Tripanionship

As always, Monday is the favorite day of the week - especially when we actually get email from  BOTH of our missionaries!  Hooray for no Monday holiday or transfers this week!  Here's the latest from the other "Mother Broekhuijsen."

I can't believe that at the end of this transfer I'll have been in the field for 6 months. That is just crazy to me. I am just in a great place and loving it! 

This week was very exciting! On Thursday we had transfer meeting and met our new companion, Sister Connell. She is from Hawaii (but she is white). So that's nice to be able to show people that, hey! Not ALL Mormons are from Utah. haha. She is very nice and sweet, but very type B personality. It is quite a contrast to Sis. Edwards' and my VERY type A. We just have to tell her we have to leave 15 minutes before we actually have to leave and we're good. :) She is a convert to the church and has an amazing testimony. She is also FANTASTIC at asking really great questions, so that is a blessing. I've felt that that was a weakness in my teaching for a long time now. I'm excited for the continued challenge of meshing our teaching styles and learning from each other. 

Sister Carpenter's greenie, Sister Burr is also great! I can tell we will have a fun time in this apartment. I'm excited and blessed to be here. 

We had some good news and some bad news with investigators this week. P* was the saddest of them all. So we met with her, and were SO excited to follow up because last time she had accepted a soft baptismal invitation (which means that if/when she gets an answer that she should be baptized, she will follow through with it, and actually BE baptized), and her homework was to pray for a specific answer. So we asked how that went and she said she hadn't prayed. That she remembered that to be part of the communist party, you can't be a mormon. And since she has to be in the communist party to get a job in China, she has absolutely no interest in being baptized. The more she explained, the more we realized that she never had any interest in learning other than learning academically. Even though every time we met with her we tried to make it very clear, "This is different than learning in school. This matters in a different way. You can get answers, but it will be based on faith and feelings, not measurable, physical results." But she just doesn't get it. She doesn't understand. We remembered that she really likes reading from the Book of Mormon, and that she gets a good feeling when she prays, so we asked her, "Do you think that what we are teaching is TRUE?" She then said the most painful sentence I've ever heard, "It doesn't matter if it's true. I don't care if it's true---it is nice. So I will learn more." GAH! Knife in the heart.  

I just wish that I could somehow convey to her why it DOES matter. I was praying the whole time to know what to say, but rather than getting specific guidance, I feel like I got just comfort and reassurance that everything will work out like it's supposed to. Well, guess what? That is my least favorite answer. haha. Even though I know it's true, it was devastating. Sis. Edwards and I cried the whole walk back to the bus.  

So that was a bummer. In better news, we heard a bit from D* and she made it back to Korea safely and has already contacted the missionaries there :) 

Our meeting with H* went well. She is progressing, but now I'm scared because I don't want to pour all my substance and love out and then have it trampled all over again. She is great at her reading assignments, and especially loved the Plan of Salvation since she lost her father when she was 13. She is praying and looking for specific answers as to whether or not there is a God. She feels things and loves meeting with us, so we know she knows, we just need her to know that she knows. Make sense? haha. 

No word yet from T*, so that's a bummer. Hopefully he's still clean after detox last week. 

Okay I'll leave you with a funny story. The other night, we were waiting for our bus, and we somehow got onto the topic of country music. I said that I hate country music, but I really like Western and bluegrassy. Sister Edwards didn't know the difference, so as I was trying to explain it, she made up a song of what she thought western would sound like. I don't know how to convey the tune to you, but here are her lyrics: I took my fishing pole up to the crick... in the mountains...with my best friend, Huck... my... dog.  

BAHAHAHAHAHA. I was laughing so hard. In fact, I am laughing out loud in the library right now.  

Anyway I love you so much! Thanks for your support. I feel lucky to be serving at this time, at this place, in these wards, with my Sisters.  

-Mother Broekhuijsen 

P.S. Boston fun fact of the day: I saw a cardinal on a bush the other day. It was so cute and red and fat. And I said to myself, "What a wonderful world" and I also said to myself, "We are not in Utah anymore"