The ups and downs of missionary work!

I will work hard even if people cancel
appointments all day!

4-28-14

Dear Family,
Well...life is missionary work all day long. 
     Yup. This week has been another hard week. Sooooo many people canceled on us or won't respond to our phone calls or won't open the door even when we know they are home. Yup another one of those weeks. But...it's still good. I still love this. I love every. Single. Moment. Sometimes I have to remind myself of that, but other times that thought is constantly in my head, just like how my brain constantly tells me to breathe. 
    Often times I wake up in the mornings feeling like I've been hit by a truck. (Seriously every new day on the mission it gets harder and harder to wake up...you just feel this pleasant exhaustion all the time...unless you’re waking up...thus you feel like you've been hit by a truck) I fumble into the bathroom and take myself in, through the mirror....My hair is a horror-- kinked and rumpled from yesterday’s thrown- together hair style and a night of being crushed on my pillow. My eyes are puffy and red rimmed from the much crying-in-prayer on behalf of the salvation of the families we teach, my companion, my ward mission leaders, my family. My lips are chewed and dry from the climate and little constellations of acne have begun to pock my skin from stress.
    I see it all and think to myself: "Lenise Diane Volmer, what on earth do you think you are trying to accomplish?" But then--probably out of guilt or habit-- I go back and tack the title "Sister" before my name in that little rebellious sentence in my head. That little title has become infinite in regards to naming myself. And in that sense, the title "missionary" has become an engraven and infinite part of who I am. I can't separate that from myself anymore. I can't. I'm not Lenise anymore. I dread the day I go home and am called that every day. (No offense) Myself, as Sister Volmer, is an entirely different person than the one I left at home; littered with negativity, angst, selfishness, and a longing to know who she was. So when I ask myself that little question the answer pops out in the words of Moses 1:39 "(I'm trying) to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." I have accepted God's purpose and have made it my own. I have accepted His will and have made it my own. There is no greater joy than that that is found in serving the Lord with all your heart might, mind and strength. No matter what role you hold in life, if that concept is the basis and foundations of what you live, you will find true, real, blissful, consuming and heaven-like happiness.  There. 
    Just thought you'd want to know (Read that last line in a professor Quirel voice from Harry Potter)
    There have been some serious rough parts to this week, but I shall not dwell upon them. I shall dwell on the awesomeness of it. 
    We are  working with this older couple named T and J. They are the funniest couple. T is a less active but has a powerful testimony, and J isn't a member. I think dad would like them...they are super funny. J has this awesome smoker’s laugh and a raspy voice. T is pretty much the same and she has the best stories to tell. Even though she has this degenerative bone disease, she still insists on being active and gardening, and we always see her out and about when we drive by.  Its super fun to see them...except they are one of the families that keeps canceling because J always gets called into work whenever we have a lesson schedule. Man Satan is a punk, and likes to play dirty...so we just show up a lot there in hopes that J will be there. 
    Thursday was fun because we got to have dinner with one of our favorite families, the Smiths. They have two teenage kids named Brooke and Jeff (Who are freaking hilarious! and let me snap chat their friends super ugly pictures of my face...that backfired once...one of their friends screen shot it and posted it on facebook...no Bueno...) and they have a little daughter named Lily. We watched conference at their house for one of the sessions. They are the best! We love them and we even helped their daughter ask a guy to a dance back when sis Jones was here. Saturday was a bum day. There was absolutely NO ONE who wanted to see us. So we went contacting a bit and then went around offering service...except we forgot our service clothes and it was raining buckets and buckets outside! We tried to do service at the Fausetts house (the Fausetts are another of our favorite families! Their daughter Misty goes out with us a lot on visits and is planning on going on a mission. She’s the BEST!) And we tried to convince them to let us wash their dog...but they said no they couldn't make us do that. haha Then we went to the Eddingtons. Bro Eddington is one of our ward mission leaders and his wife and family are great. When we got there to offer to do service we heard a buzz saw going really loud inside the house. When Sis Eddington opened the door it was almost deafening! We came in and it smelled like saw dust and smoke and the whole house was hazy! She has this island with a wooden counter top that her grandkids keep running into because the counter top sticks out so much! So she was letting her teenage sons shorten it...I thought that was pretty brave. But wait it gets better! So while we are talking to her in the other room about possibly singing in her ward, we hear shouting and suddenly the boys burst into the room yelling "The saw caught on fire!!!!!" We all ran in and it stunk really bad and we all looked at the counter and it was like 3/4 the way cut. Then Sis Eddington touched it and it splintered off and crashed to the floor...the whole edge was rough and splintered and terrible...then we all started laughing. Really hard. The whole situation was hilarious. So we did service by helping clean up all the saw dust and fold laundry. When Bro Eddington got home we all kind of freaked out because we thought he would get mad...and then Sis Eddington and her daughter Kiana (who is our age and engaged) they blamed us!!!  Then we all couldn't stop laughing, even Bro Eddington. It was a great adventure...
    Sunday was fun. We sang in two wards. First with Summer Wilda, (The Wilda Family is another of our favorites. They are AWESOME! And he's our Ward Mission Leader too) We sang Draw Near Unto Me (maybe I'll send you our rehearsal video) and then later in the day we sang Come unto Christ in another ward. It went really well and everybody was like "you two blend really well for only having been companions for a few months." and we were like "Um...we've been singing together for four years..." haha it's so fun to watch people's faces when they hear that we knew each other before the mission.  Dinner Sunday night was the BEST! We met this family named the W.   They were hilarious the entire time we were with them and we couldn't stop laughing. Their food was good too! The entire time we were there I kept thinking "I wish I could spend more time with this family!" It felt like home. But with them all being members, it's doubtful that we would get to see them very often...then out of nowhere, the mom pointed out one of her daughters (Who happened to NOT be her daughter,  just a friend of the other daughters living with them while she worked) and said that she wasn't a member and was interested in the church. YAY!!!! We got so excited! I love that family, and that girl is super prepared for the gospel.  I'm excited to teach her this week! Especially since I'd been praying for new people because we are running out of people to teach. Prayer answered!!!! :)
     We also spent time with the Wilda's and heard a bunch of stories about their mission in Guatemala (they met on their mission and got married after)...they told us about the scary spiders there and Bro Wilda even had a smashed one that he had found in his bed on his mission in a zip lock back that he kept!!! EW!!!! We laughed a lot with them after hearing all their crazy stories!...
     Also Sunday evenings, they do this thing at the Eddingtons house where they invite all the youth, whoever wants to come, and they all just sit around and sing church songs! A ton of them! They all come in Sunday clothes and sing and hang out. I wish I could have done something like that back at home!! That would be the best! Well we went and shared a spiritual thought and that was a lot of fun to just sing and feel the spirit and ask the youth about missionary work and encourage them to be examples.
     Well I love you all and hope life is going well! I miss you all so much! Thank you for all the letters and support! and Thanks to Sis Aichele  for the Easter package! :) It was great!!!!! I love you all!

Love Forever,

Sister Lenise Diane Volmer