So Monday I rescued a crow. :) haha no for real. We were at a zone activity and Sister Rolfson wanted to go outside and run for a bit so we went in the church parking lot and we noticed this crow stuck in the gate around the dumpster. Its head was stuck between the two doors it was so sad and making these terrible little squawks, so I kinda stood behind the door as I opened it so it wouldn't like fly out and attack me when it was free, but when I pulled the door open it just fell to the ground and laid there in pain. So sad. It was seriously injured - I think its neck was broken. We didn't know what to do... all the elders were like, "It's just a crow. It'll die or the coyotes will get it." Ugh. Stupid elders. So while Sister Rolfson ran laps I called a lady in our ward who had told us about how she once rescued this bird and she told me to call animal control. So I did, but then they transferred me through like 3 different offices and finally after 20 minutes on the phone someone told me they would come and pick up the dumb crow. Dang. I felt so bad I had to do something but yeah we ended up sitting on the sidewalk there waiting for the guy to come pick it up for like half an hour so we really spent like an hour on this bird. I hope it's still alive after all that. The animal guy said that it had a broken neck but it wasn't paralyzed so the vet might be able to help it. So yep. I officially rescued a crow. Lol. Sorry I didn't think to take any pics.
Tuesday was transfer day, but we didn't go anywhere, so we just carried on as normal. But that did mean we had a lot of meetings this week to start the new transfer. Wednesday was awesome - we visited a lady named Christine, who has talked to sister missionaries before. We didn't get to teach her yet, but we are hoping to soon. She is really cool. She and her husband, Miles, met at an AA meeting and they have both been sober for more than 10 years and now use their free time to sponsor or support other people going through AA. How cool is that? What a sweet lady. I hope to tell you more about her later.
Then Wednesday night we had a great dinner with Mario, Karen, and Breezy! We knew going in that this dinner was a little miracle in itself, as we went over on Sunday before and Karen had asked for a Book of Mormon, so this was absolutely the perfect opportunity to share a message with them about where the Book of Mormon came from. Dinner was so much fun, and everyone felt the joy and Spirit there. At the end we asked if we could share a message and taught them about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. We had an incredible discussion and Mario especially had several wonderful questions. He grew up Catholic and asked a lot about how the Book of Mormon was different from the Bible and had some great insights on prophets and how God can take ordinary men and teach them to follow Him. When I recited the First Vision... the Spirit was so very strong. Karen and Breezy just couldn't stop smiling and the joy was tangible. It was just. so. beautiful.
We did a lot of planning this week and we organized our area with some maps we had, and we've started learning to really work together better as a companionship. We are learning to use each others' strengths and we've got a great system now with our maps and directory - I knew the area well enough now to pinpoint where people lived on our maps, so we are a lot more efficient now because we can organize who we stop at by area. Sister Rolfson created a whole color coordination scheme haha :) We are really having fun together now and we've finally learned how each other think and feel enough to talk pretty openly and I think we're getting to be good friends now. I'm so thankful we have this third transfer together. I think resolving some of my own stress and health problems has really allowed us to be better communicators, too.
Friday we had dinner with the Ottesons and that was a party, as usual. :) We played mafia and for once neither Sascha or I got killed haha. In fact, I just happened to discover one of the mafia the first round because I was the policeman and it was so funny because by coincidence the mafia tried to kill me that round but someone stopped them. So when we all woke up and everyone heard that the mafia had tried to kill me, they said something and I just remember saying, "NO! They tried to kill me!" and I totally accidentally subconsciously pointed at Cal, who I had discovered was a mafia member. So everyone got rid of Cal and it totally worked out by accident lol. Ok you probably don't want a play by play of our mafia game lol but it was cool because for once Sascha was alive until the very last round and then he died and we all thought the mafia won, but then Nico threw in a plot twist and announced that Sascha was the zombie and he came back to life and won the game!!! WHAT!!! I was quite literally sitting on the floor laughing. Sascha has never actually survived that game before lol. So it was a super fun night and then Nico gathered everyone up and we shared a message about fathers for Fathers' Day. We shared the video
https://www.mormonchannel.org/watch/series/mormon-messages/earthly-father-heavenly-father Earthly Father, Heavenly Father and talked about how Heavenly Father loves us and cares for us. Nico really loved it and told us how he really wanted to be a dad someday like the dad in the video. He is so cool.
Saturday we had a funny moment when we were out trying to track down some less actives that our ward council assigned to us. We pulled up to a house to knock and see if a sister lived there, when at the same time a guy in our ward, Nick, pulled up too! We got out and ran over to say hi, and it turned out that he was there to deliver their pizza!!! hahaha so we let him go knock on the door first so that we didn't awkwardly show up on the doorstep with the pizza guy. So funny. Saturday night we found a super funny license plate outside someone's house, so of course we took a fishy picture. ;)
Then when we got home, I had a HUGE surprise!!! :D The POLLEIS!!! They were waiting in my parking lot to bring me a present. It made my night!!! How fun it was to get a hug from someone from home! Thank you so much Mom and Polleis :)
That was pretty much my week, but I heard a cool quote in Relief Society this week: "Life is like photography. You need the negatives to develop." So very, very true. We absolutely need challenges in our lives to be able to learn and grow. Opposition and hardship are part of the purpose in this life - to become more than we are now! Climbing mountains gives us strength and a higher perspective. Heavenly Father loves us so much, He gave us a great big beautiful classroom to learn and experiment in! He also gave us every tool and support we would need to do our very best. He gives us trials that are perfect for us - precisely what we need to grow and develop into what He knows we can become. And along the way, they teach us how to appreciate and know joy, love, peace, and rest. Heavenly Father will never give us something we can't do - especially with His help. He trusts us and He knows our abilities even more than we do! He sees us as the magnificent children of God that we are and He knows the potential we have to become like Him! If you ask Him, He can show you your potential, too. I learned a lot this week from Elder Dallin H. Oaks' talk,
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/04/opposition-in-all-things?lang=eng "Opposition in All Things." I was also studying
https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/2-ne/2.11?lang=eng#10 2 Nephi 2:11, "For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad." I know that Heavenly Father has a glorious plan for us! His
https://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/moses/1.39?lang=eng#38 work and glory is to bring to pass the "immortality and eternal life of man." - our happiness!
I love y'all!! <3
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Sister Heather Bambas
California Irvine Mission
heather.bambas@myldsmail.net