This week I realized how influential we are in the YSA branch among the girls and I got a real spark for wanting to help and make a difference for them. The girls in it are so sweet and they are dealing with so much. We went down to family home evening with the Relief Society pres of the branch and she talked to me the whole way home and I sensed so much struggle in her life. She is 29 so she has almost aged out of the branch which will be sad for them and maybe her too. I really hope that I can help her find herself and find happiness in the trust that the Lord has placed in her. There are so many sweet girls in the branch and I just watch them be so hard on themselves and make big life choices (the whole time being relieved that I don't have to right now) and they have such strong testimonies. I think that sometimes I am terrible at reading people and sometimes I am really good at it and I want to be better. I want to know when people are struggling and when they need help before they ask for it. We talked to the Branch President last night and I am praying that I can stay here and help them. I think that whatever happens will be tough but right for me. Whether I get transferred or whether I am just over the branch or just over the ward I think I will feel some sadness. I want to stay right here with these people for the rest of my mission. But at a point I won't be able to progress here anymore and I will have to move on.
On Friday we got to go and give Ruth her blanket and she was so darling. She used to be more self sufficient but with her little mini stroke she has really struggled. She couldn't open the tissue paper without help but once I ripped it open for her she loved it. She has been freezing in her room and they won't change the AC so it was perfect. I love her so much but I am so sad to have seen her change. She used to be so sharp and now she forgets things while talking. Also she talks about when she gets out of there and I just don't know that that is going to happen. Hard to see.
From there we went straight to Peg's house because she wanted to have us for lunch. She is not a member but we always stop in and say hi to her when we are in her apartment complex because there are members that we visit there. She had become friends with the sisters before me and we have maintained that relationship. She is the sweetest. I gave her some pamphlets a little while ago and she reads them every night before bed. We are going to have her all trained up so that when she gets to the other side (which may be soon) she will recognize it and know that it is right. Anyway, we went over for lunch because she had invited us and Kathy (the member who lives across from her). She told us how she had boiled the hard boiled eggs days before and spent the whole week preparing for it. SO DARLING. I guess she put the eggs on the stove and went in the other room and fell asleep so she told us all about how they exploded out into the family room and scared her awake. I was crying I was laughing so hard. I can't wait for you to meet her. Kathy is just as cute and they are the sweetest friends. Not to mention Kathy kissed me on the lips when she left so it was a good time all around.
That night we went around and tried to locate a ton of less active YSA's out of our regular area. We have the whole stake remember so we've been traveling and can I tell you how pretty New Jersey is?! Gorgeous rolling farms and so many fruit stands. I didn't even like blueberries before my mission but I love them here. Anyhow, we were going to great lengths to contact people. Sister Sasser hoisted me up so I could knock on the front door over somebody's high security fence, I spoke Spanish, I ate crabs with some guys, I contacted people while still in the car. If these people only knew what we do to help them. Anyway, it was an eventful week and I really hope that people come out to the activity on Sunday. We are having an "open house" where they want everybody to come to the branch even if they normally go to their home ward just to see how it works. We have been inviting everybody out to it and there will be a munch and mingle afterwards. I am excited, I really hope that it is successful.
Dinner story:
This week at a members home I had a new dining experience. I won't reveal names. Whilst we were enjoying our meal and conversation I noticed an ant on the table. I knew that it would upset the hostess so I didn't want to mention it or make a big deal out of it. It crawled toward me and then kept crawling back under the placemat as the center piece. Back and forth and back and forth. Then it started to crawl past my plate and toward my body. So I put my hand up and thought, "ok, I'll let it crawl on my hand and then I'll flick it off onto the floor." So it crawls up onto the back of my hand and I make a quick motion between me and Sister Sasser's seat to try and flick it away. I can't see or feel it walking around on my wrist so I put my hands back in my lap. A few seconds later I see it crawling back up the table cloth toward my plate. This time I decide to employ the napkin. I make a quick sweeping motion and grab it with the napkin. I then proceed to fold and fold and smash and fold the napkin to make sure he doesn't get out this time. I set the napkin on the table and we keep talking. Would you believe that he crawled out of the napkin?! Well he did. So this time I use the napkin again and pinch him to oblivion. It worked. The best part of these situations is that your companion knows everything that is going on. Every funny story is that much funnier because you have someone there who sees everything. I love it.
We had a three hour district meeting on Monday that was really fun and I learned that there is so much to learn as a missionary and so much to internalize that we will never get it all right. But there is so much fun to be had in the learning. I really love meetings where we are able to role play, bear testimony, share what we have learned etc. It is so much fun to be a missionary and I am afraid of missing all those things when I'm not one. I had made some cake balls over the weekend and I had extras so I took them to District Meeting and the Elders loved them. I use every opportunity to find investors for my restaurant. Anyway, they loved them despite the fact that they threw them across the room. Ok, just one. But they ate it off the chair because they loved it so much and didn't want to waste it even after it exploded. After the meeting we had to wait there while the office elders made copies of our keys and so we played signs and I was crying it was so funny. I love missionaries so so so much. I am having a ball.
This week in sacrament our ward mission leader, well our past one because we got a new one on Sunday, got up in testimony meeting and shared an Elder Oaks quote that said "we can make it to the terrestrial kingdom without this Church, but we are shooting for something higher." I thought that was so interesting, I never think about it like that. But I have learned and seen how much dedication and conversion it takes for us to endure and really hold to that. Sometimes we have both arms around the iron rod and sometimes we have a finger touching it but it requires that we really consecrate ourselves and that is hard. And it's supposed to be a struggle. But the more I hear and think about it the more I think about the idea that when we meet God and Jesus we won't feel like it was a sacrifice. We will just wish we'd done more. I want so badly to live with both of them and my family and my babies and I hope that I never lose sight of that goal. I think that for me it took preparing for a mission to really consecrate myself and not just dangle out there with some belief in it. I hope that while I'm here I can keep sight of the goal of eternal life as well as think of the incremental goals in between. I know that I needed to change and I needed to be here and see the possiblities for how we can live our lives to know how I needed to live mine.
Jenny and her sweet friend Ruth
