23 August 2010

My USB cord for my camera had a temper tantrum and ran away. I haven’t tracked it down yet. So until it gets hungry and wet (it’s raining!) and decides to come home, do your best to imagine a picture of me standing under the “Welcome to Connecticut” sign, doing the ASL sign for “three weeks.” Except now that picture is out of date because it’s more like TWO WEEKS! We got to go to New York again this month and we had so much fun eating lunch with the member who lives there. Turns out there is another member family that just moved to Amenia and goes to the Goshen ward also, and they came to lunch. He used to work on the set of “As the World Turns,” and now that the show has ended they moved to Amenia and decided to open a cute little furniture store where he is selling a lot of the furniture from the old set. I had no idea that much work was put into soap opera sets. He showed us the shop (which hasn’t officially opened yet). It’s full of all sorts of beautiful antique furniture and knick-knacks. Again, I have pictures that cannot be transported to you, thanks to the temper tantrum. (Before it left it told me all about how I got it from the orphanage to do its work, and then before it slammed the door, it said, “I’m running away! I’m running away!” Sound like anyone you know?)

Chris didn’t write anything too exciting this week and he’s getting after me for plagiarizing his emails. Since I am not creative enough to tell you anything interesting on my own, I will recount the week in random stories.

Calling a member of the bishopric who just asked us to speak in church next week:

Sister Thomas: “We can’t speak in church next week. We just found out we’re getting emergency transferred and we’re leaving Wednesday.”

Brother So-and-So (after a long pause): “You’re kidding.”

Thomas: “Yeah, I’m kidding.”

So-and-so: “You are a rotten human being! You little puke! You’re Sister Puke. I’m going to hang up.”

Thomas: “No, don’t hang up! We have a favor to ask you.”

So-and-so: “Oh, NOW you want to ask me a favor!”

Thomas: “It’s a favor for the Lord.”

So-and-so: “Are you hungry? Does the Lord want me to feed you? Well, come on over. I’ve got an arsenic sandwich waiting for you!”

Moving on to stories that don’t involve death threats, but stalking:

One member of the ward has the most hilarious child. She is such a talker. Every time we go over there she bombards us with questions, e.g.:

Kid: “What are you doing?”

Me: “We’re going around visiting people today. What are you doing?”

Kid: “Well, I’m just sitting here on the porch talking to you.”

After Dad introduces her new baby brother- “My little brother cries sometimes.”

Dad: “So did you when you were a baby.”

Kid: “I was a baby?”

Sister Thomas: “Even we were babies a long time ago.”

Kid: “Was Grandma Cathy a baby?”

Before we left: “Where do you guys live? Do you live by Grandma Cathy? Will I see you guys tomorrow? Can you come over every day? Can I sleep over at your house?”

Aliens, Yu-Gi-Oh, Ugly People, and Four-Legged Animals:

“I don’t believe none of those UFO crap.” –cool Jamaican guy

“Lewis is a young buck. We found him with Elder Seamons. He’s into Yu-Gi-Oh, so yeah.” –old teaching record

“I wanna see your ugly little faces.” Sweet old woman from the ward wanting us to come over

“Bible-pants!” Sarah referring to her former pastor

The missionary work for this week can be summed up in one word: intense. We have a lot of investigators. We still have several baptismal dates. We’re very busy and are seeing lots of miracles. Our investigators are struggling with Word of Wisdom issues and a LOT of opposition.

Miracle story for the week: We were supposed to get our oil changed Thursday morning. But when we went in Midas was busy and it was going to take a few hours, so we made an appointment to come back in the afternoon and had to rearrange our plans a little bit. Because of that we ended up street contacting on South Main and randomly decided to stop by a woman who lives on that street (we had set up one appointment with her before, but it fell through and we hadn’t gotten in contact with her since). When we rang her doorbell she told us all about the bad day she’d had and how she had been praying for help when the doorbell rang. I love that things like that happen so much on the mission that they aren’t even really surprising anymore. Still exciting, but not surprising. At the beginning of my mission I would have freaked out and written pages in my journal and said, “What a crazy coincidence!” or something to that effect. But now the reaction is more like, “Well, of course. God puts us in the right place at the right time to answer prayers. It’s just how it goes.”

Reflection/philosophizing/pretending to be deep and profound and such: I’ve been thinking about what to do with my life after I go home. I left on my mission with absolutely no clue as to what would come after. I just knew that if God had a plan for me to be here, he must also have a plan for afterward. I still feel that way, and I still don’t really know what I’m going to do. I have a lot of ideas bouncing around in my mind, and they are all just still in the idea stage.

But I came upon this song by Relient K and one verse really spoke to me.



Still wondering why I’m here,

Still wrestling with my fears but oh, he’s up to something.

And the farther on I go,

I’ve seen enough to know that I’m not here for nothing.

He’s up to something.



So now’s my time to be a man [insert “woman” here], follow my heart as far as I can.

No telling where I’ll be ending up tonight.

I never slow down, or so it seems,

Singing my heart is one of my dreams.

All I have to do is hold on tight.



There is hope for me yet,

Because God won’t forget

All the plans he’s made for me.

I’ll have to wait and see,

He’s not finished with me yet.


So there you have it, kids. God's not finished with me yet!
Lots of love and looking forward to seeing all ya's in two weeks!
-Monson