Day 77... We missed you. Love, The Sisters

May 29. 2013


Dear Everyone,

I'm sorry I haven't been super great at sending out emails! The hour we are allowed to email goes by sooooo quickly!

Anyways, this past week was great! I've decided that missionary life (quick interruption: Kirra is engaged!!!!!!!! She just sent me an email!!! So excited for her!!! And Chase, of course ;)) isn't hard, it's the fact that when you're exhausted and you want to lie down on the couch, you can't. You have to keep moving! Being a missionary is the craziest thing—there is no way to describe it completely.

So here are some little stories/experiences I thought I'd share with you all....

There is this lady in our ward who is a single mom and has two teenage/young adult girls. She is less active, so of course we go over to her house to visit with her. No one is home the first time we stop by. 2nd time: her daughter is home and the mom is not. 3rd time: Talk to the mom, set up an appointment to do a blessing. 4th time: show up for harvesting blessing and no one is home. 5th time: boyfriend of daughter answers the door and mom was sleeping. 6th time: (the same day as the 5th time) Now it's around 8:30'ish so it's dark outside. Her car is in the drive way and the lights are on and the TV is on and the screen door is unlocked. So it's obvious she's home. We knock on the screen door and we wait a bit. Then we look over at the big window (which is to the left of the door) and we see a person hiding behind the curtains with her arms crossed in an X shape over her chest (but she wasn't hiding that well because we could see her). So we continue to knock because we know she's there (remember this lady is 40 something years old). Then she quietly slides to the couch. Now we can see her from the screen door. So we knock again. No answer. We got in the car and just laughed so hard! It was hilarious. Also, around the 3rd visit we "chalked" her sidewalk. We wrote in chalk "We missed you. Love, The Sisters." On the 6th visit I noticed a scrub brush next to the area where we chalked. The scrub brush had pink chalk on it. Apparently they didn't appreciate our message. So we haven't visited her since because it is clear she doesn't want us to bug her. Just funny that she didn't have enough guts to answer the door and tell us that she's not interested in the gospel. Oh well!!!

So last Monday night, we went over to the L family's house and his home teacher did the anointing and Brother L gave the blessing. The spirit was so strong. He said that he felt inspired to ask me if I wanted a blessing. During the blessing, he blessed me that I would be so distracted with life that I won't notice my headache. And now that I think about it, this past week I haven't noticed my headache that much. So grateful for that. It was a very neat experience for the L’s, and for Sister H and me. It is an experience I will never forget.  I love the L Family.

The month of May has been a bad one for car accidents in mission vehicles. There have been 15 accidents, and five of them happened last p-day. ALL were from Elders. I am hoping that is a good sign for us Sisters. They might be kicked out of their cars and forced to ride on bikes! Selfish thought, I know...but the thought of ever riding a bike sounds terrible...especially in the summer! I don't think President Smart would put me on a bike any time soon, though, because of my headache and stuff. I'm not super worried about it.

Speaking of bikes, a Sister from Tonga was on a bike (they are assigned to a car but traded with the elders that day) and got hit by a car and broke her leg and tore her ACL. Since Tonga doesn't have good medical stuff, she is staying in the states. I feel SOOO terrible for her. She just sits at home drugged up on morphine and the recovery will be about 4 months. She still has to have a surgery to fix her torn ACL.

J and little J (his son) got baptized last Thursday!!! And received the gift of the Holy Ghost on Sunday. J was given the Aaronic priesthood on Sunday as well. J's wife and hopefully his daughter will be baptized by J this Sunday. Although the other sisters in our ward teach them (we divided the area in half) we have seen them from beginning their experience in the gospel to baptism, which has been so amazing to see. Tears began to flow as J and little J were baptized. This is what the gospel is about— families. I have gained such a strong testimony of that since being on my mission. Sister H and I get to teach them tonight because the Sister's who usually teach them are on exchanges in the desert. We are super excited!

J and his family.

Last week some time we were OYM'ing at the gas station and I start talking with this man and he tells us that because of what we believe we will go to hell and that he doesn't want a "demonic" blessing from us. He told us that he feels sorry that we believe in what we do. He says that Joseph Smith shouldn’t have prayed for an answer, but that he should've just looked in the bible for the answer to what was correct. I actually started to cry/tear up during that OYM. It just hurt, more than anything else, to hear him say that.  It's crazy how mean people are to missionaries, who are just out to invite people to come unto Christ.

We also teach this 25 year old named T (his brother is R who is a recent convert). T isn't all there...and can't speak that well. We sent him a text yesterday to remind him to read the Book of Mormon and if he did, we could still come to teach a lesson today at 3. He texted back, "thank you. ur cute" The week before he sent us a random text that said "i think u sister's are pretty." SOOO WEIRD. Kinda have the feeling he likes us to come over cause we're girls that pay attention to him. We probably will stop visiting him as much, because he is basically becoming an eterna-gator, as his mom won't let him get baptized.

I also gave a talk in church on Sunday. We had hardly any prep time so that was interesting! I'm definitely learning how to wing things on the mission!

Well anyways, the work is moving forward here in Jurupa. I love being a missionary. It is so wonderful and well worth the sacrifice. Thank you so much for your prayers, support, letters, and everything else. It means a lot.

Love,
Sister Amanda Abby Chase

P-day nerf gun war!