Monday, March 7, 2011

Sister Bolliger - Lemoore Week 46: Doing What We Can Do, "Heaps of Fun", "Not Hard to Believe At All", Commandeering, Blessed Opportunities, Serving!

I am not quite sure when it became March of 2011....but all I know is that it came up WAY TOO fast!!!
Things are going great in Lemoore. We are really trying to make Church a better place for the Spanish speakers. There is so much that I can't do due to my limited Spanish abilities, but I feel like there are other things that I can---and that's what we're doing. :) It's really exciting stuff! There is a LOT to be done, but we're starting to see why Heavenly Father put two English sisters together here. We're helping the ward become self-sufficient and invite them to take part in making this a community!
Sister Lemalu and I continue to have "heaps" of fun (as they say Down Under). We have turned into veritable private investigators. We are so sneaky. There's a house in our area that looks like it should be part of an insanely scary scary scary movie. And maybe one night after an appointment. We sneakily took pictures on the porch pretending we were being attacked. Hahahahahh. It's dangerous to let us be together. :) But the picture is awesome. It even has like this huge lock on the front--so we don't think anyone lives there--but it is SCARY nonetheless.
Our beautiful Toyota got the accelerator recalled. So I decided that's why I am speeding.....because the car is defective. Haha. Jk. I was committed by one of my previous companions to drive in the image of the church---and that's something I have been diligently working on! Anyways....we had the car in the shop (in another town) this week. It was great. And took forever. It's wonderful when things are covered under warranty. You don't even have to worry about paying anything. :) We timed taking the car in with a meeting with our Mission President with our zone, and President and Sister Gonzalez ended up being our shuttle and driving us back to the dealership after it. Very great.
We had an amazing church tour this week with a less-active member's girlfriend. We were 50/50 they were going to show up, but they came! It was amazing as we talked about Christ coming to the Americas. She paused at the picture for a long long time, and asked if this is what the Book of Mormon talked about. She was really struck by the thought of him coming here to the Americas. :) As we talked about the Joseph Smith seeing Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, she also said it was not hard to believe at all! Score!!!!
This last Sunday my flexibility was tested once again. We have a part-member family in another city that do not have transporation to Church. Typically, the home teacher goes and picks them up every week. We usually double check and make sure everything is communicated, but this last week we thought that would just be overkill. Wrong! On Sunday we saw the home teacher and his family come into Church at 9 o'clock, and we were like... "uhh...where's the other family?" He had thought they were moving and didn't need a ride that Sunday. So...Sister Missionaries to the rescue. I commandeered a sister in the ward, and I left to go with her to get the family. Stratford is probably 10 minutes away, and I kept texting the daughter (who is our investigator) and praying that she wouldn't decide to just forget it. We got the family, loaded everyone up, and then whisked everyone off to church. We got there at around 9:40, but then they stayed all three hours which is something we have been working with them on for a long time!
My Spanish is improving. I study everything in Spanish, so now I'm finding that spanish words are coming to my mind instead of the English ones. Hahah. And then I have to translate. :) I still have A LOT to learn, but there are several people in the ward that are helping us and I feel blessed to be able to have this opportunity to learn Spanish!!!
We are working really closely with an AMAZING sister in the ward who is coming back to full activity in the church. We are going all out to help her overcome a few last habits and we are gearing up for an intense week. Lots of prayers, fasting, blessings, and study is going into helping all of us hold each other accountable. We are committing to do something really hard as well so that we are able to help each other out in overcoming physical battles for the spiritual rewards. :)
This is the problem. Sister Lemalu and I remember laughing allllll week long. Bu when we come to the computer, we can't remember exactly what was happening or what was said that caused us to laugh! Blast.
We did some awesome service this week. A super less-active sister in our ward received a notice that she had to clean up her yard or she could be fined! Sooo... sisters to the rescue! We mowed her lawn (WITH A BATTERY POWERED LAWNMOWER. AMAZING) and had some INTENSE weed eating moments. It was probably seven hours total between the two days and it went from a jungle to beautifully manicured weeds. :) It was so fun to just get in there and get 'er done! I think our clothes, shoes, legs, and everything is permamently stained green--but hey. That's my fav color! Yes!
OHHHH. And my comp went to go get a huge trash can for all of the grass and when she came back with the sister they were like.. "Sister Bolliger, why did you make this little pile of dirt?" See, I know I AM crazy, but I don't make little piles of dirt. After denying that it was me...the pile began to shake. IT WAS A GOPHER HOLE. Hahahhahah. We kept moving stuff around and being ridiculous.
Random comment. Sister Lemalu does not know what a skunk smells like! Isn't that odd?
And with that. My time is up. Peace out!

Sister Bolliger

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