Well, this last week has been as short as it has been busy. By that I mean that it has been very busy.
Its
been a great week. We're teaching so many elderly ladies. I've talked
about Carol, the lady we've been teaching. Well she lives in a
retirement apartment complex type thing. And it's funny cause everyone knows their neighbors there, and they're all in each
others business. Not really, but a lot of them. And they know who we are
too. The lady that runs the facility, when we first started visiting
Carol, I think she thought we were trying to knock doors in there, which
we weren't. So for a while there she was a little salty whenever she
saw us, but now the more we've seen her and talked to her and assured
her we're just visiting specific people, she's actually really friendly.
But yeah, everyone knows everyone. Last week I mentioned we found a
lady named Linda. She lives in that place too, and we were talking to
her and she was like, "yeah I see you guys all the time when you visit
Carol. You're from Jim's church." Jim is a member by the way. He also
lives there. Also, we found another lady at that place this week. Her
name is Jaqueline. We were just talking to Carol outside one day when
she was outside with the group who sits outside, and there was another
lady there, Jaqueline, who was asking lots of questions and who really
wanted to come to church. We were also invited to attend the Bible Study
group that is held there at the retirement home every Tuesday. So we're
going to that tomorrow, so that should be fun. Its been a
lot of fun though with all these visits with older ladies. They all talk
so much. Nothing against them at all, they're awesome, it's just
humorous how every lesson we had just went so long.
We also had exchanges this week. So that was an event that happened.
Saturday
was also wild. There is a senior couple serving as missionaries in our
district named the Geruns. And they're about to go home, but they still
have like a week or two before they leave, but their lease is up. So we
had to help them move. And that was originally going to take maybe an
hour and a half, two hours at max. 5 hours later, Elder Gerun was like
"let's get pizza." Then after pizza break we finished moving the last
few things and we were able to continue with the rest of our night. And
the rest of our night consisted of: quickly changing into regular
missionary clothes, quickly chugging a water bottle because I was
dehydrated which isn't a smart thing to do, quickly leaving to go
contact people, but stopping along the way to buy a lemonade from some
industrious young kids, quickly chugging the lemonade because I realized
I can't bike as effectively with a cup of lemonade, then contacting
people, then going to dinner. And that was that day.
OH
YEAH!!! I remembered something else from the week. So, crazy story.
Actually kind of two stories. Flashback to a year ago: I wasn't yet on
my mission. I instead was a young clueless movie theater worker. One
night working at the theater, I lost my wallet/probably had it stolen.
So I was praying a lot to be able to find it. Because you know I've
heard those stories of people losing stuff, praying to find it, and then
something amazing happens and they find it. That's what I was really
hoping for. But it didn't happen that way. Instead, after a lot of
stress and worry and praying, while praying I suddenly felt just a
feeling of peace that it would all be okay and that I just needed to get
to work and cancel my debit card and get a new license and all that
stuff. And it was a pain, but it was okay. So that's always been a
really great lesson to me about answers to prayers. Because you never
know how your prayers will be answered.
Now, fast forward to
the present day. But not really present day exactly, about 10 days ago.
Here I was, a missionary. Much different from my clueless, ticket
selling, wallet losing self I was a year ago. Well, that night, it was a
Friday. We didn't have a dinner appointment, and our cards had just
been refilled, so we went to Wendy's to get 4 for $4's. I got a chicken
sandwich, not relevant but I would recommend it. Later that night we
biked around and tried to visit people. Fast forward to the next day, we
were about to have our usual weekly lunch with Jennifer, a super
funny lady who is bipolar and also has dementia. We got a call from her
though asking us to run to the grocery store to pick up some orange
juice, since she was making eggs and toast and forgot the orange juice
to go with it. In hindsight, we should've bought cheese too because her
cheese expired February of 2017 and left a really disgusting feeling in
my body. But anyway, as we were about to set out for the grocery store,
I looked for my wallet where I thought it should be, but it wasn't
there. So I assumed it must've been in my other bag, Elder Sellers
offered to buy the orange juice, and I thought nothing of it. Then
Sunday rolled around, I didn't need my wallet for anything so I thought
nothing of it at all. Then Monday came, shopping day. And I did think
something of it this time. Because it turns out, that it wasn't in my
other bag, or on my desk, or under my desk, or under my shoes, or under
my bed, or under my clothes, or anywhere at all. And soon I realized,
that although I am one year older and wiser too, I am apparently still
just as prone to silly things like losing my wallet in places.
I
prayed of course, and maybe this was faithless of me, but after having
been through it before I was kind of just like, well, let's figure
things out. And I got my missionary card cancelled. Luckily my personal
card was already cancelled because I got a new one, and luckily I hadn't
put it in my wallet yet. So there was a miracle in itself. And I used
my personal card to buy groceries. And I thought that was that.
BUT
THEN, guess what. Fast forward to Wednesday. I got a mysterious
Facebook message from someone I didn't know. And he said "Kendall"
(which is my first name) "Kendall, I found your wallet, let's get it
back to you." And that is exactly what happened. And now I have my wallet again, and it's almost entirely in tact. So now I have another lesson about answers to prayers. Because you never know how your prayers will be answered.
Humorous writing aside, I know that Heavenly Father really does know us and He cares about us and He does answer our prayers. In a talk called "Answers to prayer" Brook P. Hales said:"Brothers
and sisters, sometimes our prayers are answered quickly with the
outcome we hope for. Sometimes our prayers are not answered in the way
we hope for, yet with time we learn that God had greater blessings
prepared for us than we initially anticipated. And sometimes our
righteous petitions to God will not be granted in this life. As Elder
Neal A. Maxwell said, “Faith also includes trust in God’s timing.”"
I hope you enjoyed that quote within a quote, and I hope you enjoy your week.
Til next time,
~Elder Oswald
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