November 17, 2014

This was an interesting week, for sure. Some ups and downs, ending
with a major down which is actually a pretty good story.
Okay so here goes:
UM SO THREE OF MY SISTERS GOT ENGAGED THIS WEEK. HELLO?! Yeah, Sister Newell from Nauvoo is engaged, Sister Hale is engaged (she hasn't even
give her homecoming talk yet lol), and Sister Gentry from Texas is
engaged. I can't believe it. This Facebook thing is both a blessing
and a curse. :)
So we were tracting this week (we have come to love tracting, it's
actually kind of fun) and we knocked on the door of this 93 year old
lady who was probably like four feet tall. We were, of course, talking
religion and all of a sudden she fist-pumps the air (her fist not
reaching above my shoulder) and says 'I am United Methodist!'.
Hahahaha okay. She was cute but definitely not interested.
A couple doors later, this catholic couple answers and after telling
them about the Restoration, they basically say 'thanks but no thanks
but here, take some candy' and they gave us snickers bars.
THEN we were trying to find this deaf guy in the elder's area, and my
worst nightmare came true. I did a deaf door approach and he ended up
to be hearing. AWKS. So this guy's name was actually Miles and he was
hilarious. Hilarious. He gave us soy shakes and this Japanese dipping
sauce. I don't know why people were just giving us food left and right
this week, but, hey, I ain't complaining. Anyway like I said, Miles
was an interesting character. He had more questions about Mormons than
he let on in the beginning and he kept asking if he could 'rattle our
cage' before every question hahahaha. He had a theory that Joseph
Smith was on mushrooms when he saw the First Vision but we squashed
that in an instant. Then, the very next day at our missionary
correllation meeting, the elders asked if we met a man named Tim.
Nope, no Tim. Then they told us that his first name was Miles and that
we talked to him yesterday. What! They tracted into him, too. He was
sketchy with them, apparently. Said that Mormon missionaries are like
the equivalent of the CIA. hahaha.
We went on an exchange with our sister training leaders this week, and
just as I was driving away from switching off, we got a call from an
unknown number. Our phone's speaker is dead and our STL obviously
couldn't speak for our area, so she held the phone up to my ear for me
while I was driving hahaha. It was a non-member man who had gotten our
phone number from someone who got our card from us, asking if someone
from the church could dog sit and maybe be his personal assistant.
Eventually he found out that we were missionaries so he goes 'Well
then you can call me Brother Ralph. And my dog is Brother Sparky.'
Lol.
So we pull up to our first thing to do on the exchange, which is to
contact a referral (actually from the catholic couple who gave us the
snickers). This woman who answers the door is old, kind of frail, and
just is not looking so good. She's supporting herself by having her
hand on the doorframe. We ask if she's Katie (she's not) or if Katie
lives here (she doesn't) and then this woman, whoever she is, asks if
we are nurses. Sorry ma'am, we are definitely not traveling nurses
going door-to-door. She explains that her heart has been racing and we
offered to help her get some water or sit down or something, but she
didn't want any of that. Well we tried to talk about the gospel at
least a little and when we asked to pray with her, she says 'Can yall
take my blood pressure?'. Uhhhhh. When we said we couldn't, she just
shuts the door. So strange. Hahaha.
Then we tracted a bit. Came across this door with a sign that said 'No
Solicitors, No Salesman, No Missionaries, No Kidding!' Lol what. I
totally took a picture.
Alright so here is the downbeat of the week. Hannah. She was doing
really well and being sober until last night, when we left a dinner
appointment and we had a million texts and missed calls. So we call
her back and she's in a drunken despair and we said we would be right
over (even though we literally drove 80 miles the day before and we
were hurting for miles). Sister Corbridge got a prompting to ask our
Ward Mission Leader, Brother Collins to come with us. She was doubting
if it was a prompting, and I said that if everything worked out
smoothly then it must be. We called him and he was right in that area
anyway and he was 45 minutes early for his meeting with the bishop for
tithing settlement-what! We get there and go to the second floor to
her door and she gets out of her car and is furious. Like, holy cow.
To make a long story short, she is screaming and causing a scene and
saying that she will never trust us again (because we brought Brother
Collins) and there were a lot of drunken profanities mixed into that.
By the way Sister Corbridge and I are torn up because she is saying
some really personally hurtful things. So we start to leave and she's
still screaming at us saying that Jesus wouldn't leave her and whatnot
and now a neighbor comes out and looks like he's on the blood trail,
trying to decide whether to come after us or Brother Collins. We left,
sobbing (we love her and we had so many good lessons with her and she
was making such good progress- she was supposed to have come to church
that day and we had an addiction recovery book ready for her,
ironically), and we didn't know where to go so we pulled into the
church parking lot and Brother Collins pulled in next to us. We talked
it out some, and, just so happens that it was time for his tithing
settlement so he had us come to the bishop's house and get blessings.
It was incredible, the peace that comes when the priesthood is used.
Sister Corbridge was shaken up more than me and she just became so
peaceful while getting her blessing. Our bishop has an alcoholic son,
so he empathized with us. We all talked it out and when we got back
into the car, we had 14 texts from Hannah just reiterating what she
was screaming at us, but we both just felt so peaceful. I don't know a
better way to describe it- it felt like a perfect stillness in my
soul. We did all we could, and that was all that was required. Elder
Holland said something once about how every missionary must spend a
few moments in Gethsemane to understand a portion of what the Savior
felt, and I actually feel grateful to have had that experience.

It's went from blue skies to like a hurricane just now, sooo...
Florida is great.

I love being a missionary! Nothing is better!

Love,
Ashley

PS if anyone was considering sending me a Christmas present, don't
worry about it. Because I literally come home five days after. Plus
what more could I what than I have right now?

Fun picture: