Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Dropping like flies

Monday, March 26, 2012 (email)

Hi ya!

Subject line: we keep getting dropped by people. Its frustrating, but its not the end of the world. We know they will come around soon, but we have to wait. I am at peace about the situations. I know how to handle it. Sister Nay had been really pushy with people recently, and they are pushing back, so this might clue her in to why I extend so much love for people and why I am content to go slower with people. I told her last night that I would rather move slower now, than too quickly, have them back out, and take many months if not years to come around again. I don't know if she agrees with me, but I made sure to share my opinion.

I had something I wrote in my Preach My Gospel a while back stand out to me: If the Savior walked into a room, you would PHYSICALLY feel his love. When I teach people, as a messenger of Christ, can they feel His love through me? They should.

So now my goal is to work on exuding love more. I'm not sure how to accomplish the task, but I'm going to try. I know that by serving them we will learn to love more, but they are stubborn and don't want help. Maybe I will be pushy about helping others, but then just love the Heck out of them. :) Do you think it will work?

This was the busiest week we have had in Cortez, and it was great! We got so much done. We picked up more new investigators than ever before since I've been here, taught a good number of lessons, and made lots of progress. The district leader was impressed, and the zone leaders were so impressed that they called to tell us about it! WOOT!!!!

This coming week we have 2 more days of training directly from the mission president. I am really excited about it, except that I have to drive 2 hours each direction, for 2 days, and do it after sleeping on the floor...Its fun, but its rough. :)

Here are my big things for the week: I blew my nose in an actual handkerchief! Surprisingly more exciting than I thought it would be. And I tried sauerkraut. (On a hot dog....and it was AWESOME!)

Love you lots!!!!
Sister Wilkins

Happy General Conference Weekend!! I'll be thinking about you all!
"Holland is my Hero!"

Monday, March 19, 2012

Baptismal Dates...Satan must be around the corner

Monday, March 19, 2012 (email)

Good Morning Everyone!

I don't think I have any funny stories to talk about this week. We had a special 2 Day Zone training in Durango, Colorado on Tuesday and Wednesday. Its only an hour drive, but getting up at the crack of dawn and driving and then sitting all day, and driving again can take it out of you. We had the Monticello Sisters spend the night with us, and it was a fun couple of days. Sister Kost is serving in Monticello, so it was nice to have her back around.

On Tuesday Sister Nay and I volunteered to sing after lunch to bring the spirit back to our meeting. I was kind of nervous, and I had a cold, but it went really well. We added a verse on missionary work to hymn 219. I was really proud of myself that I just jumped up and did it!

We had interviews with President Jones, and it was a really nice experience. It was the best interview I have had with him. He could tell that I had progressed as a missionary, even if I couldn't. And he assured me that I was capable of training in the Lord's way. He gave me some tips on working with Sister Nay, and helping her to calm her passionate side. I felt reassured in my abilities, and ready to get to work.

The next day was more training..and I realized that I was a much better missionary than I had thought. I couldn't see how much I had changed until I had someone to compare myself to. For example, Sister Nay has a hard time teaching simply...which is something I struggled with for a LONG time. And I was able to see what I had implemented and taken out of my teaching to make things better. I felt so good about myself. I realized how far I had come and that I could keep up this momentum. I look forward to seeing my total progress...

Last week I mentioned Jamie. She has really touched our hearts. We taught her about the plan of Salvation, and set a baptismal date with her. Then we were able to get her and her family to come to a Child of Record Baptism on Saturday. She was very moved, and even more excited
about her baptism. We had a lesson at the church and talked about what they had seen and experienced. Her 12 year old nephew jumped in and said he wanted to be baptized too! WOAH.

Jamie is a smoker, and we tried an AWESOME stop smoking program with her. It is fool proof if you follow all of the rules. You can seriously be a non smoker with no cravings in 7 days.... Well.... she didn't follow the rules. We just found out about it this morning. We will keep moving forward with her. She wants to step down little by little with the smoking, so I guess we have to take it at her pace.

I have to get going. My companion is chomping at the bit again.

I love you all.

Sister Melinda Wilkins

Monday, March 12, 2012

the Goat...

Monday, March 12, 2012 (email)

HELLO!!!!!!!

We got attacked by a goat last night. No Joke. We tried to contact a referral, and they had a goat. He is NOT nice. I have met him a couple times before trying to contact this woman. Well, yesterday he chased my companion around the car and she screamed and squawked as he ran behind her. Then he jumped on the hood of our Jeep and pranced around up there. My companion freaked out, jumped in the back seat as I yelled at the goat and got in the car. I eventually got him off and we drove off. It was definitely the BEST tracting story I have had yet!!!! I got a photo of it too!

Being a trainer is so much responsibility!!! But I think I can do it because I have the Lord on my side. Plus he wouldn't have given me the challenge if he didn't think I could do it.

My trainee is Sister Kathleen Nay. She is 22 and from Wisconsin. She is the most excited missionary I have ever met. She had so much energy! She wanted to literally run from place to place. But eventually her energy levels mellowed out and I was able to keep up. She has the most faith out of any missionary I have ever met! She believes that absolutely anything is possible... which it is... but she believes that it will all happen every day! I will not be the one to burst her bubble! I refuse to be a negative voice in her head. I don't even show her when I'm discouraged, because I want her to see all the positiveness of missionary work.

She did a couple semesters at BYU-I, but she has worked a long time to put herself on her mission. She is a determined little booger. She is such a hard worker and I am thrilled to work with her. She has huge potential to be one of the greatest missionaries this mission has ever seen. She HATES study time and planning... but I love those. I think it will even us out. If I can get her to like planning, studying, and keep her current fire, nothing will stop her!

We had a miserable experience this week. The woman we have been teaching, Linda, broke our hearts. On Monday before Sister Patrick left, we had an extremely spiritual lesson that had some of the most powerful promptings ever. We committed her to be baptized and met with her every day this week. She was the most prepared of any person I have ever met. Our dreams were dashed when she called Saturday night and canceled the appointment, all further appointments, and the baptism. She didn't have the support of her alcoholic husband and wouldn't move forward until they were on the same page. It was miserable.

But the work moves on. We do have a new gal, Jamie, who is about as amazing as they come! I will fill you in on her more later! I love you all. Happy Birthday Lauren!!

Love,

Sister Wilkins

Monday, March 5, 2012

BIG NEWS!!!

Monday, March 5, 2012 (email)

Well, I'm having a baby!!!

Slow down your breathing, and imagine my face with a giant smirk.

Here's the story: This last Saturday was Transfer News night. Sister Patrick and I were not worried about anything because we felt like we were just now getting our feet under us. We felt like we finally knew how to work together, and that we had only been together one transfer... Around 2:00 pm the missionaries start texting each other asking if they know anything about transfers. President usually makes leadership and training calls around lunch on the day we get transfer news. People try to peice together as much info as they can before the official call later that night. We got all the texts and didn't have any info. We were told who was training, and thought, "whew! we are safe." We let our guard down. Bad plan. At three we were about to go tracting, and there was a call. I thought it was Shiprock. Nope. It was President!!!!

He asked if I would accept the call to train a new sister missionary!!!! Yes sir I will. "Do you have any questions? Do you think you can handle it?" "Well, with the Lord's help, can't I do
anything?" "Oh good sister, you do understand. I'm proud of you. I will see you Tuesday morning."

Sooooo....I'm training! Wow. Didn't expect that now. Maybe next transfer, but didn't see that coming. I'm not scared, just nervous. I feel at peace about the situation. I could worry and play the "What If" game", but that only fills me with doubt and fear, which is NOT from Heavenly Father. I will rely on him, and hopefully I can help "raise his daughter right."

Missionaries joke that your trainer is your parent. So my mother would be Sister Tsosie, and my Step Mother is Sister Thomas. ....With that in mind, I am going to be a Mom....hence, "I'm having a baby!" The REALLY cool thing is that Sister Tsosie goes home this week, so she gets to be a grandmother for 1 day of her mission (she has one day where she, my greenie and I are all serving here.)

Other cool news...Sister Patrick is going to SHIPROCK!!! Seriously. The crazy thing is that Sister Kesler is still there!!!! I hope Sister Kesler can help her to loosen up. She needs some more joy and silliness in her life.

Well, that's the best news I can come up with!! I love you all!

Have a great week!!!

Love,
Sister Wilkins

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

PRAYER WORKS! Prayer Works! prayer works!

Monday, February 27, 2012 (email)

Hello Everyone! Can you imagine me running around and skipping and proclaiming that? because I was!

We had a miraculous experience this week! We had our temple trip fall through again and we were getting extremely discouraged. Nothing seemed to work. (Which meant Satan was doing all he could to keep us from going.) But then, we ran into a member on Friday morning and she
just randomly asked if we were allowed to go to the temple and if we wanted to join her the next morning!?!?! We were stunned but tried to hide it (she told us later that we didn't do a very good job of it.) We made some calls to leadership and got the ok! SWEET! There was nothing that could mess up our plans that bad in 24 hours.

WRONG. We were out and about in the truck searching for a less active member. We took a road we thought would get us there. We could see the tracks of other vehicles, so we figured it was safe to take it. Well, we started sliding on the ice and were so excited to get to the dirt. It wasn't dirt. The ice had melted and turned the dirt into MUD. Slimy mud. We started sliding pretty darn good. I got it to stop, put it in 4 high...nothing. We just slid down the embankment a little, and closer the the fence...the barbed wire fence. Ok, 4 low....we kept sliding towards the fence. I stopped. We parked and got out.

I knew I didn't have the driving knowledge to get us out of the situation without getting us into major trouble first. I called Sister Kesler who has lots of mud experience, and she nearly peed her pants laughing at me. She insisted I call the vehicle coordinator. Dang.

I called and he insisted on a tow. UGH.

Called the tow guy, got all the details to him, and he said it would take him at least an hour to get to us. Double ugh! Because the sun was going down and we were sinking in the mud a couple inches up our boots. He said if he couldn't get the truck out, he would have to come in the morning when the ground was frozen and get it. NO GOOD. We wanted to go to the temple at first light.

Sister Patrick started freaking out and getting really upset. I didn't want to focus on the negative, so to her frustration, I started singing Primary songs. Poor thing, Sister Patrick, she was going to get the spirit into her whether she liked it or not.

A couple minutes into singing a farmer drove up on his 4 wheeler, and told us to cancel the tow. He instructed me what to do and pushed us out when needed. It was AWESOME!!! We got onto the road, thanked him, gave a prayer of thanks, and went on our merry way.

PRAYER WORKS. PRAYER WORKS. PRAYER WORKS.

Well, that was my story! Have a great week!

Sister Melinda Wilkins

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

I Don't Have Anything Clever To Put Here

Tuesday, February 21, 2012 (email)

Hi. Still no way to attach photos, but I'm working on it.

I feel lame, because I don't have anything REALLY interesting or funny to tell you...

We were thrilled this week to get 2 new investigators. One for each ward! That's exciting because one ward has all the work, and the other ward is usually asleep. The first one is Aubani... she was a former investigator who felt pressured into baptism, so she backed off. She and her less-active husband recently had a new baby, and they realize that they want to be an eternal family. She knows deep down that she wants to be baptized, but she wants to do it at her own pace. We will gladly agree to that.

The other investigator is Linda. She recently married an extremely less-active man and he talked to her a bit about his beliefs, and then we got a not connected referral to go see her. She was raised Baptist and is very strong in that religion. Sister Patrick was practically asleep and totally at a loss of what to say to this woman. I felt just as confused and couldn't think of what to do, but I had to fake confidence so the whole appointment didn't fall through. All I could think of was to ask her to explain her beliefs so I could compare our religions for her. She told me, and me still being dumb drew a blank...."How in the world am I going to tell her what we believe and not forget any important parts?" Wow. I'm dumb. Thank heavens the Holy Ghost has his head on straight and can help dodo's like me. "GET OUT YOUR ARTICLES OF FAITH!!!!" he yelled at me. "Oh, that could work..." So I started going through each one, and eventually it led to questions she had about Joseph Smith, priesthood authority, and the Book of Mormon! It led into the message of the Restoration PERFECTLY!! When we presented the Book of Mormon to her, and asked her to pray about it, she said, "Well of course. I was already planning on it! Should we do it right now?" We tried to hide our shock and surprise, but gladly placed our hands in hers as she prayed with us right then and there. WHOA!! Thank heavens the Spirit was there to help a dummy like me.

On Saturday we attended the baptisms of Morgan and Troy. Morgan was afraid of the water, but he had a change of heart the night before the baptism and was a completely different boy. He was courageous and excited and couldn't stop smiling. I cried as he stepped into the font with his shoulders squared and a confident smile on his face. Hooray!!

We were going to attend the temple today, but our ride fell through. Satan is doing all he can to keep us from going. We will try again next week.

I love you all very much. Have a fantastic week!

Sister Melinda Wilkins

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Happy Valentines Day!

Tuesday, February 14, 2012 (email)

Happy day of love everyone!

Why am I writing on Tuesday? Long story. Last week our district decided to go to the temple today. We had to sell an arm and a leg to get someone to take us there, but we were willing to do it because its the temple. We switched p-day from monday to tuesday, and worked all day yesterday....But then a nasty storm hit last night and the district leader canceled the trip...so we had a wonky p-day, and no temple. Oh well. We will try again. I'm just stoked that the temple is
an option!

I bought an uploader to send photos, but the computers at this library won't recognize anything. UGH!!!! I'm kinda peeved. But its not the end of the world. I guess I will just have to make a CD of photos at Walmart and send it to mom and dad for them to put on the blog.

Last Tuesday we had Zone Conference in Bloomfield!!! That's a 2 hour drive and 2 zones away. We spent all day driving, and I was totally asleep before my head even hit the pillow.

But there isn't much to talk about this week. Things are still rough. There isn't much work to do. We spend all day looking up less active families and no one is home. We visit referrals and get all no's. We tract cold, windy, country roads for hours on end, and get....nothing. I'm surprised at how positive I have been. I'm serious, but somehow Heavenly Father always helps me keep a smile on. I think that is my role in life: be the smile that helps the really important people stay
focused and energized. There isn't really a great work for me, I'm just the helper of the greats. I can handle that. I'm good at smiling.

The best thing and worst thing of the week are the 2 baptisms this weekend. They are great because they are BAPTISMS!!! Its not so great because we just found out that they don't count for our numbers. We were under the impression that they counted, but things got clarified
and they don't. Oh well. Not the end of the world. At least we get to keep that warm fuzzy feeling of being helpful for Morgan and Troy. They are truly terrific little boys. I love being around them. They make it all worth it.

Oh, and we stopped by that less active family's home who were about to kick us off the porch, but then let us in. He answered the door, but he was beaming!! and so happy to see us! WOAH! MIRACLE! She wasn't home, but we are going to stop by tomorrow.

Well, I have to go! love you lots!

Love,
Sister Wilkins