The Variety of Missionary Life!

7-21-14

 Dearest Family,

Well this week was fine and dandy :)

It was a good week for sure, but there were its minor frustrations!

Cheesey 'Sisters'

     Sorry this letter is getting to everyone a little on the late side... this morning was the only time we could get into the salon at Vernal... one of our ward missionary's daughters is in beauty school and offered to do our nails and cut our hair for free! So we took advantage of that! I got glittery blue hombre toes! (Which nobody can see because they are always in shoes...which is lame...but I love them!) It felt good to get some pampering. It was the first time I trimmed my hair since before my mission.. I thought it was about time! It is no longer all one length! I got my layers back. (OK GIRL TALK OVER!) 
      So this week we met with V, who is getting baptized this next Saturday! She is amazing and I've been working with her for a long time. She has such a strong spirit and it has been amazing to see the gospel work in her life...but because her baptism is getting so close...Satan is being a punk and hitting her hard! Gosh... We have to keep reminding her that he doesn't want her baptized nor her family to make it to the temple. She was able to go to temple square last week with her family and she absolutely loved it and couldn't stop talking about how excited she is to go inside the temple. So pray for her. There are so many people I'm teaching who have kids and I see them and just want to grab them by the shoulders and say "Accept the gospel! ACCEPT IT! Not just for you! But for your child! They deserve an eternal family!  Look at that cute face and tell me you don't want to be with them for eternity!" Sometimes I wish I could make them...but that's Satan's plan and that doesn't fly. I have to remember that without agency I wouldn't have made it to this earth to learn, grow, and become more like my Heavenly Father. 
      So this week we did a lot of service painting. On Saturday we spent all afternoon painting the ceiling for D's parents.... I ended up getting paint on my name tag (it came off...) and on my arms and clothes... I went through 3 of D's beanies before I found one that wouldn't fall off my head to protect my hair. My arm muscles were so sore after that... who knew painting ceilings could make you so buff!
     Thursday we went on exchanges with the STL's. I was with Sis Lyle again. She was actually previously companions with Megan Nielsen (Megan is actually companions with my trainer Sis Albrechtsen right now! Crazy! haha!)  We pulled weeds at the Felkins house and then we painted some doors for a ward mission leader. Later that night we went and saw T who is doing a ton better and seeing the bright side of things! She is great and bouncing back. She is starting the lessons back up and we are starting to work on getting her to the temple. We also went and saw the C’s. G was baptized last year and has fallen back into smoking again...so this week we are going to go to the addiction recovery program with him and another less active we are working with. Thursday we saw S...who we've been teaching since I first got here.... It's been hard teaching her. After multiple times of turning us down when we invite her to be baptized- I asked her if she had prayed if baptism was right for not. She flat out told us that she was scared the answer would be yes.  Her 1 year old daughter Lily was crawling around and smiling at us the whole time and I just felt sad. I wanted to grab her like I said before and yell "ACCEPT IT!" oh...violence is never the answer...
     For DTM this week we had a lot of fun. So my district this transfer is made up of our companionship, and then three sets of Elders...Spanish Elders...those elders are hilarious! We had fun with an activity that I introduced about accountability. They set up an obstacle course in the Relief society room and we played Mary and John. (The equivalent of Marco polo with blind folds and your companion has to tell you where to go to either get away from the other companionship or to catch them) You had to be accountable for your companion.  The elders laughed a lot when Sis McMurray and I were blindfolded and running around like chickens with our heads cut off!

Meradee's Baptism

     This weekend was super slow....a lot of people were super busy...but we did get a new investigator! A girl that has great potential! I'm excited! She wants to get baptized :) Saturday was Meradee Jensen's baptism! It was so great! But I made the mistake of remembering 20 minutes before it started that I had to give the talk on baptism...talk about freaking out!  I made it work though and it actually went a lot more smoothly than I thought it would! It was a very spiritual meeting and Meradee looked lovely in her white dress :) She turns 12 soon & is darling! She got emotional during the meeting and it was just super sweet.
     Saturday night was nuts, because here they have UBIC which stands for "Uintah Basin in Celebration" that lasts for a few weeks, to celebrate when the first settlers came to the Uintah Basin... There was also a HUGE reception that everyone went to for our High Councilman, over missionary work's, daughter. Everyone we were supposed to meet with said "sorry I have to go to a reception tonight" Even our dinner just ordered us pizza and we sat in our car at the church and ate it and talked. We drove by and the whole street was packed with cars, there were lights, and it was nuts... I've never seen a wedding reception that big...except for maybe one of ours...our family is huge not going to lie...
     Sis McMurray and I get along GREAT! I love that girl! We are super similar and have fun talking and laughing a lot! I feel like she's my sister. We are already comfortable enough with each other that she wears my clothes and while I'm finishing getting ready for the day I let her pick out my outfits because she knows what I like haha :)  It's been fun and we teach well together too. That, of course, is the most important.
     Life here is constantly going. Sometimes I'm really stressed, and sometimes I lay down at night and just smile in the dark because I feel like I'm really doing something that matters. This work means everything to me. Helping people come unto Christ means everything to me. 
     I love you all!! Miss you and pray for you!
Love,
Sister Lenise Diane Volmer