I just love you all so much! It sounds like you have had a sweet week! I love your fhe story! We get weird stuff like that all the time. You just have to laugh and brush it off and then try to keep going with the lesson. Go Kelley for inviting a friend! You're the best! I got the box this week! It was the best. I love it when you send me granola bars and fruit snacks! Those are my two best missionary foods. Also I like the boots. I think they fit...I haven't been really able to try them on yet because I sprained my ankle and it doesn't really fit inside and I can't really get my foot at that angle to go into them either. But I will let you know. The left one fits. So yeah, that's really awesome. We were playing soccer for Pday and this really big Elder, like Brady big, had the ball and I was playing defense so I went for the ball and his foot was just so big that it got in the way and I tripped over it. So that was kind of a bummer. It's fine though. The Elders gave me a blessing later that night and the next day I was able to walk on it. We also talked to the mission doctor and he said he didn't think I would need to go get it X-rayed or anything and he just told me what kind of brace to get. It's kind of like Kelley's air cast. But I'm wondering if you find find a less intense brace and maybe send it. This one is super heavy duty and I don't need quite that much support anymore. So that was just another trial to add to the list. Sometimes I feel like Job. I think Heavenly Father is trying to teach me something. Maybe patience? I just wish I was a faster learner. That's probably really ironic. But I've been studying a lot about patience this week, just with everything that's been going on and the whole situation that we're in here, because it's so frustrating so often. But I've kind of been working on what patience means for me right now and what I'm figuring out is that being patient is being content even when things don't go your way. If things were going my way right now, they would be a lot different. We would have investigators, I would have a companion that could speak Spanish, I would know the branch and the area. Honestly, I would probably still be in Old Town. I miss it so much. I worked so hard there and really started to see progress. I knew the area like the back of my hand and I knew and loved the people. And it was so much easier to find people to teach because there were so many more people. But I guess I learned everything I needed to learn there or did everything that the Lord needed me to do there. And that's been really hard to accept. Because I still want to be there. And I still want to be teaching the people there. But the Lord needs Hna Wallis and Hna Dopp there right now and for some reason, that I'm still trying to figure out and that maybe I'll never know, the Lord wants me here. And he wants Hna Sorensen here too. So I'm trying to learn to love it. Maybe he just wanted me to learn to love knocking doors. We definitely do plenty of that. Poor Hna Sorensen. The very first door she knocked was this super atheist guy. Welcome to the mission! Training is so hard. I have to be patient with that too. So many questions that are just common sense. The farthest my companion has been out of Utah is Arizona. We'll just say she's very sheltered. And the Spanish. Oh dear. It's really hard for me to relate to what she's going through because I came out speaking better Spanish than my trainer. So I don't know what it's like to be learning Spanish as a missionary. I'm trying to find a balance of giving her lots of opportunities to teach so that she stretches herself, but also not giving her more than she can handle. I can't leave her to talk to anyone though because she doesn't understand what anyone is saying. Here's just one example. So I've basically become the ward pianist, and yesterday in church I was coming down from the stand after sacrament meeting and this dear woman was talking to my companion. Hna Sorensen knew that she was talking about me, but thought that she was saying that I did a good job of playing the piano. What she really said was, "The zipper on your companions skirt is broken, you should probably help her out." That's a lot different than she played the piano really nicely! I was so embarrassed. The zipper on the back of my skirt had somehow split and was completely unzipped. And I had no idea! Oops. I guess the whole ward got to see my unders. I was wearing a slip so I guess it wasn't all that bad. But still, what a great way to introduce myself to the branch.
So. About the area. The stake is the Centreville stake, and the branch is called Sudley and it's actually down in Manassas. We are living in Centreville though and that's where we're focusing most of our proselyting efforts. Except for single women that are investigators or less actives. Of which there are about a million. So we're still trying to figure out how that's going to work out with miles. And we had the best surprise earlier this week. I was really, really craving chocolate chip cookies. And of course we had absolutely nothing to make them with in our naked apartment. But then during companionship study we get this phone call from this unknown number. I answer it and it turns out it's a Sis. Palmer. She then proceeded to tell me that she was a friend of Jackie Creer's and that she had baked some chocolate chip cookies for us and wanted to know where she could drop them off. I just about cried. It was definitely a tender mercy. I really needed those cookies. For just a minute it made me feel like everything was going to be alright and work out and just that everything was going to be fine. It was perfect! So thank you, Jackie, for living in Centreville once upon a time and for still having friends here and for thinking about me. It was just what I needed. I was oh so thankful.
We've been focusing most of our efforts on finding and we've had some successes. We had a neat experience the other night where we had a return appointment with someone and then we show up and someone else answered the door and was super rude to us and it was just a really weird situation. It was about 8:25 and so we were debating about whether or not it would be worth it to drive to who we had planned on seeing next. Hna Sorensen then asked if it would be okay if we went and knocked on a door that she just couldn't stop thinking about. Of course! I was just like, why didn't you say that sooner?! You have just as much right to revelation for this area as I do, you silly! And so we went and knocked it. No answer. Typical. But then the door next to me caught my eye. I wasn't even sure if it was Hispanic (you learn to recognize which ones are and which ones aren't), but the light was on. So we knocked it and started talking to this woman from Guatemala named Glendy. We talked to her on her doorstep for a few minutes and I honestly didn't think she was going to let us in. Her two little kids came up to the door and we kind of started talking and playing with them and then out of the blue she just said, "Why don't you come on in? You'll just have to ignore the mess." And then we taught her part of the first lesson and she invited us to come back! Funny how the Lord works.
We've found a couple more people that really have a lot of potential, and so hopefully things start looking up here real soon. Our investigator Pedro, the Dominican one, is so wonderful. He wants really, really wants us to teach his family, and this week when we went by, we invited him to get baptized and he told us that if he knew that this was it then of course, because he really wants to be with his family forever. His wife and daughter get back this week so we're really excited to teach them.
We're also getting to know the ward better and everyone is so excited to have Hermanas. It's going to be a little tricky because this branch is so spread out, but I think that a lot of people are excited about missionary work. We've talked to a couple of families about praying for revelation specifically to know who they know that is ready to start receiving the gospel and they are really excited about it.
I'm sorry if I sounded like the most miserable person in the world in this letter. I promise I'm not. I've just had a lot thrown at me and I'm trying to work through some of these challenges. I know I can and I know I'm not supposed to do it alone, so I'm trying my best to learn how to give it all over to the Savior. I know I have a lot to learn and I'm really being stretched right now. But I know that there's a lot of good that's going on too and we're seeing the hand of the Lord in this work. We're figuring out how to work effectively so that we can really reach as many people as possible.
About Mother's Day, I don't even know when it is. We have church from 1:00-4:00 and we'll probably be able to figure out somewhere to skype. If not, we can just call you on the cell phone. But I'll figure that out this week and let you know for next week. What time do you have church at? And when did you want to family fast? I'm in. Just let me know.
Family I love you so much. You're the best. Keep up the being awesome.
xoxo
Hermana Simpson
p.s. Yes, I was the driver, and no, I did not get a ticket, there was hardly any damage done. Except the fact that it was a brand new car, and I'm pretty sure the entire mission now knows that Hermana Simpson wrecked the brand new car. Yep.
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