Hola y'all,
THIS WEEK WAS NUTS! Where do I even start?!
Actually, at the end, it looked like nothing happened cuz Hna Dibble was dying with a cold. And probably bronchitis. So needless to say, I got to study a lot ;) But she's doing better yet, and I bleached the whole house (clothes, dishes, you name it, I bleached it) so I haven't gotten sick yet :) Woot.
Anyway, miracle person of the week. Tanya came to church last week and was super cute. She is a refugee and came with her case worker, a member who lives in Waxhaw (pretty far south of here). She is 18 years old, and just came from Guatemala a week ago. She is SO great. You would love her. We went and visited her on Tuesday....and Thursday.....and Friday.....and Sunday. Our first lesson, she brought up baptism, and told us she wants to be baptized, but maybe after she learns a little more. AH. Then we were able to show her the Plan of Salvation and she was dumbfounded. She'd never heard about basically any of it before. She told us that she knows God has a plan for her, so this just helped her see how special it is. She didn't know what the Atonement was, and we had a very sweet experience explaining what it could mean to her. She is an orphan and has had an extremely hard life, but now she knows there's Someone who knows exactly how she feels and what she's been through. She loves having us over, and she's been reading the Book of Mormon. She is incredible and I really hope y'all get to meet her someday. We are probably going to put her on baptismal date this week.
Other than that, nothing crazy happened this week. Random thing though, we got a call from elders in Baltimore, Maryland. Hna Dibble and I both have companions or people from the MTC districts serving there. The elders there called us about a referral they sent us, then we asked them if they knew Elder Featherstone, who was in Hna Dibbles district at the MTC. They laughed and said of course! One of the elders just got finished being his companion! Then I asked if they knew Elder Randall, and they said he was serving in the same branch as them! Then I asked them about Hna Hunter, one of my MTC companions. They died laughing. All they could say was "She's crazy!" and I just thought, yep. That's for sure. But she's also the best and I miss her like crazy! So anyway, that was a fun experience.
OK, drumroll please!!! We got transfer news yesterday! First, background story. So, we had dinner with Niurka and her husband yesterday night. We knew we were going to be getting calls about transfers that night, but we weren't sure what time, so we weren't too worried about it. Well, we got ready to go, getting shoes on, etc, and I look at the phone, and we've got 2 missed calls from President Adler! Oh goodness y'all, I don't think you understand what it feels like to have two missed calls from your German Mission President. Oh boy. Anyway, we flew out of that appointment and called him right back. His wife answered and she was dying laughing and they were obviously in a car. President was laughing as well and asked if they could call us back in a few minutes; they were parking the car. After that, they called us 4 more times before they actually called us for real. It was so stressful. Ask Hna Dibble - I was shaking so bad. Stress. When they finally called us for real, President just sounded so happy! He said "My dear sisters (please say this in your head with a German accent), we have a crazy idea! but we feel very guided by the spirit to call you as the new Sister Training Leaders for this area." Woah. Hna Dibble and I were not expecting that, but we accepted. Mostly we were just so excited to be together for another transfer, but now we get to be Sister Training Leaders! Basically it just means more meetings, but we also get to go on exchanges with all the other sisters in the zone, so it will be so great. Didn't see it coming, but I'm so grateful for the opportunity to serve, and with a phenomenal companion with me. I'm really excited. If you have any ideas of what I can do to help the sisters here, let me know.
Anyway, that was this week. Sorry for a super long email. I absolutely love being a missionary and am having the time of my life. Life is so good.
...and loving it
Hermana Belliston
