Leoba & The Magnolias
This is a story about how God answers prayers even when you are very much so on the edge of losing your mind. And it starts out as a little sad but ends in a series of miracles, so stay with me friends <3
- Shae and Jenn, best friends who got baptized in January and February, had officially DROPPED OFF THE PLANET. Which made Sister Chandler and I feel like the worst missionaries in existence. We hadn't seen them in weeks, not once did they answer their door when we dropped by, and neither of their phones were working. It literally had brought us to the point of tears. These are our PEOPLE. Not to mention some of our dearest friends at this point. Heavenly Father trusted us with these souls and we couldn't even keep track of the people who already had made these promises to Him, let alone find new ones who were ready to do so.
-We spent a huge chunk of this week shuffling sisters around because transfer week! We'd had next to no time to work in our own area, and were for sure feeling the weight of that. Nothing in mission is about numbers in the least, but we recognized that Heavenly Father had set certain expectations for us and that we were lacking. Plus we knew that we couldn't ask our sisters to do anything that we ourselves were not consistently doing.
-We have been praying for weekssssssssss to find Shae and Jenn, as well as to find new people to teach. Thank heavens yesterday was Fast Sunday here. (watch this if you love me, I promise you it will be whatever it is that you need https://www.youtube.com/
-Our darling member Demi randomly brought a new friend to church who LOVED it and set up a time for us to come teach her on Tuesday.
-We were walking to our car when we saw only the most beautiful tree I've ever seen and stopped to admire it. Out comes this adorable little German woman (hey Kami) who felt the need to tell us all about her trees and her 200 pet ducks that come every morning and her sweet husband Conrad who planted Magnolia trees all over her lawn when she was fighting cancer. Conrad passed away 16 years ago, and mid sentence she stopped and looked at me and said "Where do we go after we die?" We lit up, taught her right there, and made plans to come back later this week :))) LEOBA IS GETTING BAPTIZED JUST YOU WAIT TEAM. We literally walked back to our car in shock.
-Though we had already stopped by once with no luck, we used the last 20 minutes of our week to flyyyyy to Shae and Jenn's across town and knocked on their door one last time. Holding our breaths. Shae's car was there but nobody answered and our hearts absolutely broke. The last note we'd left was gone too. Thank heavens the Spirit told us to stay put for a moment. So we did, until Shae eventually made her way to the door and pulled us in and we all just stood in that hallway and hugged and you'd better believe Sister Chandler and I were saying a million gratitude prayers in our minds and turns out they are just as solid as ever, just also super, super poor uni students :) They're both working three jobs, never home, can't afford to pay their phone bills, exhausted beyond belief, and SO bummed that they haven't been able to make it to church. I wish I could explain better to you the relief we felt in that moment. Ah. God is way better to us than we deserve.
-We walked back to our car and Sis. Chandler turned to me and said, "I've been praying to experience the Atonement in a different way, and now I understand why we experienced all of this." My first reaction was to tell her to never EVER pray for that again because that was the WORST experience. But at the same time I'm so grateful for a brilliant, genuine companion who wants nothing more than to do what God expects of her.
I love you all to pieces, WATCH THAT VIDEO and watch every minute of conference and trust that ANSWERS COME. Sometimes not until the last 20 minutes before the last curfew of the week. And loads of prayers. But they come.
xoxo Sis. Reags Curtis
FOTOS
1. P-Day beaching after feeding the sealssss.
2. "If you can catch it, you can keep it."
3. Sis. Chandler's HS reunion, aka YSA conference with all the Vancouver kids.
4. Downtown with Sis. Chandler and Sis. Webster
5. Last fam dinner before Christl left us for Vancouver :((
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