Transfer meeting was amazing! When we walked into the gym to deposit
luggage the whole gym was full! We got 45 new missionaries so that took up a
great deal of room. We also had the whole mission present (minus a couple
companionship's) . As we sang "Called to Serve" when the new missionaries walked
in they just kept coming, and coming, and coming! We filled 3 rows all the way
across the chapel with new missionaries!!!! It was just breathe taking. Then the
nerves hit just about every missionary present and the questions started running
through our minds of "Where am I going?" "Who will be my companion?" "Am I in
the San Fernando Mission or Bakersfield?" The congregation was buzzed with
anticipation. President Hall stood up and started it like any other transfer
meeting. When my name was read off it literally startled me. I was so excited to
hear my companions name and the area I was going into! This meeting also brought
a lot of tears. Many of my dear new friends have gone to the Bakersfield
Mission. This includes Sister Dyreng and Sister Haws who are companions and
Sister Training Leaders together. ;( I know they will be amazing though and they
will help the mission flourish into a booming new mission. So that is the news
with me.
The other amazing news is from the New Mission Presidents seminar that was
broadcast to the whole world! I hope you get the opportunity to watch it. There
are so many new missionaries in the MTC! I broke out into goosebumps several
times during the opening song. Okay okay okay I will tell you the news of the
broadcast:
Missionaries are now being allowed to use the internet on a daily basis for
about 1 hour. They will be using Sykpe, Facebook, Mormon.org, and several other
resources. Tablets and smart phones are currently being tested and when
available will be issued to the Missions. Missionaries will also start to give
frequent church tours and will remain in the church building so that anyone can
walk in!!!!! My mind has been blown! There is so much changing in the missionary
work! I am so excited. All of you should take the opportunity to watch the
broadcast. There are many inspirational talks and will help change every members
view of missionary work. Several of the speakers (apostles) spoke on the need
for wards to step it up. "The Missionaries are only in the area to assist the
members in missionary work." and our ward mission leaders are to be our best
friends and its their responsibility to fill up our appointment books so that
there isn't time for us to go knock on doors. Yeah, there was some pretty hefty
stuff said. It was amazing, if anything it renewed a sense of urgency in all the
missionaries.
Okay so my week other than BIG announcements. By wednesday night Sis. Scrivner and I had the opportunity to
help some of our sisters out. One is struggling with separation anxiety from her
trainer going home. So we talked to them separately so that we could both help
them. It was great just to be there and listen to them. I think that if any
thing we do to help these sisters outside of training it will be just to listen.
We all need someone to listen to us and thats what we are going to be here for.
Obviously they have their companions but sometimes when your struggling with
your companion they are the last person you want to talk to about how to handle
them. We told one of them to text us a smiley face when she is struggling. The
next day she texted us that she couldn't find a mustache for it. We laughed so
hard and hope that she did too.
Sister Scrivner is an angel sent from Heaven. As we talked about our past
experiences of this last transfer we both realized that the Lord knew we needed
each other. We had very similar experiences and once that was discovered we
both agreed that we were going to put behind us the hurt feelings of last
transfer and focus solely on the sisters we have under our stewardship. We have
also seen many miracles in our area. On Wednesday afternoon we went onto campus (CSUN) and finally
found the department that would let us set up a booth to hand out literature.
This is something that several companionship's have attempted to do. So we are
very excited. We had an investigator that we dropped. Unfortunately his ideas
about the nature of God were not allowing him to progress in learning about the
gospel. One of these ideas is that God is a blob of Love and doesn't have a
body. When we brought up all the accounts of seeing God he said that he can mold
himself to look like a human being....yeah we were sad to drop him but when you
talk for 1 hour and 15 minutes and can't make progress on the nature of God
something has to be done.
One of the difficulties that Sis. Scrivner has last transfer was getting
seizures. So one night she had to pull an all nighter for a procedure. I went to
bed then woke up really early to help her through the morning hours. Then after
the procedure I crashed for 2 hours on the couch and she slept from 3-11pm and
then 11:30pm-6:30am. yeah she needed the sleep. hahaha
We just got word this morning
that there is a very good chance we will pilot a bus area. That means our car
will be taken away and we will only have the bus as our transportation. Crazy
right? another mind blowing idea. We asked president to get special permission
to get on the city transportation website to get a one day pass to try it out.
He told us "Absolutely! Let me know how it goes!" We responded so quickly to the
idea of switching over that our Zone Leaders called us to make sure. We are very
excited. There are so many possibilities of increasing our teaching pool by
contacting on the bus. We live next to the university campus so lots of students
bus to it. ;D Well that's it I think. Sorry this is so long. There is so much
amazing stuff going on in the world of the Church!!!!!! I hope you are excited
to see the Hastening of the work happening. Elder Holland said that we will
never again be able to say concerning missionaries "There they go" rather it
will be "Here they come!" How true it is!
Now more than ever before: HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!
Love,
Sister Cottrell
Me and Sister Dyreng- Chatsworth
Palmdale, CA
