Priscilla Preaches: Both Sides of the Force

"Reunion in Maine" Priscilla with 2 of her MTC roommates

Hello and Happy Monday Friends and Family from Saco, Maine. While some people are going back to school this week (shout out to my BYU friends who start classes today! Hope you all are having/have had a great first day! Go Cougars!) we are still here serving in a beach town in tourist season. I honestly didn't think much would go on for the work here in the Saco Ward, much less in the Saco area itself with all the tourists but this week we had a total of 9 non-member lessons, all with local people who we got to share messages with. Two of those were with our still progressing investigator Dave, who was gone most of the week at Zion's camp in New Hampshire with the ward camp out, and the rest were people we contacted on the street or at the door in the past. Dave also said once he gets his answer from God he will be baptized so we are pretty excited.

With the work really picking up and with numbers to prove our success (although I have a firm testimony that missionary work is NOT about numbers) you would think we had a super fun week, right? Well, not really. This week Sister Mann and I hit some pretty serious walls emotionally and physically. I won't go into details but we had some pretty great opposition with hot weather, appointments falling through, people yelling at us, emotional crises, swindlers, and long car trips. It was not fun, especially at the beginning of the week.

All things seemed to be going against us despite the good things we were seeing too. It was really a crazy time. But by church yesterday when the members were asking how our week was all I could think of how contrasting the week turned out to be with so many highs and lows.

What I now want to explain is a principle we learn the best from Star Wars: We need to have good to have bad. Yeah, we also learn this principle in 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. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility" but Star Wars is cool too. We see so often that whenever there is the dark side of the force there is also the light side. The good side. The Jedi side. And that's the side that Sister Mann and I work for because we are Jedi. We are trying to bring people peace and in some cases save their souls. It's pretty great. Sometimes it doesn't feel great, especially when your emotionally worn out and seemingly without strength to push on and it's only 3 pm, but God, the master of all light, is here helping us fight for his cause. And we survive! And succeed!

Anyway, I'll stop with my opposition + Star Wars speech. As far as details go for this week I'll talk about the cooler experiences. Wednesday we went on exchange for a bit with Sister Badger who has recently been called to the mission presidency. She is already such a great missionary and we were able to get into two people's homes to share a lesson because of her persistence. She honestly showed us up haha. Thursday was zone conference and we said good bye to TOO MANY PEOPLE. The Hawkes who were previously in the mission presidency are being released so I won't be seeing them as often anymore. Same with the senior couple, the Pettingills. They all have done so much for me during my mission and I'm going to miss them a lot! I luckily got to see many friends again though like Sister Ritchie, the Brewer missionaries, and 2/3 of my MTC roommates. In other exciting news we as a mission are now working towards a new goal: A temple in Maine. In some ways it seems pretty farfetched but President Blair showed us the statistics and the ability to have that is not ridiculously out of reach. So we'll see a temple in Maine soon. Hooray!

Besides that I trust you all had a good week. Remember, in those moments of your lows, remember those highs will feel so much greater! I love and miss you all and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Sister Wright

The parents of Priscilla's Sunday School teacher when she was in high school live in Saco. They had Priscilla over for dinner last Tuesday and sent this picture. We didn't realize it then, but they also fed her on her birthday!