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.