(Autumnal) Equinox Euphoria

I'm not sure what determines the timing of the emails we receive, but I'm always glad when they come sooner rather than later!  As always, it was GREAT to hear from Melissa today.

What a creative, alliterative, and non-forced subject line.

Well, folks, I've got a big ol' list of things to e-mail you so let's get going.

First, we'll do some investigator updates. D*, who used to have a baptism date for October 14th, cancelled our appointment for this week and hasn't returned our calls since. So that's a bummer - hopefully we'll be able to get in touch with her, see what's going on, and re-set a date. S*, our new investigator that I told you about last week is progressing and doing very well! She is so excited to learn and couldn't wait to discuss her reading assignment with us. She invited us over for lunch (we're making pupusas!!) and a lesson this next week and we are praying that she'll have a positive reaction to the Restoration DVD we left with her as homework. P* is doing well too! He's been too busy to meet for the past couple weeks but we finally saw him last Saturday. He told us he wants to get baptized - he knows it's the next step for him and he wants to do it! He is praying about whether 28 October or 11 November would be better for him. I love that for him it's now a "when" instead of an "if."

We had a cool referral from President Packard this week. Apparently after one of the Zone Conferences with Elder Haleck (details to come) this woman (P*) came up to President and gave him a book.  President asked if there was anything he could do for her, and she just asked for him to pray for her. He said, "I can do ya one better [he's from Texas, don't forget now] - I'll send two angel missionaries to come pray WITH you." She said that would be great and it turns out that she lives down the street from us. Yay!! So that was a cool experience. We called her and she said she was too busy this week, but we're going to check in and try to schedule something for next week. I'll be sure to keep you posted.

So the Zone Conference with Elder Haleck and his wife was just GREAT! I got so much revelation. I love revelation. I love learning things beyond (or even unrelated to) what's being actually said and just learning straight from the Spirit. A lot of the trainings were about working with members, so that was great! Elder Haleck also went into some straight up doctrine. (As Angel Bruce (R. McConkie) would tell us, we learned, "truth, DIAMOND truth. Truth unmixed with error. [Because] truth ALONE - leads to salvation." :) Can you tell I've been soaking that in this week? haha. Back to the conference...) He read through 2 Nephi 31 with us and asked, what is it that Christ is asking us to follow Him in? In obedience and submission to the will of the Father. He focused on the idea of "real intent" and how we can't just ask our investigators to pray this way, we need to pray for them in the same way and then they will recognize us as servants of Christ - then we become credible in their eyes. He also posed the question, What is the relationship between steadfastness in Christ and enduring to the end? His answer was: constantly focusing on Christ (especially taking the Sacrament regularly) is the only way that we CAN endure to the end. Ooh love it.

At the end, he (Elder Haleck) told a story of when he got to sit in on the room where mission calls are assigned. On one side, Elder Nelson was assigning Senior couples and on the other side, Elder Cook was assigning the other (normal?) missionaries. He said that in most cases it was extremely quick - he (Elder Cook) would look at the picture of the prospective missionary, look at the other computer screen of missions and where there are upcoming needs, and just call them out loud. There is an "operator" who runs the slide show of missionary pictures and records where they are verbally assigned (how awesome would it be to have THAT job!?? I know it's a sin to covet callings but regarding THIS issue, call me a SINNER!). So yeah, that's how most of the assignments would work. But every once in a while, Elder Cook would say, "Go back 8 slides." (or 7, 3, 5, whatever). So the operator would pull of the picture of a missionary that was assigned several minutes ago. Then he would say, "Pull up the Sapporo Japan (or whatever) mission - who is the mission president there?" So the operator would split the screen and pull of a picture of the mission president and his wife with their names. Then Elder Cook would look and confirm and say, "This missionary needs this mission president. Reassign him/her to that mission."

So cool, right? Elder Haleck asked Elder Cook (after he was done for the day) what that was all about and Elder Cook told him that the Spirit works really quickly in these cases. But that sometimes he (Elder Cook) would feel impressed to change that initial call based on NEW revelation. He said that in those cases, the Spirit told him that that missionary was with that mission president in the pre-mortal existence, and that he/she had been assigned to that mission president's "team." So Elder Cook would make the reassignment to fulfill that foreordination/agreement.

WHOA!!! Isn't that amazing? I was bawling. I think I definitely fit into that category. I have felt such a strong connection to both President Evans and President Packard and his family that I don't doubt for one second that I was assigned to both of their "teams" before I came here, and that that could be on reason that I felt the need to leave on my mission so urgently - I think it's interesting that I am the only Sister missionary who gets to have her mission split exactly in half with the first half under Pres. Evans and the second half under Pres. Packard. Once again we can see the Lord's hand more in hindsight than we can in the moment. Awesome.

Friday the 21st was the "one year in the field" mark for Sister Lopez and me! We celebrated by making homemade pizzer. It was so fun!

Two more funny things and then I simply must go.

The first is some excerpts from a recent letter from P* (my favorite old man from Oxford). I had asked him a couple questions like how his summer was, favorite scripture, etc. His answers made me laugh out loud!

"Have you seen Quincy yet? Or the Old North Church? Right near the Old North Church you will see a statue of me called Paul Revere HAHA!"

"Well, I don't have a favorite scripture but I like the words that say, 'And it came to pass' and 'verily I say unto you.'"

"The best part of my summer is, when the kids downstairs go back to school. They don't bug me as much. Now it's just weekends."

Oh man. He is hilarious.

Whelp - I will have to share my BoM insights next week. I love you all and am so grateful for your support! Thanks for writing, have fun car shopping, and please start working on the cats' Halloween costumes. I would like for Presto to be a can of Crisco (this costume should require the least amount of work on your end), Zorro can be Thriller Zombie MJ, and you should rig up some kind of contraption for Cleo to wear so it looks like she's being swooped up off the ground by a pterodactyl.

Love,

Sister "Next week is transfers so don't be expecting an e-mail until next Wednesday" Broekhuijsen