WEEK 22: Unfinished Business

Hello hello!!

We are coming at you live from Henderson, NV! Again! Yep, that's right. I'm back in the Railroad Pass zone! Back where it all began...

It was quite a shock getting my transfer news Sunday night, but the phrase "unfinished business" has been ringing through my head all week. I am absolutely convinced that there's a reason I've been brought back here. My goal is to find out what that reason is! I'm really trying to focus on being in tune with the Spirit and listen closely to feelings and thoughts I have. I hope to see a lot of growth this transfer. I hope to end this transfer with "further light and knowledge" regarding myself, my service as a missionary, and maybe, hopefully, just life in general.

But before I get into every new thing from this week, I'm taking y'all on a little flashback trip to the olden days--way back to my time in Sunrise (so basically, we're only flashing back to Monday afternoon). After we dropped off Hermana Wright at the mission office, we got to be a trio with Hermana Madsen!! Trio life is so much fun. We finished cleaning the house, somehow got my stuff completely packed, and spent time with our district. A really sweet couple in the Elders' area took us out to dinner at Olive Garden, and it was fun to spend a little bit more time with the district before parting ways!

Tuesday morning we managed to get the bike rack more or less secured (it was a struggle for no reason) onto our car and then we were off to the mission office. And before I knew it I was settled in to my new home! I keep having a weird dejavu-type feeling when we're out and about. My new area bumps up against the area where I was trained in, so places and streets are weirdly familiar to me, yet my sense of direction is completely wrong. We cover three wards: Black Mountain, Wells Park, and Desert Rose. All day every day I try to guess which ward we're in, and all day every day my guesses are wrong. The streets here make NO SENSE. I am very passionate about the grid system (thank you, Utah), and the fact that the streets here are so chaotically named and organized is a struggle for me. But I'm learning. I hope.

I am already learning SO MUCH from Sister Welch! She is so genuinely in love with the people that live here, and the way she interacts with our friends and the members is so sweet. I definitely want to become better at showing more enthusiasm and joy. She's really good at it, and it makes a huge difference in the lives of the people we teach when they can see and feel just how much she loves them.

Speaking of our people, we have some wonderful friends here! Vance is our friend who is progressing that fastest right now. He told us in our lesson on Wednesday that he wants to work towards baptism!! Which is a huge step, as just a few weeks ago he didn't believe that Jesus Christ is the Savior. But his testimony has recently been strengthened, and now he's all in. He has some Word of Wisdom concerns to overcome, but we're hopeful he could be baptized in December! So please keep Vance in your prayers!!

We are also teaching a man named Dewayne. As of today I still have not met him in person, but we have had quite a few lessons over the phone with him, and he's so sweet! We had a cool experience on Friday with him. Before picking up the phone, Sister Welch and I really wanted to share Alma 24:14 in the Book of Mormon with him, but we decided to let him pick what we share. He loves to blindly flip through the Book of Mormon and then randomly pick a page to read, so we decided to do that. It was kind of tricky over the phone, but Sister Welch was blindly flipping through her scriptures and told Dewayne to tell her to stop whenever he wanted. He waited a few seconds on the line as she thumbed through the pages, and then said "Okay, stop." When Sister Welch opened to the page she'd stopped on, we literally about died. Lo and behold, he had randomly picked and she had opened to Alma 24!!! (Coincidence? I think NOT!) We silently celebrated with Dewayne waiting on speaker and then read verse 14 to him:

"And the great God has had mercy on us, and made these things known unto us that we might not perish; yea, and he has made these things known unto us beforehand, because he loveth our souls as well as he loveth our children; therefore, in his mercy he doth visit us by his angels, that the plan of salvation might be made known unto us as well as unto future generations."

Isn't that such a cool verse?? God literally loves us so much. And He's given us everything we need to know to return to His presence because He loves us. We knew God before this life, and we must learn to know Him again in this life. We have everything we need to be able to do that!

We had a wild experience on Wednesday. It was almost time to go home, around 8:30pm. We had one last door to knock--a guy named Rex who hadn't had contact with missionaries in over a year. On our way to the front door, a group of people walked out of the house and we asked them if they knew Rex. One guy immediately told us to come inside, herded us into the entryway, and then disappeared around the corner. When I say this house was full, I mean it was FULL. People were leaving, food was all over the counter, and everyone was saying hi to us. Clearly we had just intruded on an early Thanksgiving celebration, but everyone was so nice and welcoming to us. Rex eventually came around the corner, and we introduced ourselves and asked if he would he interested in a holiday message, or if we could do anything for his family. He told us he wasn't interested and we were about to leave when the first guy came back and started telling us to grab a plate of food. We denied him 3 times, and by the 4th we decided it would be better just to grab something quickly and get home. But then he and Rex started PILING food onto our plates, threw them into the microwave, and ushered us into the living room. We sat down on the couch and we started to get to know them. This incredible family told us about their jobs, gave both Sister Welch and I life advice, and then had us participate in their family tradition: everyone who joins them for Thanksgiving signs the tablecloth, and the wife embroiders the signatures. They gave us sharpies and we left our signatures. Literally before we knew it, it was 9:30pm and we had spent a full hour in their home. It was only at this point that the grandpa, who had been talking to Rex on the side, turned to us and said, "Wait. You DON'T actually know Rex??" 

The whole situation was very reminiscent of the '90s romcom "While You Were Sleeping" starring Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman, (a.k.a. absolute icons)--a family welcomes a stranger into their home, everyone becomes besties, and then they learn there was never an actual connection beforehand. I was completely shocked at how welcoming they were to us, even after learning we didn't actually know any of them. They made us feel like family. We asked if we could share a message before leaving, which they didn't want. But said if we ever need or want anything, the door is always open. To us, complete strangers! It was absolutely amazing. And, I got to feel like Sandra Bullock as Lucy Eleanor Moderatz, so that's a plus.

Friday night we were invited to a gingerbread house building party! A couple of members started it 20 years ago and every year it gets bigger. Our vision for our gingerbread home was to create the temple. Unfortunately, both Sister Welch and I have terrible vision (both figuratively and literally, lol) and we only had 45 minutes to get it done. So, we settled for a pretty rickety chapel. It immediately fell apart as soon as we put it into our car, even though it had plenty of time to solidify. (Rude!). Basically all that I contributed was the small palm tree made of a singular tootsie roll and a green Reece's peanut butter cup in the corner (this also immediately fell apart as soon as we moved it). But it was still a fun night!

Sister Welch was not feeling well over the weekend, so I've had a lot of downtime. It's been nice to settle in and have quiet time to paint, study, and clean. You can tell I've had a lot of time to myself because this email is gigantic, and for that I apologize. Just lots of updates this week! If any of you feel so inclined, I ask that you keep our friends Vance, Dewayne, Sarah, Sherea, Mark and Paysen, and Amanda in your prayers. We have faith that their hearts will soften and their desire to progress forward will increase! Also that Sister Welch will get feeling better!

Last minute addition: Bishop Bowden's wife (from my Sunrise area) has been fighting cancer for 4 years, and they've been anxiously trying to get her stronger as they wait for their son to return home from his mission in the spring. Sister Bowden unfortunately passed away this weekend. Please say so many prayers for their family right now. It's very heavy.

Thank you thank you!! I love you all. I hope you had a fabulous Thanksgiving and that you're fully geared up for Christmas. It's officially the most wonderful time of the year!!

Love,

Sister Malmstrom

231 W Horizon Ridge Pkwy #2226 Henderson, NV 89012

Pictures:

- Lé trio at Olive Garden!

- Sister Salazar and I with our capes!! (Thank you, Kathy!! #capecrusaders)

- Signatures on the tablecloth

- Sunrise Mountain from Henderson!

- Picture with our friends Sarah and Lance! They made us and the YSA sisters al pastor tacos as evidence that we are "officially homies". It was a total win.

- Gingerbread house activity!

- Picture with the Robinsons--our ward mission leader and his wife--after Thanksgiving. They're the best people in the whole world!

- Picture with Bishop Cain and his family, also after Thanksgiving.