the program.  They found out that they could fill the font sufficiently for a baptism in only 1 1/2 hours.  We told them that it might not be wise to count on that every time.  It was just a blessing today that we were able to have it fill in that short a time.  Rob, who performed the baptism, forgot his towel so I had to run home and grab one of my towels for him.  By the time I returned they were about ready to begin the service, so I was not able to get a picture with Kristin as I had hoped.  Her friend, Steve, took some pictures afterwards with us.  I hope I will get a copy of the pictures.

Immediately following the baptism, Kristin was confirmed and then their baby, Gavin, was blessed.  It was a special blessing from the Lord that Sister Moraga and I had this opportunity to teach Kristin and be a part of her special day.  When I contemplated a mission, I knew that senior missionaries do not proselyte, so I came here with the understanding that I would not have the opportunity (or should I say the responsibility) of "proclaiming the gospel" in this manner.  I love being a representative of Jesus Christ and telling others about Him.  It was a challenging experience for me to help teach the discussions, but I am grateful for the opportunity.