Tuesday of Death!

I hope you have had the BEST week!! Thank you for the e-mails. Pdays are literally the best because I get to hear from all of you and write back! I am going to try and be fast and send pictures over today! We went to the chapel so I have wifi! I’m hoping I figured it out and that they will go through this time! I think I might have just sent to many last time in one email last time so hopefully this works! Let me know if it does!!

Dad thanks for figuring things out with the credit card! We went shopping today and I got some thick tights. It is getting cold here FAST! So the thicker tights will hopefully help me not freeze as much! :)

But this week was craziness. It was a hard one. It just started off kinda rough with Tuesday being the Tuesday of death. This last Tuesday was literally the worst day of my entire life. On Monday night Sister Barnes and I got a message that we had a church headquarters referral - so this person had gone to lds.org and requested missionaries to come visit them. Yippee right!?? WRONG. We went to go visit them on Tuesday and we got to this SUPER SKETCHY apartment complex. I remember walking up the stairs and the Saratov Approach scene went through my head. Probably should have paid more attention to that...BUT we got to the door and knocked. This man opened the door a little bit and I was standing at the angel where I could see in - sister Barnes couldn’t see anything but his face from where she was standing. Anyways, this man opens the door and not only were his pants down but his underwear. This sick man had everything. And I mean EVERTYHING just out in the open. WHY THE FREAK DID HE ANSWER HIS DOOR!? But oh my goodness. I Died. I was panicking and had no idea what the heck to do and what made it even better is that Sweet Sister Barnes didn't see it because of where she was standing so being the incredible missionary she is just went on talking about the restoration and if he wanted to meet us another time and oh my goodness. We were there for probably 20 minutes. 20 minutes of the man standing there in all his glory, me literally SCREAMING IN MY HEAD, and Sister Barnes trying to convince him to let us pray with him. OH it was the worst. After we left I told her everything that had happened. She freaked and apologized for not realizing what was going on. She said she could tell something was weird when I didn't shake his hand to leave. But anyway, how nasty right??? I just felt icky the rest of the day. And after that we were supposed to go to another town for a doctors appointment for sister Sarnes which by car is only about 30 minutes away but, of course, we took bus which ended up taking 3 hours to get there, to have the doctor tell us that the ultrasound was too blurry so we would have to come back, and then we had to go strait back. OH IT WAS THE WORST DAY.

So it started off on a rough note! Things definitely got better but I just needed to work on staying focused. After Tuesday's craziness we had a lot of things fall through on Wednesday as well. Both Sister Barnes and I just seemed a little stressed and then I got an e-mail from sweet Mace and later on from Jess and Hannah as well saying how great BYU was. How much they loved their classes and about all the fun things and there was a moment where I just really missed it. I really missed being there but mostly that my family was only 30 minutes away from there and I could be with them at anytime! BUT DON'T WORRY. I snapped out of it real quick as the rest of the week I realized that as great as BYU was and as much as I missed my family I didn't want to be there. There were so many miracles this week with finding people SO Prepared, getting another church headquarter referral of a lady who is SO SO PREPARED - I literally am so excited. Plus she is married and also has 2 children above the age of 8 as well :), having so many ward members just be so loving, meeting with LA that I immediately bonded with, just so many things! Mostly getting to remember why I came out here. Why I am doing this and then have myself feel SO SILLY for ever thinking that I would want to be anywhere else. I have never in my entire life felt so close to my Savior and Heavenly Father. And it is only because of the hard times that I have been able to feel that way. Each and everyday there is at least one moment where I just feel completely lost and realize that I need their help. Not only in the work but for myself! Just to stay positive and stay working hard and there has not been one time where they have failed me. There is that mormon message about the gardener - I can't remember the real whole title - but the one about the current bush and how the gardener keeps cutting him down and he doesn't like it until in the end he sees that he needed to be cut down so that he could grow the right way. Hah that was an awful description - you all should just watch it! But that is how I feel! I am so grateful for a Loving Heavenly Father who cuts me down everyday but because of that I get to lead on him and my Savior and they build me back up again - the second time so much stronger than before. So life is just great! I am so happy and just loving the process of being able to be built up everyday as I realize that leaning on them is truly all I can and need to do!

Something that was fun this week as well was we had a chapel open house on Saturday. It was SUPER slow at the beginning so all 6 missionaries were outside the chapel stopping EVERYONE! There was a moment where I stopped and looked around and it was the coolest thing to just see all 6 of us literally running after people, stopping people on their bikes, waving down cars ANTYHING to get these people to listen to us, come into the chapel, and with that come closer to their savior! It was just the coolest! No one got past us on that corner. It was just so fun and felt so cool to be apart of something so incredible. I love being a missionary and being with my amazing district! They are incredible and I learn so much from their examples everyday!

And this week Sister Barnes and I were sitting with this 15 year old girl in the chapel who was waiting for the bishop to come to get an interview. She asked us if we were going to serve only for a year and a half. She said that she wanted to serve for 2 years because it would like a 2 year vacation. OH MY! I just looked at sister Barnes. Later Sister Barnes said that she didn't say anything because she didn't want to scare her. I guess she'll find out for herself.... :)

Oh and mom! Tell Greg and Jess thank you!! I got their sweet letter and LOVED IT!!  Tell them thank you for the letter and that I love them!! Letters really are the greatest! Tell Aunt Kari and Aunt Erin and Steph that they are the best as well! I’ll try and write them all back soon but I did receive them and LOVE THEM ALL! The emails and letters are so great to read! :)

Have the Best week though! LOVE you so much!!! And will talk to you soon! :)

Sister Gwilliam