"Just the one photo this week but it's me being super thankful for the birthday letters that are already coming in :)"
Hello and happy Monday
friends and family, it is I, your friendly New England Missionary, coming at
you with a probably relatively boring email for the week. We had a pretty solid
week considering we survived. We have had to stop seeing a lot of the people we
had been seeing as investigators so we spent a lot of time finding. But it has paid
off, looking at the week with a handful of teaching appointments and Wednesday
having two meal appointments (I solicit meal appointments for my birthday, what
can I say?). But this upcoming week you should be getting a more exciting (not
"hit by a truck" exciting) although apparently that happened six
months ago, WHERE HAS THE TIME GONE?!) or "fish heads and water
problems" or "food poisoning and Elder Rasband exciting" BUT
STILL EXCITING) email with today being Zone P-Day at the Portland Headlight
(heads up, that's a lighthouse) and Zone Conference on Friday! Oh yeah, and
Wednesday Birthday shenanigans. So get pumped for an exciting upcoming week!
For now, accept my meager mediocre weekly email!
Well Monday was still Memorial Day but Sister
Richie and I laid pretty low, not venturing out too much to save our energy for
this week's P-Day. But Tuesday was pretty fun. We went to Heart of Biddeford
and as always had no idea what to expect to do for service. We showed up and
they asked if we wanted to water the flowers in downtown Biddeford and I
thought that sounded pretty easy to do. The catch: The city of Biddeford has
this big pump thing that you pull in a big metal wagon to water their
flowerbeds along downtown Biddeford. So it turned out to be a lot bigger task
as we (mainly Sister Ritchie) pulled this wagon and jet pumped water at the
newly planted flowers. They'll survive.... And Sister Ritchie will survive too
because as she was pulling the cart and it ran into her ankle and I mean
seriously ran in. Like a couple of gashes and bleeding ran in. She is the
toughest thing though and we went on watering flowers. Afterwards we of course cleaned
and bandaged her up, but you finish your service strong! Tuesday we also
stopped by a pretty solid referral from the Portland Elders. We had tried
calling but couldn't catch her so we went to her home, walked up their stairs
(more hopped in Sister Ritchie's case) and she opens it, says "I'd like to
see you again, when are you free? And do you want an ice cream sandwich?"
Uhm, YES! So we set up a time to see her this week and got an ice cream
sandwich. Thanks Portland Elders.
Wednesday was start of my eleventh month wearing
the black name tag which is still really hard to come to terms with. An Elder
in my district, Elder Urry, brought it up in district meeting and it just felt
weird to think we were almost a year in. In my case I'm more than halfway done.
Double digit months in the field used to feel like an eternity away and now I'm
thinking, "Man, this is too fast!" But enough of my mini-existential
crisis, I'm bound to have another one this upcoming Wednesday when I'm two
decades old. Thursday we had another fun day of finding, catching some people,
and doing service at a local church's food pantry. The coolest thing about
serving at that church is where we serve there's a big mural of a beautiful
building which Sister Ritchie found out is the Hawaiian temple. Apparently the
artist visited there and felt the spirit so strong he/she had to paint it. So
here we are serving food to people in front of the temple. Awesome! Friday was
weekly planning day and more finding. We invited a lot of people to learn,
including members, particularly so Sister Ritchie could practice teaching and
people have been receptive which has been nice.
Saturday we explored a lot outside of Biddeford.
Well, we actually started our day in Biddeford and stopped by a family we
occasionally see and they lost their dog in the course of the graduation party
they were having for their daughter. So we helped them look for a bit. Why am I
always chasing dogs? Later we did service organizing at another church's food
pantry and answering questions there which is always nice. We stopped by a sick
sister in the ward and same a hymn to cheer up her spirits which she really
appreciated. And we finally made the journey to a gem in our area,
Kennebunkport! Why is Kennebunkport cool besides having a long and difficult
name? Kennebunkport is where the Bush's (like, THE Presidential Bush's) have a
summer home/property/camp and the Saco ward normally gets a couple of families
that stay for the summer BECAUSE their dads are secret service men for the
Bush's. So we went down there to find some people but didn't spend a lot of
time. I mostly am excited to have Kennebunkport because it's like Wolfeborro
and the Romney's/Marriott's except not really.
Sunday was your typical, dark and misty Sunday
with a wonderful sacrament meeting and visits to the assisted living home WITH
NO SPOILERS! For dinner a member couple was so generous to throw me a Pre-Birthday
with stir fry chicken AND/OR SHRIMP and brownies with candles (not twenty
candles but that's ok). I felt so blessed and so happy to be here in Saco. I've
actually been going through a lot spiritually and emotionally in my time
serving here and every night as I've said my prayers I've had the precious
experience of feeling, actually feeling, my Heavenly Father's love and pride
for me, especially as I've felt less than adequate at serving Him. I know He loves
me and He hasn't left me to do this (the mission, life, anything) alone. I know
He loves you. And if you ask Him and open your eyes, He will show you. May we
all have a blessed and fun week!
Love,
Sister Wright
No comments:
Post a Comment