Okay I've been chatting it up on iMessage and don't have a lot of
time to write about this week. Anyway, it was good.
I'm really going to miss Sister Daulton, and her crazy sayings, and
how her feet don't touch the floor when she sits, and her Lion King
analogies at every lesson that don't make sense, and all sorts of
things. It's been an experience. Let's put it at way!
For pday we played basketball and peppered with a volleyball and I
taught the elders how to pancake a volleyball. We had fun. To top it
off, because my district lost a contest of 'who can find the most
Spanish referrals' we got pied in the face with whip cream. It was
gross. My hair was nasty!
We had a BBQ at the RS president's house. It was wonderful! When we
got there she pulled out a can of whip cream. Sister Daulton backed up
because she REALLY didn't like being pied, but she got out the can
because she had heard of the whip cream trick I did and had me show it
off one last time! Haha She also got me one of those mini army size
copies of the Book of Mormon because I want to avoid walking around
with my iPad down the mean streets of Las Vegas. When I came out on my
mission I thought all of Las Vegas was like North Las Vegas... Let's
just say it will probably be a bit of an adjustment being away from
the nice suburb of Henderson. Anyway, I'm super excited to be back!
About North Las Vegas... It's super ghetto. When I came out on my
mission I thought all of Las Vegas was like this. It's so different
from a suburb. People stay up late so it's no big deal if you knock
after 8pm. Also there are a lot of black people. I bought myself a
purse because I broke my other one and didn't want to be walking
around with my iPad in the air.
There are also a lot of Hispanic people so I have to brush up on my
Spanish because it is rusty from serving in Henderson. I like it
though because we always get Mexican candy in north!
Transfer day is always fun because all the missionaries meet together
and you get to see old friends. Each time, with out a doubt there is
at least one elder who says "hey sister Gier" and I have no clue what
his name is! How do they know me?
The area is totally different than what it was a year ago. Less
diligent missionaries have been serving here... Let's put it that way.
They hadn't updated any lessons taught for the last month! So the
investigator that they were teaching, who is supposed to get baptized
in a few weeks, has nothing under his record. It was really sad
knowing the potential it has and seeing the missionaries not fulfill
it. We are going to have to work extremely hard but I know Heavenly
Father will help us get everything caught up to speed and we will see
miracles.
Also the missionaries went over miles which is a huge no no. But since
they got double transferred out we get to face the consequences of
having our car parked for TWO DAYS!! We cover a whole stake with out a
car for two days! We planned to be in areas near our apartment so we
just walked but they are so much further away walking than they are
driving. We walked about 8 miles in the middle of the day and I was
burnt! Fun fact if you go to 7-11 and ask to fill up your water bottle
they let you do it for free! And thankfully there are 7-11s every
where in Vegas. I definitely won't take advantage of having a car any
more!
My district is cool. Sister Lellis (my trainee) is now my STL which is
awesome. It's always hard to adjust to a new companion and environment
so I'm still figuring that out. You would think I would be used to it
by now but it still takes time. My companion is cool. She is from a
tiny town in Texas and has been out for about 13 months. She was in my
last zone so I've served around her before. It's been hard getting the
area back up to speed so I've been stress eating for the first time in
a long time. But I'm determined not to get fat my last three months!
Haha
Cool things about this week: I have a baptism coming up for the
Foothills ward but I might have to skype into it because we also have
a baptism here!
I ran into the guy that I taught my first Restoration lesson to! He's
cool. He likes learning more but isn't ready to change yet. We are
going to try and meet with him this week to help him understand the
blessings of the gospel.
Everyone was excited to see me at church! They couldn't believe I was
back and were really happy! Sister Hainning the old ward mission
leaders wife came up and gave me a huge hug and told me that I am
looking really good and it seems like the mission has treated me well!
It's amazing what changes in a year.
There was a girl who came up to me before sacrament meeting and asked
if I remembered her. She looked familiar and I had a feeling I knew
who she was. She told me that I was the first missionary that found
her when she was inactive and she has been a strong member ever since!
I feel like this is what heaven will be like. People will come up
asking if we remember them because at some point in their life we
helped them when they needed it most. We might never realize the
impact we made. I know there have been people who have touched my life
and they may never know until after this life the change they caused.
I'm looking forward to that reunion in heaven.
I will say being in a YSA ward is really different. I have had enough
Temple, Family and Marriage lessons I could probably get my doctorate
in Marriage and Family. Haha a lot of the guys were asking me how much
longer I have left and got a little too excited when I told them I
finish in November. It's been fun though! Obviously there is something
I need to learn from serving in YSA that I haven't quite learned yet.
The perks of being in YSA is we get to go to a lot of the activities
including devotionals. So that is where my spiritual thought out the
week comes from, the CES devotional by Elder Cook. "Being sincerely
Christlike is even more important that being authentic." So often
people want to stand out and be different. It's a common desire to
become unique and find our true selves. In reality our true identity
is that we are children of a loving Heavenly Father. If we really want
to stand out from the world we need to become good Christlike people.
That's how we stand out! There is so much bad we have to combat that
and BECOME the good.
