At district meeting I thought of that in relation to our mission. I am definitely getting comfortable being uncomfortable with the many things I am doing out here. I have thought about speaking in Stake Conferences almost every week, without a written talk, and it is uncomfortable trying to speak by the spirit. I thought about going out on a blitz this week, and walking up to door after door, not knowing who or what was going to be on the other side of the door. That is uncomfortable! I thought of the very many uncomfortable things that I am getting comfortable with, and then I thought that this is no different that anyone's life in the church. We are all asked to get comfortable being uncomfortable. Haven't you noticed that just when you think you are getting the hang of a calling, you get a different one? I think that was kind of the point of our life here on earth. We were comfortable in the pre existence, we had the hang of it, but we had no growth and we desired to come down and get a little uncomfortable. Just a few of my favorite quotes from General Conference spoke to the same idea.
"Sacrifice of our personal agendas is required to make room for the eternal plans of God" Uncomfortable! (Neil Marriott)
"God will use you to make the lives of others better" Uncomfortable! (President Uchtdorf)
"Allow Him to make more of you than you can make of yourself on your own" Uncomfortable! (Elder Rasband)
Whatever we are doing, as long as we are on the path, even, as Elder Holland said, we may be weaving back and forth on the path, we are going to be a little uncomfortable because that is the way God is refining us and helping us become the people he wants and knows we can become, so get comfortable being uncomfortable!
Speaking of General Conference...We were so happy to have Ethan and Preston come to town for the weekend. Preston came in on a late fight on Thursday night and Ethan came in on Friday afternoon. He had Friday classes he couldn't miss. We were happy to have Preston here for our MLC that was held on Friday. We love MLC and the wonderful spirit we feel from all of our mission leaders. I do have one funny story about that though. Since it was Elder Watts' last MLC I made cinnamon rolls for them to have as they came in the morning. Since the assistants come early, they ate theirs early, in fact, truth be told, they all had two. I had made a ton of them! We also have lunch during MLC. Well, as soon as it got over Scott had to run to do a couple of interviews and Preston and I had to run to the airport to get Ethan but we left a few elders, (who shall remain unnamed), at the house as they were still cleaning up some things. I had noticed I still had a tray of about 8 cinnamon rolls left on the counter. When we got back to the house after the airport, we walked in and the house was all cleaned up, as were the entire tray of cinnamon rolls. I was trying to give them away as everyone was leaving, so I thought the elders had just heard me and taken them home. On Sunday we happened to have them over for dinner, (so I guess remaining nameless did not good since I am about to post a picture). They said "Sister Hymas, we have to confess, after we cleaned up we saw those cinnamon rolls, and we just couldn't help ourselves, so we each had one, and before we knew it, we had eaten the entire tray of them." We were laughing so hard, I figured they had taken them, but I hadn't figured they had eaten them all in one sitting before they left the house. Oh to have the metabolism of a 20 year old!
We had a great time with Ethan and Preston and the weekend went much to quickly. We went to a few good places to eat, because, General Conference weekend is mostly about receiving spiritual nourishment, but the physical nourishment is quite a big part as well. Scott was so glad to have them here to go to the priesthood session with them, although we missed all of the other boys in the family that weren't here. As well as the girls and kids. For the past 6 years or so, we have spent General conference weekends with our family at our Heber house, and we sorely missed that. But we had a great weekend here, and I loved seeing pictures of the cute, creative things my kids all did to get their kids to watch and appreciate General Conference. I think they are doing better with us gone, than when we are around. Here are a few pictures of our weekend, food first...
We love when they come but we hate when they leave!
On Monday we had the last of this transfer's p day zone activities. This week we had the El Dorado Zone and the North Sacramento Zone. It was another fun day of games, food, and competitions. We have loved having the missionaries here for the past several Mondays. I guess the saying 'last the best of all the game' would hold true since this group finally broke the Giant Jenga record. Two of the groups had gotten 32 stories before it tumbled, but this group was intent on beating the record and made it to 33 before it fell. They were all pretty proud of that.
Do you love your neighbor?
Gummy bear races the fourth time around. Team MK, Sister Mitchell and Sister Koller, won the final race this week.
On Tuesday we had the fun experience of going on a bike blitz with the Carmichael Zone. A blitz is where everyone in the zone works in one of the companionship's areas and tries to contact people they haven't been able to get to and also to find new investigators. I was able to go all night with Sister Brown. She is part of what we lovingly call 'the triplets', along with Sister Cha and Sister Coombs. But they had an important lesson, in which they set a baptism date, so that was awesome. We divided and conquered and Sister Cha and Sister Coombs went to the lesson and I went with Sister Brown. I was so happy about that, I love Sister Brown and she goes home on Saturday, so it was a blessing to me to be able to work with her on one of her last few nights in the mission. We just hopped on our bikes and started to go for it. We were working in the La Sierra area and the elders had made a list of potential people to visit in the area we were in. The first one was supposed to be someone named Dale in apartment number 10. There wasn't a 10, but there was a 110, so we gave it a try. We ended up meeting a lady named Kathleen, who invited us in. She had only lived there for 3 days and I think she was a little lonely. She talked and talked to us, and we were able to tell her about the Book of Mormon. I was definitely the Jr companion, I told her it was a record of people who lived in the America's at the same time as the Bible and that Jesus actually came to visit them and it was recorded in the book. Kathleen said she would like to know about that and Sister Brown jumped right in and opened the book and said, "let's read the chapter about when he comes". We all took a turn reading one verse from 3 Nephi 11. It was so touching to see Kathleen each time it was her turn to read, just trying to take it all in, like it was something she had never even considered before. The spirit was strong and she could feel it. She wanted to keep reading and we told her she could keep the book. I asked her if we could say a prayer with her and she said yes. After the prayer she just let out a big sigh and said "wow". I don't know what will happen with her, but we were happy that for that little while, she was able to feel the spirit and feel of our Heavenly Father's love for her. Something that I'm not sure she has felt much in her life.
1. Missionary work is not for the faint of heart and these missionaries go out day after day, night after night, trying to find people to teach because they love our Savior and they love his children and want to bring them back to him, and it's not easy. It was completely inspiring.
2. It is fun to ride a bike in a skirt, much less constricting than pants.
3. It is good to ask the person whose bike you are borrowing, how to turn on the head and tail lights before you leave, not after you get back, after having ridden all night without any lights. #livingontheedge
4. There is such joy in doing the Lord's work, even if we didn't really hit any home runs. As we were riding back to the church at the end of the night, it was the perfect fall night, there was a beautiful full moon, Sister Brown and I were having a nice conversation, and it just felt like one of those moments when you feel that all is right with the world. (even though, everything is NOT right with the WORLD) But, I was so happy to be right where I was at that very moment and I felt joy. I know that the joy I felt was from our Savior Jesus Christ, I felt He was pleased with our offering. I felt that even though there are challenges in life and in this world, through our Savior we can feel peace and we can find joy. I testify that as we do what he asks of us, even if it is uncomfortable, and as we live our lives trying to emulate him, the best we can, we will have that joy now and forever.
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