Morning!!!
Alrighty, I'm just going to cut to the chase. I'm being transferred, and that will never get easier. If I had the biggest desire of my heart I would have stayed here for one more and then finished up back in NO. Sis Wall talked to me Sunday night and told me she needed help with a bunch of stuff for go-homes Wednesday night in the mission home. That obviously made me think I was staying, but the call came last night and I'm out. As soon as it came, I called Sis Haro (they're the active family in the branch who are awesome! I worked with her in YW a long time, and she was just called to be the RS president) and asked if we could come over. She said of course. As soon as we got there she just hugged me, totally crying. So was Michelle, their 15 year old daughter (she requested you on FB last night Erika). She was so sweet and told me how much they'll miss me. But it was a happy thing after that, and we had a good little visit and message. I attached a picture [see below]. They said they are very excited to meet my family after the mission when we come back to visit. :)
After we left there we got a call from President. He asked me to be a Sister Training Leader. That's a new thing the church has with almost half of the missionaries now being sisters. I guess to help you know what that is, it's the sister version of being a zone leader. I'll conduct exchanges with all the sisters in the zone and I'm not sure what else other than a bunch of extra meetings I'll now go to. I've been pretty content being a worker bee in the mission and didn't really want to be called into leadership. But I just take it as an opportunity to serve, and a responsibility really. President told me "you won't be going far." In other words, it'll be here in the BR zone, where there are more sisters than anywhere in the mission. We're the biggest zone, and half are sisters. So yeah, there's that. It'll all work out fine. The only thing is he also told me I'll be salt and pepper. That means my comp is an English sister. Her area is the sister ward to the Spanish branch. It means I'll be in the English area and working all around the people I've come to love over the last 8 months, but not be able to communicate with, or work with them. I'd rather just leave. But I seem to have the opportunity on my mission to do each thing I don't want to do. :)
On a positive note, our musical fireside was a HUGE success!!!!!! It's been a lot of what I've been working on, especially this transfer, and it went amazing. We wrote up a whole narration to it, given in Spanish and English. There were videos and musical numbers. It all somehow worked out and completely followed the PMG lesson of the Restoration, just how I wanted it to. That was my vision in the beginning. There were lots of up and downs. Too many musical numbers, everyone dropping out, oh they want to be in it, this person will narrate, no they won't, oh now that person wants to be in it again. But God's hand was in it, and it all worked perfect according to what He wanted. This was for the BR area, which is five wards and 2 branches. We had musical numbers from every unit but one! And about half of those were members who are less active/returning members. And! This one family sang and they invited a friend to sing with them. He's a catholic music minister! And he did it, it was legit! He said he really enjoyed it. The whole thing was exactly an hour, just as planned, and ended with all the missionaries singing "Ye elders of Israel." We did this cool thing where the sisters started first with those lyrics: "ye elders of Israel, come join now with me and seek out the righteous wherever they may be". And then the elders joined. We sang the chorus in Spanish. And on the 3rd verse the congregation joined in and I got to kick in some cool organ. The whole thing was awesome. Each number was so beautiful. No awkward, off tune moments. The spirit was so strong!!! That was the goal! Ah, it was so awesome! And SO MANY people came!!!!! The chapel filled up shoulder to shoulder until we opened it up into the gym. We ended up with about 250 people. Can you believe it?! All because of a little idea I had! Oh my goodness - so cool! Even this random person we met at soccer on Saturday came. And so did Dunia and David! (we also taught them this week and they're doing great :) So many people were involved and I think it was a great experience for all. People wanted to know when the next one is. Ha. Well... I'll help them plan it. :)
Thank you for the pics, I'm happy to see everyone is doing well. Thank you for your strength, faith and testimony. Eat a huckleberry for me!
Love,
Hermana Marks
Alrighty, I'm just going to cut to the chase. I'm being transferred, and that will never get easier. If I had the biggest desire of my heart I would have stayed here for one more and then finished up back in NO. Sis Wall talked to me Sunday night and told me she needed help with a bunch of stuff for go-homes Wednesday night in the mission home. That obviously made me think I was staying, but the call came last night and I'm out. As soon as it came, I called Sis Haro (they're the active family in the branch who are awesome! I worked with her in YW a long time, and she was just called to be the RS president) and asked if we could come over. She said of course. As soon as we got there she just hugged me, totally crying. So was Michelle, their 15 year old daughter (she requested you on FB last night Erika). She was so sweet and told me how much they'll miss me. But it was a happy thing after that, and we had a good little visit and message. I attached a picture [see below]. They said they are very excited to meet my family after the mission when we come back to visit. :)
After we left there we got a call from President. He asked me to be a Sister Training Leader. That's a new thing the church has with almost half of the missionaries now being sisters. I guess to help you know what that is, it's the sister version of being a zone leader. I'll conduct exchanges with all the sisters in the zone and I'm not sure what else other than a bunch of extra meetings I'll now go to. I've been pretty content being a worker bee in the mission and didn't really want to be called into leadership. But I just take it as an opportunity to serve, and a responsibility really. President told me "you won't be going far." In other words, it'll be here in the BR zone, where there are more sisters than anywhere in the mission. We're the biggest zone, and half are sisters. So yeah, there's that. It'll all work out fine. The only thing is he also told me I'll be salt and pepper. That means my comp is an English sister. Her area is the sister ward to the Spanish branch. It means I'll be in the English area and working all around the people I've come to love over the last 8 months, but not be able to communicate with, or work with them. I'd rather just leave. But I seem to have the opportunity on my mission to do each thing I don't want to do. :)
On a positive note, our musical fireside was a HUGE success!!!!!! It's been a lot of what I've been working on, especially this transfer, and it went amazing. We wrote up a whole narration to it, given in Spanish and English. There were videos and musical numbers. It all somehow worked out and completely followed the PMG lesson of the Restoration, just how I wanted it to. That was my vision in the beginning. There were lots of up and downs. Too many musical numbers, everyone dropping out, oh they want to be in it, this person will narrate, no they won't, oh now that person wants to be in it again. But God's hand was in it, and it all worked perfect according to what He wanted. This was for the BR area, which is five wards and 2 branches. We had musical numbers from every unit but one! And about half of those were members who are less active/returning members. And! This one family sang and they invited a friend to sing with them. He's a catholic music minister! And he did it, it was legit! He said he really enjoyed it. The whole thing was exactly an hour, just as planned, and ended with all the missionaries singing "Ye elders of Israel." We did this cool thing where the sisters started first with those lyrics: "ye elders of Israel, come join now with me and seek out the righteous wherever they may be". And then the elders joined. We sang the chorus in Spanish. And on the 3rd verse the congregation joined in and I got to kick in some cool organ. The whole thing was awesome. Each number was so beautiful. No awkward, off tune moments. The spirit was so strong!!! That was the goal! Ah, it was so awesome! And SO MANY people came!!!!! The chapel filled up shoulder to shoulder until we opened it up into the gym. We ended up with about 250 people. Can you believe it?! All because of a little idea I had! Oh my goodness - so cool! Even this random person we met at soccer on Saturday came. And so did Dunia and David! (we also taught them this week and they're doing great :) So many people were involved and I think it was a great experience for all. People wanted to know when the next one is. Ha. Well... I'll help them plan it. :)
Thank you for the pics, I'm happy to see everyone is doing well. Thank you for your strength, faith and testimony. Eat a huckleberry for me!
Love,
Hermana Marks
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