Week 6: Super Duper!

Becca's personal email to me this week was mostly about setting up our Mother's Day "phone call" next week.  We'll actually use Facebook's video chat feature, so it's not exactly a phone call, but that doesn't really matter!  What matters is that we will only do this with her on Mother's Day 2018, Christmas 2018, and Mother's Day 2019, so this is a big deal!  We are all so excited!!  In the meantime, she's doing what she can to stay busy and learning, learning, learning.  In my email, she expounded on her experience doing "splits" (two companionships split up and go with each other's mission companions) with the other Sisters in the area, and it sounds like it was a fun and much-needed boost for her.  By the way, have you noticed this girl loves the rain?!  It's a good thing, because it sounds like she'll see plenty of it! 😂

Hi there!

This week has been great!! It went by really fast! 

On Monday we had an appointment with one of our investigators. She's awesome and she's been meeting with sister missionaries for over a year. She's not ready to make a big commitment like baptism though, so we "dropped" her. Dropping someone just means that we won't see them on a regular basis anymore because our schedule needs to be efficient and saved for people that we can really help. We will keep in contact with her though and keep inviting her to church. For me it was actually an incredible experience. Sister Anderson was so nervous about telling her that we needed to take a break, but when the time came I was able to say the words that needed said. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, but I felt at peace about it. Even though I was sad, I know that God has a plan for her, and hopefully in the future she will feel the pull of coming closer to Christ. I love her! 

On Tuesday we had exchanges with our Sister Training Leaders down in Syracuse! Once a transfer we go with another set of sister missionaries and split up, so I went with Sister Sampson and Sister Anderson went with Sister Beagley for most of the day. We were so busy all day long teaching people! They are super busy in their area and it's awesome! After dinner we switched so I was with Sister Beagley and we had the greatest tracting experience ever! We worked super well together and found two solid potential investigators. Even when people weren't interested in having us come back, they like to have gospel discussions. There are a TON of Christians everywhere, and they are so wonderful. Anyway, it was an awesome day. 

Okay, rest of my week super fast. On Wednesday summer came! We basically skipped over spring. It was glorious, I even got a sunburn. (Sorry Mom...) After tracting we ate ice cream from heaven! Friday we had zone conference! All the missionaries in our area get together for a conference once every six weeks. There are thirty missionaries in our zone and it was super great. We spent all day learning from our mission president and from other missionaries. I loved it. That night we went tracting and it poured rain the whole time. It was awesome! Sunday was the best day yet. I finally got to meet two of our investigators, Mary and Garnet. Garnet came to church and Mary texted us to come over out of the blue. Miracles were truly at work to make this all happen. They are both SO amazing. They have incredible faith and a zeal to always be doing their best. Both of them are so ready to be baptized and THEY are the ones that ask us to set a date for them. We love them! 

I love love love being a missionary and I know it will only get better from here. I hope you all have a grand week and enjoy all of life's adventures! Love ya!

Sister Fairbanks