Week 34: Medicine Hat!

I made it to Medicine Hat! The coolest-sounding place in the Canada Calgary mission! And I'm loving it already. I got transferred down here on Thursday which was a WHOLE process and I totally fell asleep in the van that the assistants were driving the two hours down to Lethbridge. It was awesome. And then all of the missionaries leaving Calgary met their new companions in Lethbridge and we drove two MORE hours east to Medicine Hat. And I've been here ever since!

We've had a GREAT week so far down here! On Saturday we were out tracting and we kept feeling like we maybe weren't exactly where we needed to be, so we were praying and looking at our map and trying to figure out where to go. We finally made it to this one street that we felt pretty good about and went to stop by a former, but she wasn't home, so we went tracting down her street and right when we finished we were walking by her house and her light turned on! So we knocked on her door and she took a Book of Mormon and said she'd love to learn more and come to church! It was awesome and we knew that we needed to be on all of those other streets so that we could be there when Jodi got home.

We had a pass-off lesson with this cute ladies from Honduras in our area and one of our elders who speaks Spanish, so we sat there for an hour and a half and didn't understand anything that was going on, haha. It was super awesome because we could feel the Spirit testifying of truth even though we couldn't understand the words that were being said. And this cute old grandma, Laura, is so prepared to receive the gospel! She's been reading the Book of Mormon and says she doesn't believe that Joseph Smith could have written something like that without being inspired by God. She's awesome!

On Sunday night we had a lesson with this lady Lana who lives in the trailer park. We were supposed to meet her at 7:30 but we decided to go see this cute little girl Quinn first and ask if we could teach her more about the gospel (we went back to see her yesterday and she's so awesome! We talked about the restoration and the Book of Mormon and she said the sweetest prayer and told us she's going to invite her friends from the trailer park to our next lesson. She's such a baller!). Anyway, we ended up being 15 minutes late to our lesson with Lana and we knocked and rang the doorbell and nobody answered so we tried calling her and she didn't pick up but we got a call back from a private number and it was her. She was repeating something over and over and she's kind of hard to understand, but we figured out that she was saying "don't come anymore" and our stomachs SANK. I looked at Sister Bueno and I was like "we've got to get out of here" and we BOOKED it to our car and out of the trailer park. We didn't feel normal again until we made it to the church to set up appointments. It was the worst feeling I've had on my mission. 

I had an awesome first Sunday in Medicine Hat! The elders quorum president in my last area's parents live in this ward in Medicine Hat, so I'd actually met them before I got here, and their grandkids were at church on Sunday! It was funny because I had dinner with them LAST Sunday. So I got lots of hugs from their little girls. And we found out that the family we had dinner with this week knows some people from my home ward! It's a small small world.

Alma 26:12 says "Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever." I love Ammon, especially as a missionary, because he's such a good example of conversion and hard work and love for the people he teaches. And he understands his purpose as a missionary and a disciple of Christ.

Have a great week and keep on keepin' on! Talk to you next time!

Love,

Sister Willis

Pictures! Of us freezing to death and my last companion and all the trash in our apartment

Week 33: Banished

Hello everyone! The big news of this week is that I'm getting TRANSFERRED!! I'm going out to Medicine Hat, Alberta tomorrow, which is a little city southeast of Calgary, and Sister Lamontagne is staying here in Auburn Bay and McKenzie and getting two new companions! My new companion's name is Sister Bueno, and she's a baller. I'm super pumped. All of the missionaries love Medicine Hat!

My last week in this area was crazy and fast! I was still pretty sick last week, so we tried to do some missionary work but on Friday we stayed home and slept and watched 2 silly church movies and some members brought us Subway through our sliding glass door so that I could be all healed to do lots of good missionary work on Saturday! We stopped by loads of people and had some great gospel conversations and ate LOTS of Chinese food for dinner (ginger beef is one of the perks of being in Canada!). On Sunday, we had our usual lots of church and meetings and we did some super good door-knocking. We had an awesome dinner and telestrations lesson with this cute family in our ward and we were so excited about teaching the gospel and wanted so badly to find somebody to teach that we spent a whole extra hour trying to find someone who was interested in learning the gospel with no luck, haha. But good things come to those that wait! On Monday we texted one of our friends who we've been trying to meet with for a long time and told her about transfers and she told us she could meet with us! So we met her at Tim Horton's yesterday and set up a time to teach her more about the gospel. It's so exciting. And yesterday we were knocking on doors and somehow not a single person is home, but we felt prompted to go to a different street and the first guy we talked to told us that we could teach him while he was puttering around in his garage, so we talked about the Book of Mormon and the need for priesthood authority and the restoration of the gospel! It was awesome and he told us that he's going to check out the Book of Mormon that we gave him and see how he feels about it. He's elect, he just doesn't know it yet!

On Saturday we had a lesson with Naomi and it was so much fun! We talked about Lehi's dream and had her draw it out on a whiteboard and talked about why it's so important to do things that keep us holding on to the iron rod. She's a great little artist and scripture reader and was so sad when she found out one of us might be getting transferred. I'm gonna miss her but she's gonna do great!

Alma 5:26 says "And now behold, I say unto you, my brethren, if ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now?" I think this question is so important because Alma is asking it to people who have already found God and experienced His love in their lives, but as I've grown up I've found that it's so important to be continually assessing your relationship with Him and repenting and changing so that we can sing the song of redeeming love! Being a missionary has taught me how centered the gospel of Jesus Christ is on the idea of repentance. I'm so grateful for the ability to change and grow. I love the hope of the gospel and I love sharing it with other people!

I love you all! Have a great week! I'll write you next week from Medicine Hat!

Sister Willis

Pictures! Of the district and my friend Naomi and the big Auburn Bay chair. I'm gonna miss it!

Week 32: Flu Season 2

Hello friends and family! I am officially sick AGAIN! This makes me super fun to hang out with and means I have been doing a lot of sleeping and walking around with tissues stuffed in my nose. Super cute!

Last weekend we got to go on exchanges! So our STL Sister Barrow, who's serving up in north Calgary, came down to our area and my companion went up north with her companion. We had a blast teaching a nine-year-old girl about the plan of salvation using Candyland, an eleven-year-old girl about the gospel of Jesus Christ by making her jump around her house, and a nine-year-old boy how to play the piano! And his family said they'd come to church next week! So that's pretty awesome.

We had dinner with one of our friends in our ward on Saturday night and she always buys us SO much food, so for four of us she got a 12-piece bucket of chicken from KFC, a LOT of French fries, and a whole birthday cake. I tried eating a normal amount of food but she kept checking to see how much was left and saying "Sister Willis! You're not going to leave me with all of this food!" So I ate, like, 5 pieces of KFC and 2 HUGE pieces of cake. The next day was fast Sunday and I wasn't even a little bit hungry until 3 pm. I was honestly terrified.

Speaking of birthday cake, we went over to a part-member family's house to do Come, Follow Me with them and when we walked in they were lighting candles in an angel's food cake for their deceased grandmother's birthday. So we got to sing happy birthday to Janice! That was a personal first.

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful. We did the standard missionary activities of sorting shirts for an old folks' home and cleaning this lady's house and knocking on doors and stopping by one lady who was VERY unimpressed that we were at her door. We love it!

Sister Lamontagne was sick before I was sick (coincidence? I think not!), so I read her the Book of Mormon on Sunday afternoon and we wore matching dresses on Monday to district council. #compunity! Shoutout to Old Navy! This week we read 2 Nephi 2:25 -- "Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy." We were talking to our friend Naomi this week about what brings us joy and she said naps, going to church, missionaries, and Heavenly Father, which are all GREAT answers. I'm so grateful for the gospel because it teaches us about the purpose of our life and helps us find peace. There's no better message to share!

Shoutout to the Chiefs for their super bowl dub! Have a great week everybody! Stay healthy!

Love,

Sister Willis

Week 31: Exposed

Last Sunday I had to give a talk in church and the ward bulletin specialist printed my FIRST NAME in the bulletin! There are already Willises in that ward, so everyone was SUPER confused about who Abbigail was. And now they all know that my first name isn't Sister. What a shame. I feel like people are discovering my secret identity. 

We were going back to see that part-member family we tracted into last week, and so we texted the mom to make sure it was okay if we still came over and she texted back and said "no thanks." So that was kind of an L, haha. But we did the Good Missionary Thing and baked cookies and brought them over! The kids were SO excited that one of them hugged us. So they know the door is always open.

P-day activity in a giant hamster ball.

This week was SUPER BALLER because we FOUND people! On Friday we went to stop by this guy who told us to come back but he wasn't home, so instead we knocked on the doors across from his house and this Filipino guy named Alvin let us in to share our message! Our area is relatively wealthy and so that NEVER, EVER happens to us. It hasn't happened in MONTHS! And so poor Sister Willis didn't know what to do and we just read the introduction of the Book of Mormon with him and he told us we could come back! Booyah! We're gonna pass him right off to the Tagalog elders. And then yesterday our big afternoon plans fell through, so we were stopping by someone who was previously taught to see if he'd ever be interested in being taught again, and he ALSO wasn't home (which seems to be a pattern with everyone we want to visit), but I'm working on harassing lovingly approaching every single person we see on the street, so we saw this guy walking home and walking up to his door and just before he went into his house I like, YELLED at him from the sidewalk and he came and talked to us! His name is Philemon and I gave him the Book of Mormon and he said we could come back next week! It was super baller. AND our members brought people to church! We are LIVING it UP in McKenzie and Auburn Bay. 

Missionaries are always doing their best to be Super Prepared for miracles, so yesterday we were online proselyting (waving at random people on Facebook and asking them if they want to learn more about Jesus, totally normal) and we saw these two girls walking outside the church, and we were like, OH my gosh. We HAVE to go talk to them. So we ran to the other side of the church and went out the opposite doors so that we'd "run into" them and we did and we asked them if they'd been to our church and it turned out they were from Shanghai and are going back today, lol. We were like "oh!! Okay, well, nice to meet you!" We were BUSTING up because were SO ready to start teaching these people from China. It was a good afternoon.

If there's one thing I've learned about misssionary work, it's that it's all about serving from your strengths! So a couple weeks ago at English class, this mom was like, "my son wants to learn to play the piano" and I, a fool, was like "WE can teach him how to play piano!!" So we snatched a piano book from a lady in our ward who plays piano and now Sister Willis is a piano teacher! I was SO stressed but it actually went really well, haha! We taught him all about notes and fingers and he was a great little student :)

Words of Mormon (not an oft-quoted book of scripture) 1:7 says, "And I do this for a wise purpose; for thus it whispereth me, according to the workings of the Spirit of the Lord which is in me. And now, I do not know all things; but the Lord knoweth all things which are to come; wherefore, he worketh in me to do according to his will." I have found a lot of peace in trusting that God is wiser than I am and a lot of joy in being an instrument in His hands. We're having a GREAT, freezing time out here!

This week was 7 MONTHS!! Crazy how time flies when you're having fun!

Have a great week,

Sister Willis 🌼

Enjoy these pictures of me with some animal friends and wearing the Whole Armor of God!