Date
April 29, 2019
Area
Oklahoma, Oklahoma City Mission
Companion
Hermana Salazar
Week #28 I'm just Reegan
HI FAMILY!!!!!!!!
Last night as we were doing our studies I was flipping through my ARP manual, and I came across so many things I'd written, reminding me of how it's always possible to get back up and keep being cleansed. And that actually really goes along with my transfer vision. It's under the headline of charity, but it's really just being Christlike with everyone, including myself. To keep track of what I'm doing, I took an idea from Elder Riley that he shared at my very first district council, where you use "better" as an acronym and spell out what you want to work on. So this is what I have:
Be quick to apologize
Envision them (those I interact with) in the temple, not as they appear now
Treat everyone like an equal
Testify of the Book of Mormon everywhere you go
Every sequoia started out as a seed (redwoods in general are my favorite, and this is to remind me that given time, the words I say can become sequoias)
Repent every day
This week we seriously saw so many miracles, I hope I can remember all of them! No one has answered us for when we can come have a lesson, so we STILL haven't had any more lessons with people this week. Roberto and Hermano Gonzalez are still gone, but the branch says that that's normal for him, so hopefully he comes back soon. Monday after dinner, we visited some of our relatively recent converts who have gone very inactive and go to bible study somewhere else, and asked if we could practice teaching with them, and they said yes! Hopefully we can help them feel at home here again. :)
Tuesday was incredible!! We went tracting and used the "do you know if any of your neighbors speak Spanish??" tactic, and we found an entire family!! The mom's name is Vanesa, and when we asked if we could just like talk to them about their relationship with God, they let us come in and sit down!! They have 3 kids, and aside from her and her husband, there were two other adults, and the wife of the other couple listened to us too!! We talked for 20 minutes, I explained what the Book of Mormon is (in Spanish!!!!) and I'd asked her if she wanted to know more. She wasn't shut off to it, but she was like, "well, what is it?" so I explained more and testified of it, and when we left, we asked if she would like to keep this copy because I marked it, and she said yes!! We're going back this week :)
Wednesday was SO GOOD!! We took one of our young women out with us, and we basically showed her what missions are like in two and a half hours. Sarah went tracting with us, we got bashed about what the color of Jesus' skin is, we had people say that they'd like some help with painting, etc. We also had an interesting experience in the neighborhood cemetery before and during the time we had Sarah with us. So when we were walking to meet her, Hermana Salazar and I felt prompted that we needed to come to the cemetery and offer a prayer for us as well as for the families there, so we did. Then as we were walking, I felt like I needed to go back and offer my own prayer, so we did. And then we had a great time with Sarah, and after we had knocked doors for an hour and a half, Hermana Salazar felt like we needed to go back to the cemetery, so we did. And there was a lady there, taking care of her brother's grave. We left her space for some time, and when she was getting ready to wrap up and leave, she started cleaning up trash that was there, so we helped her. Long story short, we were in the right place at the right time. That night we had a lesson with Donny, finally! He used to be taught months ago, and they've been really busy, so couldn't meet with us. His parents are both members... Aaaand they're moving to Texas at the end of May. He's ready to be on date, they were waiting for his grandpa to be healthy enough to baptize him, but there's some health complications there. We'll see whether it's possible to get him going before they leave, but that's one we'll have to play by ear. Elder Taylor really wants us to see if we can get him going, because he and Donny LOVE each other. Donny was seriously like "Do you know Jaden Scott???" And I was like, "I know an Elder Scott, yes, but his first name is like Shane and he's never served here..." then we realized he was talking about Elder Taylor, whose middle name is Scott. We had a laugh :)
Thursday we went to the temple open house!!! IT'S BEAUTIFUL!! And we love it. The shoes and clothes are PERFECT, thank you!!!! the shoes are so comfy!!! It really was a great birthday :)
Friday we had district council, the open house, and then we stayed for another shift to help out with the Spanish speakers! We didn't get to help much with them because there weren't very many, but it was still a good experience to be able to be there that long and talk to so many people.
Saturday was also good. We got to run around and contact quite a few people that we'd been trying to get in with, and though most of them weren't home, we found a sweet lady that Elder Jenne sent us to named Lee, and also talked with this lady named Barbara. She's not interested, but she was sweet! Sunday was also a great day. In relief society, we talked about ministering, and the Spirit just hit me and taught me how important this whole concept is. When we minister and love as we are instructed to do, we all become more Christlike, and we become a Zion people. The Lord will only come when we are much more of a Zion people than we are now, and as we minister to others, we are literally preparing the world for the Second Coming. It was a light switch experience :)
Things have been good here, family. I've been stressed out with the open house and all these changes in my schedule and such, but in all reality, we're doing SO good. I am so happy and grateful for everything. I was going through my old ARP notes, and read something I don't remember writing: "I'm not all good or all bad, I'm just Reegan." and that made me cry last night. :) I LOVE YOU!! Make this week beautiful!!
Les amo,
Hermana Beagley
1: dinner with the OU sisters at Sister Bailey's house Thursday
2: on our way up to the temple Friday.
4: Wrapping up Monday being the chauffeur for Norman 2's elders
5: This is Sasha. She's a climber.
6: Pretty sure Sasha is front declawed, but her back claws make up for it!
7: RIP to me eating ice cream. When I was in Blanchard I realized that every time I have ice cream, I get really painful gut aches (this happened a couple times when I ate Ben and Jerry's back home too, but I never told anyone. I talked to Sister Mansell about it, and she has the same problem. She hasn't had ice cream in 12 years, so now I guess I can't have any until the day I'm resurrected :)