Hermana Greenhalgh's Adventures: Just Do It! Letter 8/24/15

How was everyone's week? Hopefully good! Mine was pretty crazy! Something that I've learned this week is the importance of being obedient no matter what! I'm not someone who likes to intentionally break the rules, nor do I like seeing people do it either. It's so vitally important to Keep the Commandments, follow this Spirit, and do good things! Heavenly Father gives us these commandments and the influence of the Holy Ghost to bless us, not prohibit us... Sorry I'm done with my rant about obedience, but just be ready for the story about all this when I get home!

Anyways, so a little about my week is Monday after emailing and preparing for the week my district and a member named Yoani went to the church, played basketball, and ate pizza. While eating pizza Sister Finau kicked the ball up in the air and it smacked Elder Southwick in the face, knocked the pizza out of his hand and the sauce flew across his face and shirt... It was hilarious. We all laughed for a good twenty minutes! After we just played the guitar, and had a drawing contest. It was actually pretty nice to just relax for an hour, but after that we all wanted to get back to work. That night we found this awesome new guy named Francisco! He's 29 and has so much potential! He goes "it's weird you came to my house tonight, I'm having a really hard time, and I prayed for God to help me and then you two show up!" Whaaaaat! Super cool right! He's awesome, and has a lot of questions. We are super excited to see where he goes!

Tuesday we had Zone meeting, if you've liked the page for my mission on Facebook you'll find a picture of me with an egg in my mouth! We did a neat object lesson with eggs "investigators" and how we need to protect them, help them, and get them to the final goal of baptism. It was EGGciting! It was EGGSactly what our zone needed. Later that night we took a member named Cynthia out with us, she's getting ready to go on a mission. She shared her testimony with so many people that night and it was awesome! She's going to be a great missionary. My companion and I noticed her deep love the gospel, and it helped us realize ours as well and to want to share it with more people.

Wednesday was service day! In the morning we went and knocked a couple doors but weren't really getting anyone answering, but we both had a prompting to pass by Hermana Zayas house. When we passed by her mom Victoria or as I call her "abuelita" which means little grandma, was home by herself. She's in her 90s doesn't speak a lick of English, and she's the cutest old lady ever. She was so happy to see us. Everyone had left to Mexico and she was taking care of the house and needed some help, but the phones were disconnected and she was stuck by herself. So we passed by and helped her water the plants, get food and water for the dogs and just give her some company! Ok funny story, we walked outside and she asked us to put water in the bucket for the dogs, well the problem was the hose was behind this wall and couldn't be reached. Sister Finau goes "well my arms are long enough I can get it!" She tries and can't reach it, so I go ok... "Let me try" she starts laughing because I'm a lot shorter than her and there's no way I will be able to reach it. But I walk over go half way over the wall, and I'm hanging there in a hand stand position trying to grab this hose. My feet are slipping and I yell for sister Finau! She comes over grabs my feet and just hangs me there until I grabbed it! It reminded me of when I was little and my dad would hang us by our feet to tease us, didn't think I could experience that again especially as a 20 year old! But it happened! Later for lunch we went and had lunch with Yoani and the elders. We were eating and Yoani tried to rap about his former girlfriends... It was so funny because he really can't rap. After we went and helped a lady move, and later that day we passed by Abuelita again. When we got there Eduardo was there! He was just cleaning the yard for them. We asked him what he was doing and he said "oh I just had a prompting to come clean their yard!" Ahhh he's so neat! So we helped him, and then found a scorpion!

Thursday I woke up that morning and was super frustrated because our house was a disaster. I started picking things up as the other sisters watched me. I let this frustration sink in, and started my personal studies. When it was over I talked with my companion about it and she didn't really know what we should do, so I just let Sister Toone know. Later we left to the food bank to do service and the other sisters were being super rude. I just kept to myself and went along doing my own thing. Thankfully Sister Mello and Sister Johnson said we were going on exchanges! I got to go on exchanges with Sister Johnson, we were companions exactly a year ago! It was so nice to catch up, and serve side by side again. We had some awesome lessons, and felt the Spirit! Later that night we made chocolate chip cookies, and talked about life.

Friday we headed to weekly planning and when it came time for companionship inventory Sister Finau and I left and started talking about all the things going on at our house. We both cried because the disobedience of others was getting to us. Sister Mello and Johnson came in and started talking with us about everything, and then surprise Sister Toone showed up. She had the prompting to come talk with us, it was really nice to let her know what was going on. When all was finished we left, and felt so much better. Later that night we went to a members house for dinner, and she fed us so much. We had a eating contest with the elders.. I lost but it's ok, I didn't want to die...

Saturday morning Sister Finau and I were studying and all the sudden I saw Sister Toone walking up to our apartment. I waved her to come on in and she gave the signal to be quiet. She walked in to the other sisters room and told them they had 30 minutes to pack, they were being emergency transferred. It was quite the morning... Sister Finau and I had to go get their car, and we parked in front of our apartment turned the hazard lights on and walked back inside. We were inside for about 8 minutes and I had a feeling we needed to walk outside... Good thing too because a man was towing the car!! We asked and pleaded for him to stop because we were moving stuff into the car. He said nope sorry you can't park here. We then said we had our hazards on, and he just made some other excuse and said if we gave him $40 he wouldn't take our car. I ran inside grabbed all that I had in my wallet and said wait here we will run to the gas station just please don't take our car. We blasted out the parking lot and got some money and Sister Finau parked and I booked it out of the car and started running. I handed him the remaining amount and he looked all confused. "You didn't have to run he said.." I said back "um sir I can't just trust that you're not going to take the car.." He then unhooked the tow and phew we got the car back! After this mayhem we loaded everything into the car, and drove to two other zones to drop off the sisters. After Sister Finau and I now have the house to ourselves, and have to clean up and move it around before transfers. Later that night we went to the Visitors Center in Mesa with Ingrid and her mom!

All in all if there's one thing I want you to understand from this letter it would be the importance of being obedient. It doesn't matter how much you may not like the rules, or don't think they apply to you. Rules or commandments or whatever you like to call them help you, not hurt you! I hope everyone has a good week!

Hermana Greenhalgh