Feb 22

Elder Bednar came to our mission on Saturday. It was an incredible experience that I will never forget. President allowed the entire mission to attend so all 180 met in the chapel in complete silence studying the scriptures and listening to prelude music waiting to hear from an apostle. It was a very sacred and spiritual meeting. He’s just a normal man, but his calling is larger than life. He said some really cool things, but the Spirit was the main teacher in this meeting. In the middle of the discussion Elder Bednar said, “Raise your hand if you had a question answered today that was neither asked nor discussed.” Several missionaries raised their hands. Elder Bednar emphasized how we need to work as hard as we can to cultivate an environment for the Spirit to teach and then we need to get out of the way. If the Spirit isn’t teaching then all you are doing is talking to yourself in front of investigators. Nothing we haven’t heard before, but it was awesome to have an apostle with us and reminded us the reality of the message we share.

Everything else that happened this week is a blur. Sister Latimer is my new companion. She’s from American Fork, Utah. Woo Utah! She’s a lot more quite and reserved that Sister Hill, but she’s got a crazy side. This morning we were fixing our voicemail answering message. I started off by saying, “Hi! This is the missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Sister Johnson…” And then Sister Latimer said in her sweet little voice, “…and Sister Latimer. Please leave a message and we’ll get back to you. And remember, if you don’t get baptized, you’re going to hell.” What?! Where in the world did that come from?! I looked at my quiet/shy companion like she was crazy and then she started to giggle. Oh… it was a joke I realized, but I was still taken a back. Just imagine my face. Well, we tried to change it, and we thought we did, but….The San Pedro Elders called us and left a message “um….sisters, you need to change that message now!” Hahaha. So we finally removed our pounding-at-the-pulpit answering message thingy and all is well, hopefully.

So that was my funny Sister Latimer story. I also have a funny Sister Hill Story. At the beginning of last transfer I mentioned the potato famine to Sister Hill. She started laughing histerically. “Oh a potato famine! Hahaha! Like they couldn’t eat anything else. Hahah!” I asked, “You’ve never heard of the potato famine?” Then she started talking and laughing in an Irish accent, “Oh no! I’m going to die because there’s no potatos! hahaha” I know there were Irish people rolling in their graves. So I had to listen to her make fun of the potato famine all transfer long cause she thought it was some kind of fabricated myth. On our last day together we were knocking in the morning and she started going off on it again. I turned to her and said, “The next time you meet and Irish person, you ask them about the potato famine and let me know how it goes.” She laughed and laughed. Later that day we picked up sister Forsey who was one of the 6 sisters going home this transfer. She would spend her last day with us. We were a three-some for the day. That night we were leaving an apartment complex and we saw an older gentleman walking so we went up to talk to him. After we introduced ourselves he introduced himself in a thick…Irish accent. He is a Catholic priest who had immigrated years before. “So. I’ve heard about some potato famine that was supposed to have happened in Ireland. Can you tell me a little about that.” Suddenly the sky darked as the Irish man’s eye furrowed and he began a dramatic monologue recounting the epic tale (that happens to be true), “The Irish people exported all the barley and wheat in nighty-turthy seven”(insert correct year cause I forgot). “There was a blight and the potato crops failed…” “In nighty-turthy seven Ireland had a population of 9 million. In nighty-turthy nine their were 3 million. 2 million immigrated……4 million died!” After he was finished I was beaming with the glow that only comes when you throw back “In your face!” Sister Hill was laughing so hard because it was so classic and couldn’t have been better timing. Now she knows about the potato famine.

Sister Dodge and Sister Davenport went home this week. Sad day.

sj