Slammed

Hello from Wenatchee!

   This week has been... weird. Just flat out weird!

Sister B and I are both new to the area and the sisters before us pretty much only left us with a recent convert to teach, we knock a lot... like all day everyday. And barely anyone is home. When they are, they either bash us or they just slam the door in our faces. For example, we were knocking this one street and we met this one lady named Claudia. She opened the door, super cheerful and friendly. I introduced us and asked if she has met with missionaries before, and she started laughing. She said she had and pretty much told us that we were going straight to Hell. She started bashing us hard core and pretty much told us the Book of Mormon is the word of the Devil. You can tell that she was getting frustrated. Sis B asked her why and she said our belief and lack of knowledge makes her frustrated. She was practically yelling at us about how different our beliefs are! I don't care if you're a different religion, you should not be yelling when you talk about Christ! You have your own beliefs and we respect that but you should not be yelling when talking about Him. All of the questions she was asking could be answered by reading the BoM. We offered to give her one and she said flat out "I will not read that book because its not true!" Even if it is per say, there is no harm in reading and praying! But she was so closed off that she would have nothing to do with it. Another example: Katie. The previous sisters left us an appointment with her (the only one). Ya she just invited us over to bash us. She said she wanted to prepare to bring stuff up if she ever encounters Mormons again. She also went to a temple open house so she had a lot of sacred questions about the temple that we can't really talk about outside the temple. She had such a hard time with temples, prophets, and the priesthood. I pointed out scriptures the Bible that prove our need for them and you tell that she understood, but she did everything she could to prove us wrong. She made herself believe it was false. Ron: just pretty much telling us that we go to the church of the devil. Mike: his grandson was a referral from a little girl in the ward. He was such a hater over the BoM it was ridiculous. He originally thought that we were Jehovah Witnesses and was telling us that we don't keep the 10 commandments then we corrected him and told him that we were LDS and he said that we don't either because we don't keep the Sabbath Day holy (they think its Saturday). He said he couldn't find a church that obeyed the 10 commandments so he made his own church. He talked to missionaries before and said the BoM was a flat out lie and that its sad that we believe a lie. He told us to throw it in fire and watch it burn! I'm sorry but that's too far! You have your beliefs and I respect that but you don't need to tell people to throw their BoM in the fire! I will never throw my Book of Mormon ,the word of God, in the fire! Every Thursday nights, our bishopric and us go visit people on our ward list that no one really knows who they are. They one guy opened the door and said "Oh you guys are Mormons. Well you excommunicated my grandma for being poor so go get off my porch ok bye!" then slammed the door. To top it off, our water got shut off. So we have to shower every night at the Lewis' (an elderly couple in our ward) and drive to the church every morning to get ready. Every time we walked away from getting bashed though, we had a smile on our faces. We bore strong testimony and felt the Spirit so strong! We could feel the Spirit working through us to them and they used their agency to reject it. We did our best and that's all we can, and we left them all something to think about!

       God knows us! He really does! Every time we started to get discouraged, God put someone in our path to make us laugh! For example, on night we were trying to contact a former investigator and knocked on the door. This old man opened the door... without pants on. Apparently, the person who we were trying to contact moved and now is an old man who does not believe in pants. Luckily, his shirt was long enough to cover everything. Normally, we try to get the person talking as long as possible, but we just let this conversation die. Another night, we were trying to contact a referral named Kyle. It was about8:30 at night so Sis. Bledsoe knocked pretty quietly. I told her that they probably didn't hear it. A lady opened the door and screamed super loud on the top of her lungs... she didn't hear the knock. She was going to spray paint something outside and just sees 2 people in front of her door and screamed. We also knocked into another preacher (or pastor... I don't really know the difference) and he had his black robe-type thing on. The demeanor that he spoke with was just so weird. He asked us what God's name in Greek was and asked us what our first names were. It was just really weird. I don't really know how to describe it.He invited us in but there wasn't a woman there so we couldn't even if we wanted to. Plus if we did, he was probably bash us. On a good note though: Saturday was Make a Difference Day so we did service all day and it was so great! It feels so good to serve people! And to top it off: Sister Linda K. Burton from the General Relief Society Presidency came to Wenatchee!!!!!!!!!! She spoke in the stake center about the Atonement and it was SSSOOO great! She is such a funny woman and she is so human! She definitely knew what I needed to hear and said it word from word! This week has been really hard/funny/ flat out weird and it ended great by being about to be in the same room as Sister Burton and being able to listen to her inspiring words. 

    Hope all is well with all of you guys! Love you all so much! Thank for all that you guys do for me and I always have all of you in my prayers!

-Hermana Rebekah Williams

The people I live with like trolls A LOT

First Transfer!

Hello from Wenatchee! (I'll explain later)

     As usual, this week has been an adventure. And also as usual, I do not remember a thing that happened earlier this week. 

     On Wednesday, we had a Zone Meeting. President and Sister Ware as well as the assistants to the president drove up to East Wenatchee for training and interviews. Elders H and A (the assistants to the pres.)  Gave an awesome training on using the Book of Mormon more effectively in our teaching and using it in every lesson. So good!!! "The Book of Mormon is sacrifices made sacred" The Lord started preparing the BoM more than 2600 years ago just so we can have it today and learn from it. 2600 YEARS AGO!!!!!!!!!!! That is saying in and of itself how important it is! My favorite chapter this week is Mosiah chapter 2. Absolutely amazing! It talks about how we cant do anything by ourselves and praising the Lord for everything in our lives. Super good! After the training, we had interviews with President Ware. Apparently, he and Sister Ware have been thinking about for quite some time now about separating the STL's (sister training leaders). Having 2 STL's still but they will not be companions. But he didn't know who, when, or where. After interviewing both me and Hma. K, he decided to separate us. So I am now in Wenatchee  with Sister B, Englsih speaking. And since Hma. D is a Spanish speaking sister, she is now in East Wenatchee with Hma. K. So we just traded places. We are the guinea pigs for his little experiment of  separating the STL's so we will see how this works out. Of course now that I am finally getting a hold of Spanish, I get moved to be in an English area. Oh well! If it God's will then it will all work out for the better! Sis. Bledsoe has only been in the area for a week longer than me so we are pretty much doubled in again. Since she is a STL, she has been on exchanges like all week and pretty much has only been in the area for a day longer. So we don't know anyone or where anything is. We are ready to work hard and get those miracles!

      Since they had one more exchange, we switched on Friday before weekly planning. So after the training, we had a lesson with Salvador and Carmen. Cant remember if I already told y'all about them but if I haven't, long story short: we met them knocking. They take care of their grandkids and his mom who has cancer and Alzheimers. We had an awesome lesson with them and they said we can come back... so we did. We taught them the Plan of Salvation and they were very engaged in our message about the Resurrection. She stopped cooking to listen to us and he was telling the kids to shut up so he can hear better (which are both really big for hispanics). At the end, we asked them if they come to know for themselves if this is true, if they will "follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding the proper authority of God"... and they said YES!!!!! So of course, once I get a hang of things and have 3 people on date to be baptized... I get ET'ed (emergency transferred) to an English area.

     We are pretty much doubled in and know absolutely nothing, we do a lot of knocking. We got 24 OYM's yesterday. English work is a lot different from Spanish work. White people just slam the door in your face. Hispanics are nice and listen to you, feed you carne asadas, then slam the door in your face. It's nice not being in sketchy trailer parks though. For the first time in 3 months... I was actually able to understand everything being said in church! It was pretty awesome!

     Sorry for the boring letter, but I'm a pretty boring person and not a whole lot has happened. Love y'all tons! and keep on truckin'!

-Hermana Rebekah Williams

(about Cover Photo:  I was wearing red and the name of the street was Red Delicious so I had to....)

Goodbye to Hma K

 Hello to Sister B

 The people I live with have a cockapoo!  Her name is Maggie and she reminds me so much of Fritz!

Good Week!

i Hola de East Wenatchee!

  

     This week has been AMAZING!!! For the first time like ever, I can remember things that happened earlier in the week!!! We had transfers this week (I'm staying) so the people who went home left on Monday to stay in the Mission Home over night and to go to the temple one last time. Hermana R was going home and was freaking out. She ended up forgetting her wallet here!!! I was emailing then I hear Hma. D (her old companion) scream and goes "SHE LEFT HER WALLET!!!!!!" and it had her temple recommend so it's not like someone could bring it up later because they went to the temple that day and her license was in there and all of her cards so she couldn't get on the plane. So a member  drove 2 hours to give her the wallet back (what a saint!) Turns out, she didn't even realized she forgot her wallet. Apparently, she's like addicted to Diet Coke too and forgot her massive Coke.

     Since Hma R left and transfers weren't until Wednesday so Hma. D didn't have a companion, she was with us on Monday evening-Wednesday morning. Tuesday was... interesting... We talked to this 22 year old kid, he was totally hitting on Hma. D! It was the most awkward OYM we have ever had! (Open Your Mouth which is whenever you randomly start talking to someone about the gospel) While we were talking to him, this super fat guy without a shirt on gets out of his car like 200 feet away and yells to us "No thank you! I dont believe in miracles!!"... but we weren't even talking to him. Then like 5 minutes later he yells again, holding a pack of water bottles "I got my holy water!!!" from like 200ft away. So ya, the other guy was totally hitting on her so we said we would send some Elders over (because the Elders were for the YSA ward... and he was creepy) and the first thing he says; "I don't want to talk to guys!" and he was asking us what we do if we see a cute guy and what her type was (super awk) so eventually, we left and walking past the fat guy. So we started to talk to him. He has a giant beer belly that hangs over his super short shorts with no shirt on and has tattoos of naked women on his arms and chest. His shorts say "Mexico" all around the waist band... even though he is super white... so that was fun. After we left him, we walked past this other guy. We didn't really talk to him so we creepily turned around and came up to him when he met us with his wife. Hma. D saw their dog and was like "I'm sorry but I HAVE to pet your dog because he is SSSOOO cute!" So we started talking to them and they are like the coolest people ever!!! They don't go to a certain church because they don't know which one was right (sound familiar?) and he was saying that his daughter had cancer when she was 3 but is now 5 and good as new. He prayed to God everyday, not to ask for her to get better but to thank him on her improvement. One day he prayed and said "Thank you for my daughter and her improvement. Thank you for the doctors and all they do for her. You may take her if you must but if you please let her stay here until she has finished her purpose here on Earth and let us enjoy her a little more, we would greatly appreciate it" then the next day she was cured!!! And one day he prayed while putting his hands on her head. He has no idea why he was but when he did he felt this warmth and power leaving his hands. He removed his hands and put them back on and felt the same warmth! We had a lesson with them on Wednesday and they are super cool! We got there but his wife wasn't home from work yet so he let us in (his mom was home) and gave us sopas and red velvet cake! They were counselling us on college and such after our missions. When we finally got to the lesson, the Spirit was so strong! They pretty much believe in what we do (minus JS, BoM, prophets, stuff like that). We taught the Book the Mormon and he said he would read it. I think that he really wants to know if its true. They speak fluent English so even better! We ended up being there for 2 and a half hours!! Their names are Lenny and Jessie C.

         On Wednesday, the new greenies came! So I'm not the newest one! Ok, I'm still a greenie, but I'm not as green as the others. Hma. G got a new greenie and she looked absolutely lost on Sunday. On Thursday, I had a fat migraine (one of those ones where you feel like you're gonna hurl because it hurts so bad) so I didn't really do a whole lot. I woke up in the middle of the night with a throbbing headache and couldn't sleep very well. Then there's Friday. I went to Quincy to go to Doctrine of Christ class. Totally makes me want to be better! When I get home, I want God to be saying: "My servant [Rebekah], it is no more required at your hand to leave your family as in times past, for your offering is acceptable to me"(D&C 126:1) and I want to "bring honor to [you] all" (Mulan) (you didn't think I would change completely would you?) It was such a good class! Then we planned forever...

    On Friday around noon-ish, we got a call from the District Leader asking if I would give another training... but this is was for a Zone Meeting... on SATURDAY!!!!!!!!! I think I'm going to stop praying to help me love my companion. The first time I did, my companion woke up in the middle of the night hurling violently. This time, I give a training on loving your companion. What the heck? Anywhoo... I gave a crappy training but everyone was being super nice and saying it was so good and blah blah blah. But then we had a lesson and not being afraid to be bold or asking people to be baptized. We did a role play on asking people to be baptized during an OYM. It was super awkward... So later that day, we were knocking doors and ran into a man named Alejandro. He came outside and we taught him the Book of Mormon. We asked him if we can come by again later in the week... he said yes. We asked him to come to church... he said yes. We asked him to be baptized... he said yes! He also thinks our music is super pretty so he listens to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir every morning... who does that?! Alejandro Meta does!!

     Sunday was way cool too! Hma. K has been having a feeling about going by this one house for quite some time but she has just been brushing it off. Finally, at 8:30 last night, we went to the house. The lady is named Elba and is super cool! We starting talking about the Book of Mormon and asked her read 3 Ne. 11 and she was just like "lets do it now" so we went in and started to read it. She was super interested and wants to know more!

    We are going on exchanges again tomorrow (we do once a transfer) but this time, I am staying here and getting Sister B. I say Sister instead of Hermana because she is an english sister... and knows no spanish at all... So I'm on my own pretty much tomorrow! One lesson is with Hector but he speaks some English but we also have one with Alejandro who speaks no English! So I'm screwed...

     Hope all is well with y'all! Love you tons and keep being awesome!

-Hermana Rebekah Williams

about the cover photo: so, some trees ACTUALLY change color! Imagine that!

 Anyone want an apple?

 What is this liquidy stuff falling from the sky?

Finally got some apple pie

i Hola de Washington!

   Such an interesting week! To be honest, I do not remember a thing that happened on Tuesday or Wednesday, BUT of what I do remember, it has been good. So Tuesday and Wednesday must of been pretty uneventful.

     Thursday: This entire transfer and some of the one before this one, Hma. K has had this weird thing where whenever she ate dinner, she felt like she was going to die. Her lungs hurt extremely bad and its hard for her to breathe. Plus, whatever she eats, it just goes right through her so at least she has lost some weight? She finally listened to me and decided she should probably go to the doctor. We got permission by the mission president's wife to go. Our first appointment of the day fell through so we decided that then would be a good time to go. I was waiting in the waiting room by myself waiting for her (it was so weird being alone) so I decided to talk to some of the people waiting... its so hard to do it by yourself. I already have a hard time starting one but it wasn't like I could ask how they were because they were at a doctor's office... so obviously they weren't doing that great. I was talking to one lady who has random sharp pains in her stomach and random violent vomiting so that was fun! That doctor didn't know so he sent us to one in Wenatchee. That one had more hispanics so I had to try to use my spanish by myself... pretty sure they laughed at me when I left. One kid didn't know where San Diego was... That doctor sent us back to the doctor we were originally at. I was in the waiting room for 2 HOURS!!! It was so weird being by myself for that long. First time being alone in public in 3 months! (has it really been 3 months?) That doctor didn't really know so he just gave her 2 inhalers. That's the same doctor office where one sister had to get her blood drawn for some reason and the lady had to ask where she put the needle. So I was in a doctor's waiting room for 4 hours in total by myself. 

     As usual, life is not being very nice for the B family. They got kicked out of the garage they live in yesterday and not do not have a place to live. We asked her on Thursday where they were going to stay and she said "probably under a bridge". We saw them yesterday and asked if they have a house yet, she said all 3 houses they were trying to get fell through and that they were living in their car. I feel so bad for this lady every time I see them!

   Friday... weekly planning...Apparently for 7 hours... Longest process ever invented! The prayer to start it is like 10 minutes in and of itself because you pray for each investigator by name and their needs. Very long and tedious process to plan out the entire week. Then we have Companionship Inventory which is when you say all the good stuff about your companion and their strengths, then your strengths as a companionship then how they can improve and how you can be more obedient and your goals for the week and blah blah blah (because we all know how much I LOVE talking about my feelings...). The assistants to the presidents made this lovely plan. 7...hours... BUT!! for dinner an old lady gave us apple pie! FINALLY!!!! And ice cream... which made my stomach feel like knives were going into my intestines. Apparently my pain was visible because the lady started to laugh and was like "brain freeze?" me: "...ya... brain freeze..." It was so painful. Stupid lactose intolerantness...

    Conference was amazing! All the speakers were so inspiring! Its so cool because this week I have been thinking a lot about the sacrament. I want to take it every week with more meaning and to gain a stronger testimony about the Atonement. Then so many of the talks were about those things! Saturday afternoon was my favorite! Also talked about families and centering them on the Gospel. Gave me stuff to think about wanting for my future family in like 5-10 years but hey! Its something to think about... when I get home. If anyone has not yet seen it, I highly recommend watching them!

    Met some pretty interesting people this week (as usual). Met another pastor and had a lesson with him on Saturday... and his entire hispanic sized family! Didn't really understand a whole lot of what he was saying because he was talking faster than most hispanics, but I could tell it was getting intense! Him and Hma. Kolste had like a Bible-off.  He was trying to convince us that God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are all one person. I brought up John 3:16-17 but they totally skipped over the "God... sent his Only Begotten Son" part. They were so closed minded that we didn't really get very far and ended up going to dinner an hour late. Yesterday, we met a guy that tried to tell us that Christ was not resurrected, his body was abducted by aliens... so that was interesting! We had a pretty interesting conversation and he said we can come back tomorrow so this should be interesting!

    Hope all is well with all y'all! I love you all so much thank you so much for all of your thoughts, prayers. love, and support! I pray for all of you guys everyday!

-Hermana Rebekah Williams