Week 39: Things Fall Apart

The title of this email is also the title of a book they made us read about colonialism in Africa when I was in 7th grade (or, as they would say here, "grade 7"). This email will probably be more entertaining than the book but that's just my modest opinion.

We are "working from our apartments". But they never really told us that. They just slowly took away all of our other tools until the only reason we could leave our apartment was to go on walks! We go on LOTS of walks. It ends up being okay because lots of other people are also on walks, so we can talk to them as long as we stay 6 feet away! #socialdistancing! We are BLESSED because our members are still bringing us food and literally an HOUR before we got the email on Thursday saying we can't go into people's homes we got a text from a lady in our ward asking if we wanted a STACK of church movies. Of course we said yes! Tender mercies!

We've been doing our very best to adapt to "working from our apartments". We've been doing lots of lessons over video call and a few over phone call, which is a little harder because you can't see anyone's face! Our friend Jasmine got tonsillitis and she couldn't talk, so we recorded some videos of us teaching principles and sent them to her! We love technology!

We're still allowed to volunteer in the community, so we've been building food hampers at the food bank. Over the weekend they got super concerned about social distancing, so we brought all the food and boxes outside and had to stay 6 feet away from each other. We tossed a lot of food. It was an experience for sure. But they're so nice to us! They always tell us that when we come there's nothing done and by the time we leave there's a stack of hampers! I told them it's because we're miracle workers but I'm not sure they believe me 😋.

We were supposed to be going to members' homes to take the sacrament on Sunday but then we weren't supposed to go to members' homes at all so we got to have missionary sacrament meeting! It was actually amazing to be able to first of all, take the sacrament because we haven't been able to for four weeks, and also to hear all of the missionaries' testimonies! It was probably one of the most spiritual sacrament meetings I've ever been in. The elders and sisters I serve with are all such great examples to me of faith and devotion, ESPECIALLY in our constantly changing circumstances. They give me motivation to keep going! We're not supposed to use the chapel for anything other than sacrament meeting, but missionaries are really good at devising ways around rules like that so we backed all of our cars up to each other and sat in our trunks and had a picnic! It was a good time before all gatherings were like, banned forever!

And that brings us about up to date! I'm on the verge of insanity and my new pastime is playing Mexican Train dominoes! Which is kind of upsetting. But we're going to make it through! One of the sisters in Medicine Hat is going home today, so we've been partying it up in a trio for the last 36 hours. It's been helping a little bit with my insanity.

2 Timothy 1:7 says, "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." I know it's easier to talk the talk than walk the walk but in times like these I am grateful for the spirit of power and love and a sound mind! It's been amazing to see the community I live in and the missionaries I serve with come together and find strength in God to overcome this obstacle. I hope that everyone is healthy and safe and finding things to do at home!

I love you all!

Sister Willis

Week 38: Doomsday

TP our members hid for us on our doorstep!

I know that this is SUPER ORIGINAL and nobody has heard yet but it's literally the end of the world! We're not quarantined (yet) but we can't go tracting anymore, church is cancelled, and nobody wants to leave their houses! And the elders who are at 21 months are getting shipped home next week! Our mission president's wife sent us an email telling us to stock up on nonperishables so we went to the store on Saturday morning and I saw more empty shelves than I've ever seen in my entire life! There were zero rolls of toilet paper. Zero. And now I have lots of chef boyardee just in case of emergency!

But, life goes on!! On Saturday night, we were able to see our friend Josh get baptized! With all of the changes, we had to reorganize the whole thing pretty last minute, but everything turned out okay. He's the sweetest and I'm so excited for him! I love that kid!

Exchanges.

On Friday we had exchanges with the sister APs up in Calgary, so we got to take a nice road trip on Thursday night! All week it had been like, pretty warm, but winter came back in like 3 hours, so the summer clothes that I packed were not sufficient for the -26 degree weather that we were facing! They lent me lots of coats and scarves and hats, though, so I ended up being okay. The bigger issue was that tracting was banned, so we were only allowed to street contact (street contacting has since been banned), and nobody wanted to be outside with the snow and the coronavirus! We spent a lot of time in the heated church building trying to figure out what we were going to do about church on Sunday.

Which leads us to... church on Sunday! We hung out with lots of members and I did more Come, Follow Me than I've done in a long time. It was probably good for me! Except we went to one member's house and I heard their HUGE dog barrelling down the stairs and before I could do anything to protect myself, he was peeing on my coat!! It was not ideal. But it was okay. The member washed it for me and now it smells like laundry detergent!

Because nobody wants human contact, we've been having kind of a hard time getting appointments and the food bank has been having kind of a hard time getting volunteers! So we were able to solve each other's problems! We have been doing a lot of bagging food at the food bank and because people can't come in to pick up their orders anymore, yesterday we got to deliver people's food orders to their houses! It's basically the same as missionary work! King Benjamin said that when you're in the service of your fellow beings, you're only in the service of your God :)

John 16:33 says, "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." I'm so grateful that we because of the gospel we can have peace despite our circumstances. Knowing that all of this is part of a bigger plan has helped me so much! There's nothing better to be doing than sharing this message with other people :)

Love you all! Stay healthy!

Sister Willis

Week 37: I get invited to a Bible bash

Blizzards with the district on exchanges!

We went to Five Guys and decided to spread the
Good Word. (#findwhenyoueat,eatwhenyoufind)

On Friday we had a lesson with Randy #2 (if you remember Randy #2 from last week) and it turns out that he is NOT elect. We showed up and we'd invited his friend Jeff From Church and they both had their Bibles and notepads out and after we finished teaching our lesson they were ready for a Smackdown filled with Bible verses and anti stuff. They kept being like, "well in the Book of Mormon it says..." and I was like uhmmm I know you looked that up online because it actually doesn't say that in the Book of Mormon AND I'm 19 and you invited me over to your house just to yell at me! So! And a couple of days later we tracted into another guy who wanted to bash with us. It's too cold for this!!

The biggest news of this week is about our friend Randy #1!! We were finally able to have a lesson with him and he asked us about what it means to be worthy to be baptized and we talked about it with him and invited him to be baptized! He said he didn't think that he was worthy of something like that and that he felt like God wouldn't want him back, so we told him the story of the prodigal son and testified of God's unfailing love for us - and he's on date! I'm so, so excited for him.

One of the sisters in our district was sick, so Sister Bueno and I went on emergency exchanges with them last weekend. So on Saturday I spent lots of hours inside studying! I became super enlightened and maybe took a quick nap to get ready for daylight savings. Which WRECKED me just a few short hours later (and also wrecked most of the people we invited to church, haha). 

We're still working with our friend Rafael, and he has LOTS of questions. Lots. We taught him the ten commandments and it took a WHOLE HOUR. He came to stake conference on Saturday night and our stake president and the visiting general authority spent an hour answering his questions after the meeting, and THEN he came to dinner with us and our members on Sunday night and they spent two hours answering more questions! Very inquisitive. But we love questions! Questions are how we get answers! Questions are good!

We had zone conference on Monday and all physical contact besides bumping elbows is BANNED because of coronavirus! Sister Keung was DISTRAUGHT. President gave us all elbow bumps and Sister Keung gave us all a virtual hug. Most of the missionaries hugged anyway, so if you here of a corona outbreak in southern Alberta, you know why!

We went on exchanges this week and I got to spend, like, 40 hours with my FAVE Sister Macdonald! We came out together and she's so loving and kind and I learned so much from her! Fun times!

I hope everybody stays safe and healthy this week! Don't forget to prepare for general conference! Love ya!

Sister Willis

Week 36: On miracles, potatoes with chocolate, and broken-down bikes

We eat Lucky Charms because we think they make us lucky. We think.

Happy Wednesday everybody! This week was AWESOME and we saw so many miracles! But first - the snow is starting to melt! It is positive degrees and I can SEE GRASS! Which is honestly a miracle all on its own. I didn't really think that I'd ever see the sun again.

Due to the fact that (1) it's starting to warm up outside and (2) our kilometers are severely limited by the fact that this month we have to drive to Taber, Brooks, Lethbridge twice, and Calgary twice (not that I expect anyone to know where any of those places are!), we decided to bust out our bikes yesterday! This was a whole production because you can't raise or lower the seats on any of the bikes, they all have one functional and one broken brake, and the tires are... a little sketchy from being outside in -40 degrees. We biked a lot in my first area, but I forgot how much slower it is than driving! We went to do one stop-by and not only did it take, like, 40 minutes, AND it was warm out so I was sweating in my coat, but I was DEAD for the rest of the day, haha. We had a meeting with our stake president and the zone leaders that night and I was doing my very very best not to fall asleep. It was moderately successful. 

Exchanges with Sis. Barker in The Middle of Nowhere, Alberta

We have had a crazy week filled with miracles! Like, every single day has been filled with miracles. But we'll start on Friday around 4 pm, because that's when things really started to pick up. Sister Bueno and I were on exchanges and I was up in Brooks, which is an hour+ away, so we met in the middle on Friday afternoon and Sister Bueno and I drove back to Medicine Hat. We were supposed to have an appointment but it fell through (like our appointments have a tendency to do, haha), so we went home and had comp study instead. And we were both dead tired, like, struggling to keep our eyes open. So we decided that because we hadn't taken our full lunch break, we'd just take a quick nap and then head out and get to The Work. Which was an awesome decision. Because:

1. Our first stop was to drop of a children's Book of Mormon to this 10-year-old recent convert named Elizabeth. All of her siblings who live at home are baptized, but her mom works tons and so she's entirely evasive. But right as we pulled up to Elizabeth's house, we saw a lady walking into the house! It turned out to be Elizabeth's mom and we were able to teach her last night.
2. Because we were in the area, we decided to stop by our investigator Randy (#1). We had planned to go by later that night, but he was home at 4:30 and told us he was leaving in half an hour for BC for the whole weekend. He sent us a text that night saying that we always come over at the hardest times and he thinks it's a sign that the Lord Jesus is watching out for him. It is!
3. We found out that there was a nonmember at church on Sunday (even though nobody told us at church?!?). He's a 17-year-old boy living with his friend's mom, who is a member. We stopped by and he told us he loved church because everybody was so welcoming and that he'd tried to steal The Book of Mormon from his friend's mom, so we gave him his own copy and set up a time to come back and teach him more!
4. That night, we were tracting and we hadn't found anyone yet but had a few minutes before our lesson at 8. So Sister Bueno and I prayed and both looked at the map, and she mentioned a street that I had JUST been looking at, so we were like, GO! GO! We HAULED over there and decided to start at the end of the street and we knocked on the first door and the guy was nice but not interested and at the SECOND DOOR we found this nice dad to whom we gave a copy of the Book of Mormon! His family is out of town but we're going to teach them all on Sunday! It was awesome.

And then we had some pretty cool bonus miracles on Monday! We had our second lesson with our friend Jasmine (who actually doesn't live in our ward but wants to be taught by sisters) and we went over the restoration. She has been SO prepared and I think she recognizes that God has been leading her to the gospel! We invited her to be baptized on April 11 and she said she needed some time to think about it, but she texted us that night and asked if we could do a different day so that her boyfriend would be in town! She's getting baptized on April 12 and we're SO excited for her! She's absolutely the sweetest. 

Later that evening we were tracting and we only had a few minutes (which seems to be a pattern with us, haha) and we didn't feel like we were in the right spot so we pulled up our map and headed to a different area. Long story short, we were going around the bend on the street we'd picked and Sister Bueno was like, "stop the car!" So we got out and she was like, let's do these three houses, it's one of these three, and pointed to three different houses on different parts of the street. The third house was this dad named Randy (Randy #2!!!!) who took a Book of Mormon and said he's always been interested in learning more about the Church! And he was wearing a new creature in Christ shirt and had the picture of Jesus holding the lamb on his wall. So we're pretty sure he's elect. 

That night, we had a lesson with our friend Rafael who is ALSO super prepared for the gospel. He showed up to church all by himself last week and we had our third lesson with him on Monday and invited him to be baptized! He said he wanted to pray about it, but he also said that he likes how our church feels different from any other church and he feels safe and at home here. It was awesome. 

We had dinner with this family in our ward and they made potatoes as part of dinner and then for dessert we had granola squares with a chocolate peanut butter sauce on top. One minute we were having a pleasant conversation, and the next we were eating potatoes with chocolate peanut butter sauce and hot sauce on them. It was disgusting. Not my favorite dinner, haha

This week I read 2 Corinthians 12:9, which says "And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." It's super interesting to me that Paul sees his weaknesses as an opportunity to draw closer to Christ and draw on His power rather than as setbacks or personal failures. One of the most hopeful things that we get to teach is that the grace and love and power of Jesus Christ are big enough for ALL of us, no matter what mistakes we may have made. There have been so many times on my mission when I've felt like my skill set is insufficient for the tasks at hand, but I've learned over time that I am not asked to serve alone. I'm so grateful for the fact that God is always so willing to help!

I hope everybody is having a great weak, staying healthy, and saying their prayers! Happy March!

Love,

Sister Willis

Week 35: Road Trip

Happy Wednesday everybody! And happy 8 months to Sister Willis! I still feel like I left last week, haha. Time flies when you're having fun! 

Yesterday we had our mission leadership council in Lethbridge, which meant we got to take a big ROAD TRIP! Lethbridge is 2ish hours away from Medicine Hat, so we left at 7:30, made it there at 9:30, had a big long meeting, and drove back. Our elders wanted to get food on the way back so we stopped at this little hole in the wall Mexican restaurant run by Mennonites in this little town called Taber. The food was fine but their ice cream machine AND soda machine weren't working. It was worse than McDonald's.

We saw MIRACLES this week! On Thursday we had lots of time in the afternoon to find new people to teach and we felt really strongly that there was SOMEONE in our area who needed the message of the gospel but we had no idea where they were! We drove to like, 4 or 5 different places to try stopping by formers and knocking on doors and nobody was answering or interested! It finally got to the time when we had to head to dinner, so we decided to stop by two former investigators on the way over. Neither of them were home and we were about to drive away when we saw this cute mom putting a carseat in her car and Sister Bueno was like "what if it's her!" So we ran out of our car and introduced ourselves and set up a time to come back and teach her! It was her!

On Sunday night we had an appointment fall through, so we had even MORE finding time and it was so cold and snowy and we were trying so hard to find somebody new! After like, an hour we met this guy named Adam who told us we could come back next week but he didn't seem super solid and we were like, we know that there are people in our area who are ready to be taught! So we were looking at our area map and I felt like we should go to this one street and at the very same time Sister Bueno remembered the name of this potential investigator who lived on the street that I had pointed out! So we were like, we HAVE to go! We went to see Brawnwin and she seemed super interested, we gave her a Book of Mormon and we're supposed to go back next week! It was awesome! We have so much faith in miracles!

On another note, we went to go visit one of our investigators on Friday night and she invited her whole family into the room and we were like, this is awesome! But as soon as the husband got downstairs he was like "are you guys Mormons?" and we were like "yeah?" He said that he told the Mormon missionaries that they weren't interested because they said he'd need to get baptized again. This family is from South Sudan and double baptism is apparently a HUGE no-go. He said we could stay and visit but that we couldn't talk about the church. Which would have been entirely pointless, so we left. Not their time, I guess.

We have gotten interrupted by phone calls and people coming to our door like EVERY time we've tried to study or plan this week, and on Friday afternoon we had our companionship study and we heard the doorbell. We were super confused because we weren't expecting anybody, but it was this worldvision guy trying to get us to sponsor a child in Africa. We kind of sympathized with him because door-knocking isn't always super fun, but we were like, listen, bro, we actually have no money. He tried to tell us it would only be $40 a month and that me and my friend could split it and we were like no, ACTUALLY, we have NO MONEY. We pay to be here knocking on people's doors. So we don't have enough money to sign up for a monthly donation. He was pretty shocked that we'd be willing to knock on people's doors for free, so we tried to give him our card (he actually lives in my first area up in Calgary) and he was like, now y'all are trying to convert me! Stop it! That was a fun time.

On Monday we had our district council meeting and all of the missionaries like to park their cars perpendicular to the actual parking spots, parallel to the sidewalk because that means we can just drive out without backing (every time you reverse your companion has to direct you, lol). Anyway, we were sitting in our meeting and this grumpy old lady came in and was like "MISSIONARIES! Who taught you how to park? There are TWO CARS parked incorrectly in the parking lot and you're making it very difficult for my sewing club to carry our machines! You're not the only ones who use this building!" And then she made the other district leave their room so they could do their sewing club. Getting screamed at was definitely one of the highlights of my week.

Alma 37:17 says "For he will fulfill all his promises which he shall make unto you, for he has fulfilled his promises which he has made unto our fathers." I have found so much peace in trusting God and His promises. I know that because He loves us, He will make all things work together for our good!

I love you! Have a great week!

Sister Willis