Faith thru trials

Sister Volmer Selfie

3-31-14

Dearest Family,
     I'm not gonna lie. This week was pretty rough.
     We had a bajillion people cancel on us. No joke. We had at least 2-3 lessons a day call us and need to reschedule. So our numbers were  super low...So needless to say I felt pretty discouraged. But it also makes me want to push that much harder to do better this next week. Even though this next week will probably be crazy too. 
     So turns out I'm not going to General Conference this next weekend. I'm actually the only sister missionary in my entire zone who won't be going. I'm not gonna lie, it made me really bummed, especially since I'd been told all week long by everyone that I had a really high chance of being able to go and I started getting really excited about it. Lucky, Sis Balero gets to go for her second time, Lucky duck!
     I have no idea what I'm supposed to do though if I don't have a companion.... All the sisters told me I'd probably be on the other side of the mission for the day and spend it with some other sisters,...We'll see what happens and I'll have to explain it all next week.
So along with all that, I also gave myself a heart attack. 
     I lost my ipad.  Yup. I couldn't find it for a solid three and a half days.  Talk about prolonged hyperventilation! We looked everywhere! and I retraced my steps a billion times. 
      But it wasn't until Mom's voice popped into my head from when I was really little and said "If you can't find it, pray about it, and heavenly father will help you find it."
     So Sis Balero and I did just that. We knelt down at the church and said a prayer. And then we remembered that we had gone to the old folks home Parkside Manor. 
     So we went there and asked the head nurse lady if she had seen my ipad and she said no. But then we got stopped in the hall by one of our elderly less actives who we teach regularly. I think I've told you about Lynn before. He is this hilarious old man who tries to get girlfriends at Parkside and likes to tease us to death. But he stopped us and said "Well if it isn’t my preacher girls! One of ya left your notebook in my room so I saved it for you on my bed-stand. You can go look if you like."
    So we booked it down to his room and found my iPad sitting next to his alarm clock!  Goodness I was so relieved! After stressing about it every day and struggling to plan for our appointments and then having so many cancel, it felt like a huge weight off my shoulders after days of stressing. 
We also had Mission President Interviews this last Saturday. It was great, but also frustrating because they went waaaaay over the scheduled time and we ended up canceling our own appointments to get our interviews done (super frustrating when you already had other people canceling on you)
     But interviews went well. Idk why, but my interviews with president are always way shorter than anyone else's are. They seriously last 5-10 min when everyone else takes like 20 min. But at the end of everyone he always tells me I'm doing a really good job and that I'm super low maintenance. So I think that's good. He always says things to me that are so inspired and help me to not worry about things.
     Well we got to watch the Women's conference and it went really well! I loved the music and every single time the choir started singing I kept wanting to choke on a sob but I pushed it back and was fine. Idk why the spirit talks to me so much through music, but it is seriously the strongest when I sing or listen to singing. I loved the conference and it was great because one of our investigators came! Her name is Vanessa and she is hilarious and awesome! She was on date a few months ago but she canceled it because she was super pregnant! She has her baby now and she's had some adjustment time so she let us start teaching her again. She has the cutest kids! I'm excited to keep teaching her.
     We also spoke in church yesterday, which went ok. We didn't remember that we even had to speak in church until the in the afternoon the day before, so Sis Balero and I freaked out for a while and had to write 20 min talks super-fast! 
     More of our appointments canceled yesterday so we ended up going to our Ward Mission Leader's house (Bro Wilda. He is the BEST! Such a great ward mission leader!) and we love his wife named Summer! They are great! But Summer invited us to sing with her in her ward after she overheard us singing along to the Law of Chastity song together at a lesson. So we are learning this amazing song based on D&C 88 and it sounds so good! I'm excited to sing it! Hopefully we'll be able to sing it before transfers and one of us might get moved away...scary...but we'll see!
     This week has been stressful, but I'm learning more and more to lean on the Lord, His will, and His timing. I read the Fourth Missionary again this week and it opened my eyes all over again to how much I am in charge of myself, how I can change myself, and how I need to put my will into the hands of Heavenly Father. I'm not in control. This is His kingdom. And I'm accepting it more and more every day! Being a missionary is so humbling. I am constantly being reminded that he is in control and that the end result is always happiness for those who choose to accept His will and make it a part of everything that they are. I'm glad for challenges. I'm glad for trials. I'm glad I have these opportunities to learn, to grow, and to see myself the way my heavenly father sees me. I love Him so much for giving me this opportunity. The more I'm on my mission, the more I see that this decision and these events were always in His plan for me, I just didn't know it. And I've become so much happier as a missionary, and I'm stoked and ready to see what else he has in store for me to shape and mold me into somebody new and better every day. I love you all and I miss you all. Thanks for the prayers, letters, and emails. I love you (can I say it enough?)

  Love forever,

Sister Lenise Diane Volmer