So this week has been CRAZY! My brain is all over the place today so hopefully I can focus long enough to write you and it'll make sense. Anyway.
I have now experienced anti/bashing from people while tracting. It was actually kind of cool. This is why. Tuesday we were knocking doors and we knocked into an older gentleman who was very... interesting. He stated very quickly that he is Baptist. I have been working on being bolder so I didn't let that send us walking. We struck up a conversation on how great it is to have Christ as the center of our lives and how its so amazing knowing that we are all brothers and sisters. This conversation helped me learn why I had to wait until I was 22 to come on my mission. If I had came when I wanted to that encounter would have been extremely negative. As soon as he told me that we had too much opinions and that women were to remain silent I would have gotten so mad at him. I am so grateful that I came now instead of before. As he began putting women down I was overwhelmed with love for the poor guy. I got to bear my testimony on how men and women are all God's children and how I am so grateful for the knowledge that we have our own divine roles but that we are still equals on every level. We probably talked with him longer than we should have but that experience was overwhelmingly spiritual. I felt so energized walking away from that conversation feeling like my testimony had tripled in strength.
Through the week we encountered many more bashers. I found there was a common theme with all of them claiming that the Book of Mormon went against the Bible and each time I found the spirit testifying to me of how untrue that is. On my first exchange with Sister Gehring she told me to watch for patterns in the negative things people say and check my testimony on them. I am truly grateful for that because each time I heard them talking I was able to recognize the repetition and pray that Heavenly Father would strengthen my testimony. I have known for a long time that the Book of Mormon is truly the word of God. Now I know with an unshakable knowledge of its truth. I am so grateful for opposition in my life. It isn't always fun in the moment but it never fails to make me a stronger person!
Winter is quickly coming to Washington so by the time knocking has ended we have to wear our reflector belts to walk safely in the dark. It was highly amusing the first night because Sister Lechuga and I were both super hyper from the spiritual experience with the negative gentleman. We couldn't quite laughing at the fact that we looked like total goobers walking with the belts draped like sashes and decided we look like glow in the dark girl scouts. Probably not as funny to you all as it was to us. I'll send a pic next week.
The last thing to update you all on for the week is transfers... Transfer calls were insane. We could feel that something was going to change. We figured seeing as I had been in Olympia longer I would be leaving and that would be the change... Boy were we wrong. The Presidents Assistant called us and you could tell he was trying to build the suspense the little punk. Anyway. He informed us that Sister Lechuga would be leaving and I would be staying! I won't lie I was kind of relieved. I love Olympia and was happy to have another 6 weeks to spend with everyone. That wasn't the end of the shocks. What came next made Sister Lechuga wish she had been recording my reaction. AP Steed informed me that I will be follow up training Sister Trainer. There are no words to describe how I felt when I heard that. The closest description is probably that my heart definitely stopped for a few seconds. Those were definitely the most terrifying words I could have heard that night. But thankfully after lots of prayer I know that I am fully putting that in God's hands. Not long into my first panicked prayer I knew that God qualifies who he calls.
This next transfer is going to be amazing. I am excited to continue working with the people of OLY 4th and I'm excited to see what Sister Kramer will teach me! Talk to you all next week! Love you!
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