July 7, 2014
What a week! I'll try to hit the highlights.
So Wednesday I had the ever so lovely opportunity to go
on an exchange to a Young Single Adult ward. As I ate dinner in the home of two guy roommates with their friend who's
a girl, and they talked about young single adult things and half flirted with
each other, I felt like I caught a glimpse of Doug's life. Oh the joys of going
home one day. I do not envy the sisters who serve there. :) I did, however, get
to eat at Chick-fil-a and Jamba Juice because the exchange was in Redlands. So
there are definitely some perks.
Thursday we had Missionary Leadership Council/Conference
(don't know what the C really stands for). It was an inspiring time as always,
and both Sister Webb and I walked away with some ideas of how we can improve
our area, especially our work with the members. It's all about working with the
members these days - nothing will happen without members. Basically, my mission
is actually preparing me to be a good member. Fun little miracle that day! So
MLC is at the mission office, which means you can pick up mail. I had a package
waiting, and I was wondering what ever it could be; open it up, and find a new
journal! Which was awesome because I was literally to the last page in my journal.
That night we were at the park doing some bookwork, and a
firework went off, and it triggered something in me. It was weird, but it was
like this super fast memory of Ukraine, because they were always setting
off fireworks there, but suddenly I was in Donetsk, not knowing if it was a
firework or gunshot, and it was mixed with all the sad emotions of leaving
Ukraine. Anyway, it was super fast, super weird, and suddenly I was in tears
and apologizing. But then I was fine, like, two minutes later.
So then we had the Fourth, and you would think "oh
dear, there are tons of fireworks on the Fourth" but we didn't see any.
Yep. Our curfew was 6:00pm, and we were to be inside, weekly planning. But it
was still a crazy awesome Fourth. We went up to Oak Glen that day, the
beautiful mountainous part of our area, and planned to drop off some notes
before going to a park bench to start Weekly Planning. Well, we were walking
down this steep road after dropping off a note, when this little black bear
starts following us. Actually it was a dog, part something, part pitbull, but it
looked like a mini black bear. We kept thinking she would turn around and go
home, but she never did. We got all the way down the road and crossed the
street to our car, and she still followed us. So now we felt guilty, but didn't
want to waste all the time and energy to walk her back up to her house.
So...well...the white handbook doesn't say anything about dogs in the car, so I
opened the passenger door, told her to get in, and she just crawled right into
my lap and we drove that little black bear back home. Opened the door, she
jumped out, and that was that. Then we made it to our park bench to be
surprised by the Palmers, the people we live with, coming out of a trail head.
So that was a pleasant surprise that ended up with them buying us wonderful sandwiches
and eating lunch with us. And then when we really settled down to Weekly Plan
the storm clouds that had been threatening us decided to finally release their
fury upon us in the form of golf-ball sized hail. You should have seen us
trying to gather all of our things and dash to the car. We had to wait out the
storm in the car, and by then it was time to go back down the mountain to
normal Yucaipa. They also got some pretty heavy rain down there. We
thought maybe we could see fireworks from our little house, but all we got was
a beautiful sunset. I was okay with that :)
Saturday we picked up garbage. So our mission president
wants us to be doing around 10 hours of service per week, and when there are no
service projects in the area, we're supposed to go find a busy street and pick
up trash. In our proselyting clothes. So we did just that, and had a great
time. One guy told us we were either the best looking, or best dressed roadside
crew he had seen (not sure which). We had several comments from members on
Sunday asking what in the heck we were doing on the side of the road. Orange
jumpsuits were suggested for future excursions. Saturday we also
got to spend our dinner hour at a BBQ which the whole ward
seemed to be invited to. When they learned we were using our dinner hour,
it was announced the food would now be served so
the Sisters could eat. Talk about embarrassing. But it was great fun
:)
And then Sunday was just awesome. We had seven
investigators make it to church, which is way beyond anything I ever could have
dreamed of. We had an unplanned wonderful lesson with the D family. Some other
great stuff happened. And that night we learned that Sister Webb and I are both
staying! Can you believe a whole transfer has already passed? It blew by. But
anyway, Sister Webb and I are both stoked we get to stay in the Yucaipa First
Ward together. We were so close with so many things - we just couldn't get
transferred. This next transfer is going to be awesome :D
Anyway, so a good week! Hope you all are enjoying your
summer!
Love you!
Sister Tanner
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