January 7, 2013 letter

"get right, or get left" -Baptist Church sign

Well Well Well. I am now in the single digits of days until I come home. That may or may not have been a bit of a trunky comment, but I promise that I am still working hard and doing what I need to out here. Its hard to not think about coming home though. I have never been in a ward where people ask "is anyone close to going home" instead of "how long have yall been out"... except for this one. EVERYONE keeps asking that. Then there is the elders that are so nice to count down for me and remind me everytime I see them of how many days I have left. yesterday we were in the middle of ward council and they leaned over to say "Im not sure if you knew this or not, but you only have 10 days left in the field. We just wanted to make sure that you were aware" haha I got my itinerary in the mail saturday... The dreaded yellow envelope. We pulled over to the mailboxes and sister schoppman hopped out to grab the mail like she always does and after a few minutes she pokes her head out from behind the boxes and says "... uh, I think its here. Its yellow and from the mission office. You gotta come get it" So of course I had to take a sad picture of me taking it out of the mailbox. :)

 

This week has been about the same as the last couple. we go out when sister Thomson feels well enough, stay in when she doesnt. We are going back to the dr. this wednesday to find out her test results. President and Sister Jensen are having sis schoppmann and I go this time with her because they are on the road doing interviews with all the missionaries and cant go with her. The assistants took her to the last one, but sister jensen talked to me on friday and said that she was having us go because no matter what the results are, its going to be emotional for her and the assistants are awkward boys that wont be able to comfort her the way she will need it. I'm prepping myself for that... last week they did a brain scan and took 12 viles of blood to test; so it can go a couple different ways. best case scenario: they find the problem and its an easy fix. They said that they were going to test to see if there is a chemical imbalance that is causing her muscles not to work the way they are suppose to. Thats really the only good one. All other options will result in her going home to do more testing or to recover.

 

We did have one awesome day though! Saturday was the semi-anual Missionary field day in madison where they bring a whole bunch of missionaries to pair up with the youth and we take them out to see active less active and non member people in the area to see what missionary life is really like. I went to the one they had back in July and it was alot of fun. They had us go again this week and it was awesome. Sister Thomson just ended up staying with the Young womens leader while sis schoppmann and I got to go out. It was an EVENTFUL day for sure! I was paired up wth a girl named Alayna. She is actually the 1st counselor in YW, but shes only 18 so they let her go on these things still because she is a convert to the church and hasnt even been a member for a year yet. 

 

We started out by going to see some active members and Alayna was really ancy. We stayed for like 10 minutes at the hospital with the first lady. She was so fast I didnt even get in a word or offer to share a message. So then the next one was a non member who let us in for a second but she was sick and so we couldnt stay. We prayed with her and left. The third one was some members WAY out in the boonies and we got there and the gate was locked so we drove for a while trying to find service to call them and ask them to unlock their gate. We were there for 20 minutes or so getting to know them and I had told her before that we should share a message so we got to read from the scriptures with them and talk about the importance of bettering ourselves and becoming christlike. We were so fast with all the people that we had a while left to go tracting. She was really nervous and really didnt want to, but we found a street to knock some doors. There were a whole bunch of cars parked on the road we were on but it was a really narrow road so everyone was parked up on the grass. We followed suit and pulled up on the grass too. Well, we got 6 or 7 houses down the road when we got a call from her sister (who hates the church) asking where she was because her car was about to be towed. We ran back to the car and there was a cop and a cranky old man by her car. Luckily the cop was her sister boyfriend and so he called her to call alayna but the man just didnt like the fact that we were in front of his house so he called the tow company. We were super lucky haha. The only person who answered her door while we were tracting was a baptist lady that told us we werent christian. We invited her to read from the book of mormon and she said no and then as we were leaving she recognized alayna... so that turned out to be really awkward. It wasnt exactly the tracting experience that i was hoping to have with alayna, but it was definitely a normal day in the life of a missionary. I admire the strength converts have to stay true to what they have come to know and feel. She faces alot of opposition at home with her mom and sister, but she stays strong and true to the gospel. She bore a powerful testimony afterwards and it was good to spend the day with her and talk to her about serving a mission. She isnt sure if she wants to and is feeling alot of pressure to do so, but we talked about it all and I think it helped.

 

I am now entering the "this is the last time... " phase of my mission where I realize that "this is the last testimony meeting I will go to on my mission" or "this is the last ward council I will be at on my mission" or whatever it might be. Its weird. That is all I can say to explain it. I plan to finish as strong as I can and work until the end. I love you all so much and hope you have a great week!

 

Love Sister Webb