The One with the Accident and Duluth

11-7-16

Okay so we had a lot of meetings this week and things that happened. I feel like every week seems like a crazy busy week that random things happened, but hey I guess that's just my life right now. So on Tuesday we had MLC (Mission Leadership Council) so we all traveled up to Bloomington and all of the zone leaders, sister training leader, anddistrict leaders gathered with president and sister Forbe's and the assistants to council about our mission. So not gonna lie I have mixed feelings about MLC and it was slightly frustrating this time around. BUT. The good thing was that I got to hear the most beautiful music number I have ever heard in my life! I'll attachable snippet of it, it involved the guitar, piano, and a three part harmony of the hymn O My Father, and audience participation. My goodness, I watch the video all the time!

So also a fun thing that came out of MLC was that the Duluth STL's (Sister Clegg and Sister Fuchs pronounced Fukes) came down, and due to some other factors, they needed to spend the evening and part of the day Wednesday in the cities before they made the trek back up to Duluth. So they came and worked with us for the day! That was wonderful! I loved being able to hang out with sister Clegg again! We all had a super cool lesson with our 17 year old investigator named Alex. All 4 of us were there and we all switched off teaching liked we'd been doing it forever and he was engaged and asked questions. It was a really cool experience. :)

Our crew for the day :)

Wednesday morning the 4 of us did some service for a member of our ward and then went and got Pho for lunch. Sister Clegg was almost crying she was so happy. Apparently everyone is white in Duluth and there is like no variety of food haha. Then here comes the tender mercy of the week! So after lunch we all went and got ice cream and then split up so I was with sister Clegg and sister Myers and Fuchs were together and we did interviews! When we o on regular exchanges with the sisters in our zone we do interviews with them to see how they are doing personally and how the work in their areas are doing, and how their companionship is going. We basically are the person they vent to and listens to what they say and tell them we care about them.  One of the worst things about being an STL is that we don't have that. If there's anything you're struggling with or your companionship isn't
getting along we don't have anyone to talk to. Well w/ the Duluth sisters with us WE FINALLY HAD SOMEONE TO TALK TOO! It was awesome. Sister Clegg and I were able to talk about everything we are dealing with and our struggles ad it was nice to feel like you just had a friend you could tell anything to and they wouldn't judge you. Talk about a breath of fresh air!

On Thursday our amazingly wonderful Relief society President Sister Kircher took us adventuring out to Hampton! amp ton is forever away (farther than it takes for us to get to the mission home) but it is in our area and we had a couple of less active there, so we went less active hunting! So fun.  The town only had around 600 people in it

Also so we learned on Tuesday we found out at MLC that we apparently had a Zone specialty training of Friday of the same week So. That's what we did on Friday. That was fun. The Minneapolis, Lakeville, and Lakeville South zones.  Luckily we were not asked to give a last minute training and we got to hear about the upcoming Christmas initiative! So excited for that!!

Also we finally had our lesson with Jolene going over a commandment we knew might require a lot of change for her and be a little difficult. It went well, I'm definitely thankful for the confidence the spirit provides in teaching and being bold. She had difficulty with the commandment like we thought and is going to be working on it so keeping her in your prayers would be much appreciated.

First of the Week:
This week was the first time I've ever been in a car accident. We were driving the Duluth sisters back up to Bloomington on Wednesday on thefreeway. I changed lanes and looked in my rear view mirror just in time to see the car behind us hit us. It wasn't bad but we pulled off on the edge of the freeway to talk to the other driver about getting off the freeway. The other driver pulled off a ways in front of us. Got out, checked over her car and then got back in her car and drove away. Yup. Talk about all kinds of illegal. Luckily for us and our car, we missionaries have bike racks on the back of our cars so that took most of the impact. Our car looks fine for the most part.Some paint damage and our bike rack is bent but other than that not too bad. So yeah, that was exciting.

Spiritual thought of the Week:
So this Sunday we had a Regional Broadcast. Our Stake President, President Naatjes, spoke before the broadcast and it was SO GOOD. His talk was filled with stories and analogies and he shared some insight into classic parables that I hadn't ever thought of. The one I want to share with you all was his thoughts on the story where Jesus Calms the Sea. Here's the story in Mark Chapter 4...

37 And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full.
38 And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?
39 And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. 40 And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?

President Naatjes shared that Christ likes a good storm. It does not appear that he had any intention of stopping the storm, and only did so on the request of his disciples. We all have storms that roll through our lives and that's a good thing. We are given those storms to learn and grow. To develop needed faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

-Sister Richardson