Thank you for the letters
and emails that I have received! I am sorry that I probably will not be
able to respond to all of them individually, but I hope that this email
will suffice...
The night before we left the MTC, we had a great
lesson/teaching experience with one of our teachers, Bro. Widtfeldt. We
talked about the Atonement and how to use it in our missionary work, and
then he invited us to teach him a lesson. We had about five/ten
minutes to prepare a ten min lesson for him, so we had to really rely on
the spirit. We sisters we kind of stumped, because we just feel like he
was the perfect teacher, and he knew everything so what could we teach
him? We went into the hall and prayed and when we were done, Sister
Lisonbee said "maybe we need to teach him to love himself." When she
said that, the Spirit testified to me so strongly that that was EXACTLY
what we need to teach him. I felt that he was a lot like me and focused
too much on other people and got frustrated too easily with himself and
his imperfections. We were able to share a very personal and spiritual
experience when we taught him and I learned a lot for myself too. One
thought that came to mind as we were teaching was about the Atonement
and when the Savior was in the Garden and cried out, "Remove this cup
from me, but not my will but thine be done." This is not doctrine by any
means but I had and shared the thought, that maybe the Savior became a
little frustrated with himself as well when he felt that he could not do
the thing that was asked of him and asked for his burden to be taken
from him. Maybe in that small way he realized the frustrations that we
sometimes encounter with ourselves as we strive hard to reach perfection
but struggle to do so because we are human. Maybe in that way and with
that experience Christ is able to succor us when we feel at odds with
ourselves.
Haha, the lady sitting across from in the lib just
asked me if am ok. I must be thinking too hard and wearing my emotions
on my sleeve...
After our lesson, Elder Rasmussen gave the Sisters
each a blessing with the other Elders in our District standing in. They
were beautiful and powerful and I was grateful for his willingness and
worthiness to exercise his priesthood for us. It was funny that we all
got the same answer as to who should give us a blessing and we are
thankful that we did. I am also grateful that other Elders got to help
to and add their faith to the blessings even though their arms got
really tired.
On Tuesday morning, we got up at the crack of dawn
and quickly packed up the left-over items that hadn't made it into a
suitcase and rolled out to the buses that took us to the airport. We
waited in line to check in and then loaded all of our suitcases on a DI
truck that transported our luggage to the airport. They filled up a
number of buses with the missionaries that were leaving that day (I
think there were around 600??). We had to wait for a while for the truck
with our stuff to show up at the airport and me and my companions were
joking that secretly they had taken all of our stuff to DI instead of
the airport.
We arrived at the Seattle airport around 10 I
believe. The first thing Elder Green (from my district in the MTC) said
when we got off the plane was "Where is Elder R.?" We all missed him
(he went to Baltimore) because he is just such a crack up and good
missionary at the same, and I think we all leaned on him for testimony
and sanity at one point. We were greeted by the APs and President and
Sister Wilson. One the APs went to high school with me and I think he
graduated with Cami. His name is Elder Haviland (Hayden). All the new
missionaries grabbed their stuff off the baggage carousel and then
President took a picture of all of us, There were 14 Sisters in our
group, two are Spanish speaking. Then we spent a LONG day at a training
with the mission presidency and some of the senior couple missionaries.
We had dinner at six and found out who our companions were and our areas
at 7. Of course, the suspense was killing me and I was the last sister
to get my assignment. But my companion is Sister Cromar. She is from SLC
and went to BYU-Idaho before she came out. She has only been out for 12
weeks (just long enough to do the 12 Week Missionary Training Program),
so we are kind of learning how to do this together. And if that wasn't
enough, we are "whitewashing" our area, which means that they pulled the
Elders out of our area and put Sisters in. So we are having to kind of
start from the beginning in our finding and teaching efforts. It has
been a lot of work, and will continue to be. Hopefully they leave one or
both of us here for a while. Oh, I forgot tell you our area. Yes, I am
on one of the islands! I am on Whidbey Island in Oak Harbor 1st Ward. We
live about a block from the ocean and it has been great. The air is
just so nice and clean and fresh here. We have been spoiled with
absolutely beautiful weather the last few days. Our only cloudy days so
far have been Saturday and Sunday and it is sunny again today.
The Ward here is awesome! I feel like most of the
members that we have met are converts and they all have fabulous
testimonies. They have all been so generous and welcoming (and excited
that we are Sisters...). The ward also has a lot of less actives and
part-member families, which have been a lot of our focus with the Ward
Mission Leader. Our ward mission leader is so so so so awesome! He
joined the church at 19 and served a mission a year later and told us
that he has been dedicated to missionary work ever since. He is so
willing to help us and is doing all he can to encourage the ward members
to help us in our finding efforts. We are so grateful for him,
especially since we are whitewashing. Three of the investigators that we
are working with are 10 year old girls. All of them come from families
that are returning members or recent converts. They are all so spunky
and excited to learn (and again...excited that we are Sisters!). We are
hoping to have them all on date for baptisms in the next few weeks. If
you have any ideas (especially Griffin) on fun ways to teach lessons,
let me know! The only bummer is that we are going on exchanges with the
Sister Training Leaders on Wednesday which is when two of our lessons
are and I will be in the other Sisters' area for the exchange. Pray that
I will have a good attitude about it because I am pretty bummed and a
little frustrated since we just barely met them and this was supposed to
be our first full lesson with them.
I have enjoyed starting the Book of Mormon over
again (it's been a while). I just cling to Nephi's example of going and
doing even though the tasks that are placed in front of him seem
impossible and he had no idea what he was getting into even while his
experiences were happening. I feel like that often and have really had
to learn to just trust and go forth doing what we are supposed to. It is
amazing to me that often things that we have planned or find ourselves
doing out of circumstance are inspired even thought they may not seem
like it. Last night was an especially powerful experience. We had
planned to go visit a less active sister in our ward. We had just a
little bit of time left before we had to be home to call in numbers, but
we stopped by on our way home from a member dinner. We arrived just at
the right time. She really needed a hug and a visit of encouragement.
She has struggled to come back to church and realizes what a blessing it
can be in her life, but like I said, she struggles. Her trailer reeked
of smoke, she had just been in a fight with her boyfriend, and started
crying in frustration almost as soon as our conversation started. We
shared Romans 8:39 (Lari wanted more scriptures to study) with her and
reminded her that the Lord is pleased with every small step she takes
toward returning to Him, and that He loves her always and forever.
Please keep the letters coming! I enjoy hearing what you have to say and hope that life continues to be good for all of you!
Love,
Sister Turley
