The Marvelous Work in the Four Corners: Transfer 7 Week 5

Sidenote: I don't know if any of you got to meet Chris Olea, or if he ever reads my emails (I know I have him on facbeook for sure), but he is still extremely famous is Joseph City, that's all I know!

This week I have turned into a preacher. If any of you know me, you know how passionate my rants can get. And this week was a week of rants. Sister Panoussi has been struggling with a few things at home, and when I see her with her head hung down, I get preaching. I don't know where the words come from, but they do. It's the fire I had in the MTC, when Sister Johnson and Wilson and I went off on our rant, and called each other to repentance. All of a sudden I'm just popping open scriptures and going off on analogies and hoping they're keeping up with what my brain is vomiting out. A big theme this week has been Sacrifice.

This gospel involves so much sacrifice, the plan of salvation revolves around sacrifice. We are constantly learning to let go of this, hold on to that, give this up, because you're working towards that.

Anyway, we went on exchanges and my Sister Training Leader was carrying the biggest rainbow umbrella, trudging down the highway with me, tracting our feet off. A chunk of my shoe fell off and you will probably receive it when I send another package home. But we had a fun time tracting, met a lot of people who weren't as happy to meet us. But the Lord promises that when we work hard, we will see blessings. Sister Panoussi says my feet might be getting bunions, but she's a weird foot fanatic, she wants to be an orthopedic surgeon. Also she agreed to let me pluck her eyebrows for the first time. (Get ready for the pain!) Hopefully I'll get to do that today. But I convinced her the way any good missionary would, through testimony, inspired questions, promised blessings- the only thing I needed was to use scriptures, but I don't think there are any about angling the arch of an eyebrow.

This week I learned that I am not too shabby at making a drunk angry person behave themselves, even when I'm scared out of my mind. It actually reminded me of talking to Eduardo when he's having one of his crying fits. I learned that deaf-natives are even harder to communicate with than Grandma. I had to repeat things about four times, and even then, I think she just nodded her head like she understood but she really had no idea.

"WHAT. IS. HER. ADDRESS?! ADD.RESS. ADDRESS!?"

*nods in response*

GEORGIA! I laughed so hard after that conversation. Sister Panoussi has the quietest tenderest mousiest little voice and seeing her try to communicate with a mostly-deaf woman was one of the best experiences I've had this week.

We had a great lesson in Relief Society about the talk "It Was the Load". The teacher asked a question along the lines of "When have you seen the Lord take your abilities, and stretch them beyond what you thought you could do?"

Women got off on the topic of sending off missionaries. One woman said that she could not believe how much her son had changed. That she was amazed at the transformation. "The Lord gave him to me for 18 years and I tried my hardest, and then I handed him over for 2 years and He did more than I ever could."

She talked about how the little things she taught- chores, discipline, love- were taken and magnified in those two years. How the Lord had taken such small things she tried to do, and her boy came back as a man.

I shared my thoughts as well,

"I don't think you realize that when you send us off on a mission, the biggest thing we learn is the same exact lesson. I came out not thinking I could teach, or knock doors, or talk to strangers- And the Lord has taken the best I can give, and shown me that it is through His power I am being changed. All I have learned is that I can't do any of it without Him."

I miss you all, I love you all.

I pinch all of your toes individually.

- Sister Valdez

Sister Panoussi's Wide eyes