August 20, 2014

So I have one month and three days until I leave for my next outbound and the last three months of my mission! Holy cow! We find out where we are going two weeks beforehand, so probably September 9th. Last year President Gilliland had all the sisters over to his house and made it a big production, but then again, that was President Gilliland. President Gibbons is a much more low-key guy, so we'll see how it goes. I had a dream that I was called to the St. Louis, Missouri mission, and one of the first-summer sisters, Sister Russell, was called to the Houston mission. St. Louis would be chill with me but before I got my call to Nauvoo I was almost certain I was going to New York South because of another dream I had. So, moral of the story, don't put any stock into my dreams.

Last week, two deaf recent converts came up from Mississippi- Sister Richardson went to the Little Rock mission (which covered their area) and taught one of them. I interpreted for them for two days. It was way fun! I even got to go to the temple to interpret for them. :) 

Sunday, we had interviews with President Gibbons, but Sister Etherington and I were assigned to site-hop to cover the homes while the sisters were in their interviews. We got driven around in a golf cart. So much fun.

Sunday night, all us sisters were divided between all the senior's district meetings. They only have district meeting once a month and usually we, as a companionship, are assigned to be in one of them. This time was different because President is trying to get the mission moving in a better direction as far as inviting and following-up goes. So I was assigned one district and was given an hour and a half to do whatever I wanted to help the seniors understand inviting and following-up better. Talk about intimidating. But! I noticed this about myself- once I get on a roll talking about missionary things, I can't stop. I can't tell you how many times in the last five minutes of that district meeting I said "Oh! One more thing. This is really important." All of it was! :) I love missionary work. 

Monday we had interviews where I asked President Gibbons all about being a preventative medicine doctor (which is what he is. I think he's a big deal in the preventative medicine world because he and a few other guys started it back in the 70s). It's been sounding pretty good lately. Don't worry, friends, I don't know if my 2nd grade dreams of being a vet are out the window yet, I'm just investigating it. :) 

Yesterday we had transfers! Six of our sisters are going home! So sad. Six are going home, six are second-summer sisters, and six are first-summer. After a lot of prayer, Sister Etherington and I are staying together! Three transfers, man! Score! All the sisters came up from Carthage so all of us are in Nauvoo until the end now. We split into two houses, the Hatch and the Cambrie. Sisters Allred and Mills are still together, and they moved upstairs with us and are in the room next to ours, and then Sister Maile(!) and Sister Poulsen are in my old room on my main floor. So just six of us in the house as opposed to 13. :) Sister Etherington and I were assigned to be house leaders, which is a nice title for "Sisters Who Are Responsible For Remembering To Take The Trash Out And Nagging People To Be On Time". 

Ooh, short miracle for this week: Just before transfers, all 18 of us and President and his wife went to the temple together. I brought seven family names to have done to distribute between the sisters and when I arrived, I had lost all but one of mine and Sister Etherington's (she only had one). Lucky for me I still had the paper with all their information so I asked them to print them off again. The woman said they had just tried to do that for someone and it didn't work, but she would try. She scans it and goes "Oh... nope, doesn't look like it... Wait! Oh, it might work. Yep, it's going to work!" And it did! It was a miracle. :) 

Love you, friends!

Ashley