Can I just say ... this girl is amazing!! I am learning so much from her example every week! Love you all!
Dearest family!
We've had quite the morning! This morning as we were starting our companion study, Sister Knutson said, "This time next week, one of us could be packing to go to another area." Not even a minute later the phone started to ring and it was President Shumway. He had us put it on speakerphone so he could talk to both Sister Knutson and I. We were going to get a transfer call this Saturday night but things need to happen this week instead. Sister Magness will be Sister Knutson's new companion on Wednesday. She is currently serving in Nevada with Sister Boone, my new companion, and has been getting really sick. He said it was going to happen in two weeks anyway but he felt it needed to happen sooner. President and Sister Shumway say that there must be something that she is allergic to there so they are bringing her to a new place to see if things will clear up. I'm super sad to leave! I don't want to. But missions are all about submitting your will to Heavenly Father's. There is so much faith required in transfers. We have so much faith and complete trust in the Lord that He has in fact called our mission president. We have to have faith that our mission president is actually receiving revelation from Heavenly Father on where we need to go and our response very much is, "I'll go where you want me to go." We know that this is the will of Heavenly Father and you have sometimes a week, and in this case only a few days to know that this is what Heavenly Father wants. It is an unusual feeling having complete submission to one of the Lord's chosen servants. I think about being a member of the Church, you are called into the Bishop's office and you are asked to serve in a certain calling. You have the opportunity to say yes or no according to the agency that we have been blessed with. You can think that you are not qualified. You can be scared of what is going to happen. You can be afraid that you are going to fail or that people are going to think differently of you if you mess up in the calling - no matter how big or small. But its ultimately your choice to know if God has called that leader. As a missionary, you are asked to pack up everything you have, leave all that you know, leave the ward that you have come to love and serve, leave the investigators that, in this case, are getting baptized this Saturday, you are going to need to get to know a new area, new people, new challenges, new miracles, new blessings, a new companion, a new rhythm of doing missionary work and in our case, I only had a few seconds to say yes. There is no saying "no" to your mission president in situations like this. You still have all of those feelings that you had before you were called to serve the Lord full time but you have to learn complete submission - real quick. In emergency transfer situations, you very much feel a bit like the called apostles in the early days of the Church. They dropped their nets and left, they didn't get to be there when their father was buried....I won't get to say goodbye to very many people. I need to pack up and leave...I feel so blessed that I was able to serve with Sister Knutson. I hope throughout my life, I can continue to have the faith that I have in my mission president now. I want to continue to be able to sustain my leaders, the way that I sustain and follow President Shumway.
SO! I'll be going to Nevada, MO. Pronounced, knee-vae-da. Sister Knutson has served there before so she has already listed a bunch of people that I'm going to love right off the bat. It is so funny how Heavenly Father works! As I mentioned in my email last week, I've decided to work on faith for my Christlike attribute for the month. And well, my faith is being immensly tested right now! Change is scary, especially on your mission. When we were talking to President Shumway this morning, he said it takes a lot of faith to be up and moved like this. After he said that, Sister Knutson and I looked at each other and shook our heads because we both knew my faith was going to be tested and you never know how it's going to be tested until it happens!! Sometimes it is the most unexpected thing - like being emergency transferred!! Although, I'm excited to go serve with my new companion, Sister Boone. She came out with Sister Knuston and so she only has one transfer left but President Shumway said she really wants to finish strong so I'm excited to get to serve with her and finish our her mission strong!
My new address will be:
1204 W. Cherry #4
Nevada, Missouri 64772
Other than that crazy event, we've had a pretty decent week!
Kate is still amazing as ever! Sister Knutson says she has never seen an investigator have so much opposition as Kate has had! Even though she has opposition from her family and friends, she still knows that the church is true and that she needs to be baptized! I love her so much and am sad that I won't be there for her baptism but I know that we will stay in contact. The Lord has a huge plan for her! If she wasn't going to be such an asset to Heavenly Father, i don't think she would be having so much opposition from the advesary! She's going to be a huge tool in the hands of our Father in Heaven! I can't wait to see the amazing things that she is going to do in her life!
Brother Sandford is GREAT!!!! He still is getting baptized as well! His date is September 28! It is amazing the differences I can see since he decided to be baptized! I've known him my whole time here in Bella Vista! He has just been very different since he's chosen to follow what Heavenly Father wants him to do! I can't really explain how he is different! He just seems happier!!! Which is great! That's what's supposed to happen!!! When we follow the will of Heavenly Father, we know that we are doing what we need to do and that should make us happy!!
I guess not a whole lot more happened this week. We had 4 appointments set on Saturday and 3 of them cancelled! They were all going to be at the church and they all cancelled withing 10 minutes of thier appointment time! So we were at the church with not a whole lot to do because we thought our appointments were going to show up! So we were able to catch up on some stuff while we were at the church!
Yesterday, Sunday, was an AMAZING DAY!! There are two people that we know of that want to be baptized! And they aren't even investigators yet! One is the boyfriend of a girl in the Young Single Adult Branch. He has been coming to church for about 4 weeks now but has said that he doesn't want to take the lessons yet. Well, yesterday morning before church, he told his girlfriend that he thinks he wants to be baptized but he's not 100% sure yet. So then the talks in Sacrament meeting were all about making important decisions and praying about them and then just making the decision! So after Sacrament Meeting, he leaned over to his girlfriend and said, yeah, I want to be baptized! AHH!!!!! We were so excited to hear the news!
Another girl in the Branch has a friend. I mentioned it in my last email how she called us and left a voicemail saying she had a friend that wants to be baptized. Well, being the amazing returned missionary that she is, she has taught him the first three lessons and we are getting together with them this week to teach him! She says he believes it all! How cool is that?! The Lord works in mysterious ways and it is amazing to see that He is preparing people to receive His Gospel! I love this work and seeing the Lord's hand in everything I do!
Then there was the CES Fireside last night with Elder Holland! I don't know how many of you watched it, but if you didnt, you need to! It was an amazing talk about how we can't "check our religion at the door." There are many other things that I could say about his talk but I'm just going to say, Go read it or watch it and find out for yourself how amazing it is and how amazing Elder Holland is! I love him and all the other General Authorities so much! I know that they are called of God and truly receive revelation for the whole church and, ultimately, the whole world.
Well, it's been a crazy week! I love you all and I'll talk to you next week!
See you soon then!!
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