Letter 1/20/10

Dear Family Type Peoples,

It’s been a loooong week. 2 days wouldn’t normally be a long time, but when it’s two extra days before P-day it’s a bit harder. So I survived and so did my companion….but it was close!

Last week, around this time, Sister Halladay got sick. So I had my first sick day on the mission in Washington. My first two sick days.

The poor sister had made herself sick because of stress, but she didn’t figure it out until much later (about the 2nd day) what was wrong.

President Blanchard knows how to d this one thing, I’m not sure what it’s called…and sister Blanchard said it’s called “stress Management” where he asks if we’re ‘balanced in all 28 areas of your energy field.” And when you hold your arm up and he pushes on the arm if you answer ‘yes’ and it’s true, then your arm stays firm, but if it’s not true then it goes down and you can’t stop it from going down. So he asked sister Halladay if her sickness was related to stress and she answered, ‘yes’ and her arm stayed up. He asked a couple other questions and couldn’t get everything straightened out, but in the end Sister Halladay got better. President Blanchard also says that verbally forgiving others and ourselves for things also helps relieve stress. Like “I forgive that guy for cutting me off and I forgive myself for getting made at him.” It does help.

So Saturday we had president’s interviews, which was part of sister Halladay’s stress and that helped be happier when it was over, and it was nice to have a somewhat normal companion back.

Sunday no one came to church or to cottage meeting (a meeting that missionaries can take their investigators to and recently baptized members talk about their experiences with the missionaries and the church etc.) which as frustrating. Our investigators are improving though ;)

Monday was long for me. By dinner I was about ready to flop down on a moderately flat, warm surface and sleep until morning. I flopped on the couch for about 5 minutes, then went elsewhere to pray and felt better, so I ate then we went to do FHE with the Deaf Branch. It was fine the rest of the night. ;)

Tuesday we had District meeting again and the zone leaders were in charge of it this time and they talked about the area book and how to use it to become more effective missionaries. It was very helpful and helped us to bring up coffee again to Kristina.

In the past Kristina would not give up the coffee at all, wouldn’t even think about it because ‘we’re living in the Northwest!’ But when we had a great conversation with her that started out solemn because things kept coming up, like she let us know that her apartment had given her a 3-day notice because the bill hadn’t been paid for January, because she’s on disablility and her dad wasn’t able to help with things this month.

We let her know that the reason all these things kept happening was because Satan was opposing her getting baptized on the 30th of this month. It made sense to her and the conversation continued and coffee came up again. Af first she oppsed giving it up again, but after a while she started to accept it, eve if she doesn’t really like it.

Today we went to the temple, which is why we didn’t’ have p-day until today. In this mission they/we get to go to the temple every 6 months or so. I thought it was pretty neat to go through another temple in a different state.

After we went to Olive Garden as a district and had a good time there. All 4 elders (our zone leaders are in our district too, but had to go with the other district because they need another car.) got the all you can eat soup, salad and bread sticks and kept it all coming for a good amount of time. Elders are funny.

Well, I think that’ about as exciting as it gets this week! Love you all!

Love Sis. Of Durtschi, Sarah.