The transfer call strikes again!!!

Honestly, I think zone leaders enjoy doing transfer calls too much. Here`s what our conversation was like last Saturday:

ZL: Are you ready for your transfer call?

Us: Yes!

ZL: Sister Shaver - you are...(suspense)....GOING.....to.....Riverside!

Me: Where is that? (Ottawa) What language? (English) etc.

ZL: Oh, and Sister Shaver?

Me: Yes?

ZL: ....... You`re training!

*explosion on our side of the phone*

Yes! So Sister Hinkson is going home, elders are moving into our area, and I am flushing into an area and TRAINING! Whaaaaa! And it`s a little bit complicated, but from what I gather, there are already sisters where we`re going - who are staying - but they`re becoming exclusively Spanish sisters, and we are taking over their area. But they`re keeping their apartment and car etc. which means that on top of whitewashing, I`m also going into a new apartment! (There are pros and cons to this...)

So, that`s my exciting news for the week. It took me like 3 hours to fall asleep that night because there`s SO much to do in the next few days! Our members and investigators are really sad about it. Those poor elders. But I`m sure they`ll warm up to them quickly. :)

This necklace was given to me by an African family. It's in the shape of Cameroun.

Otherwise, it`s been a generally good week! Nothing else major happened except that one of our less-actives actually came to church for the first time in forever! Yay! 

Our peanut butter party snacks.

It`s bittersweet leaving an area. I won`t have a chance to say goodbye to some of the people I really got to love. 

But I am WAY excited for this next adventure!
Sister Shaver

My district is (was) Elder Sumsion, Elder Gonzalez, me, Sister Hinkson, Sister Meldrum and Sister Rawlings

There IS a plan!

A 30-minute zone training and sacrament meeting talk later and I`m still here! Wow! Amazing! Actually, I really enjoyed doing both of those! I didn`t end up being as nervous as I thought I would be to give the zone training. We did a little skit at the beginning that got people interested and laughing right away, and it turned out to be pretty good! It was cool to meet the zone. I didn`t know anyone. But I did meet up with Sister Beaumont, who`s also from BC. :)

One of the things I love about missionary life is that God always has a plan for our day - He just doesn`t always let us know what it is! But generally, when the plans we made don`t work out, it`s because there`s somewhere else that He needs us to be in that moment. This week a lot of lessons got canceled last-minute. But that was okay because it gave us opportunities to do other things we otherwise wouldn`t have thought of! 

For instance, yesterday we went to an appointment with a less-active who turned out not to be home. So instead we dropped by a former investigator who lived in the same complex and we ended up actually getting in and having a long conversation with this woman from Uganda. She`s a single mother of three working to learn English (an opportunity she missed because of having spent her childhood fleeing from one war-torn African country to another) so she can get her high school diploma so she can better support her family. We meet the most interesting people! That`s another thing I love about being a missionary! We also ran into this man who had traveled all over the US and visited Salt Lake and when we offered him a Book of Mormon he was like, "I already have one of those!" So that was cool.

I think that`s about all I have to say this week! I can`t believe this is already the last week of the transfer! Time flies when you`re having fun ;) 

Soeur Shaver

      

Sister Hinkson is going home next week!

   

This is the house I live in right now. The mom of the family sometimes leaves us food in our room...  

 "Eet Smakelijk!" is Dutch for "Bon Appetit!"

Friendly ducks, phone calls, and dignity

A really cool thing happened the other day! Sister Hinkson and I stopped by a less-active member to see how he was doing and see if we could maybe have a lesson with him. He happened to be available, so we went to a nearby park where we sat at a picnic table that was surrounded by probably 50+ ducks. I`ve never met such friendly ducks. It was strange. 

But that wasn`t the cool thing! While we were talking, an old man on a scooter drove up next to us and said something like (rough translation), "Oh, I was hoping you were eating something and I could maybe grab some" (jokingly) and the man we were teaching looked at his scriptures and was like, "No... but we are feasting on the word." And then that led into a Gospel discussion with this stranger who had some really sincere questions, and the one with whom we had been in the middle of a lesson got to bear his testimony about the topic we had been teaching! The stranger said he didn`t have a phone number but accepted a mormon.org card and said he`d call us.

But the REALLY cool thing is that he actually did call the next day!!! Unfortunately it was while we were in church so we didn`t answer, but he left a message and said he`d try again later! (Just so you know, when people say they`re going to call us, they don`t. Almost ever.)

Aside from that, the only other cool news I can think of right now is that Sister Hinkson and I have been asked to give a training on dignity at the next zone training meeting this week! It`s exciting! But also a little bit nerve-wracking. This zone is almost twice as big as my last zone. We`re looking forward to it though!

Until next week!

Soeur Shaver