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| Just a bunch of Sisters, hanging at the mission conference |
Which movie is better......Alvin and the Chipmunks or The Lego Movie?
So if you could email me your response, that would be fantastic. Anyways, now that that order of business if out of the way, let's talk about my week!
So, Elder Rasband. Seriously, the absolute coolest experience ever. Hearing from any apostle is such a unique and incredible opportunity, but it was so cool to have him speak to us because he himself served a mission in New Jersey when he was in his youth. It was pretty special that he had that connection with all of us, and I absolutely loved hearing his thoughts and testimony. He spoke mostly about missionary work (shocker, right?), and focused a lot on how we can stay motivated to actually do missionary work. I am not going to lie, missions are SO. HARD. They are difficult physically, spiritually, emotionally, and mentally. Some days it is really hard to actually get yourself to leave your house and go have people reject you for hours on end. Don't get me wrong, of course there are incredible and positive experiences that happen too, but they are more rare than we would hope for.
Life as a missionary can really take a toll on you, but he shared with us a "formula" that I think can also be applied to our lives, even when we are not missionaries. He told us that 1. the more we learn about Christ 2. the more we love Him and 3. the greater our desire to serve Him. The more we study the life of Christ, the more we learn about Him and his teachings, the more we will love Him. The more we learn about the Atonement, and how Christ can help us because He has literally felt anything we could ever experience as mortals, the more we will turn to Him and ask for His help. The more I think about my Savior, and all that He has done for me in my own life, the more I desire to serve others and help them draw closer to Christ. Even when it is scary, I talk to people because I know if they allow it to, this will help them in their lives. As I said, missionary work is hard, but I wouldn't change it for anything. I know that I am still relatively new to all of this, but my mission has already changed my life in more ways than I can count.
Anyways, his talk was literally incredible and I learned so much spiritual goodness. Afterward, I literally felt like I had to lay down because my head had just been crammed with so much light and knowledge. It definitely got me pumped to hit the streets and get to work!
Other once in a (mission) lifetime opportunities: going to a street fair. We decided we wanted to visit some less-active members, so I looked at our list of people and felt drawn to this one woman's name, so we put it into the GPS and headed off. As we got closer, we hit a bunch of traffic, and could see police lights in the distance. We rolled down our windows to try and figure out what was going on, and we hear Blacked Eyed Peas blaring in the distance. Finally, we get close enough to see a bunch of food trucks and people, and it was literally like a street fair going on. We were talking about how fun it looked, but drove past and kept going to the woman's house. We loop around, and quickly realize that this woman's house was LITERALLY in the middle of where this fair was happening. We just kind of laughed for a second and thought about just going to another person's house, but we felt like we had been lead here for a reason. So, we grabbed about 50 pamphlets, wrote our number on the back of all of them, and went to the fair. It was absolutely NUTS and I felt so weird walking around listening to Justin Bieber and One Republic. We started talking to a whole bunch of people, and were so pleasantly surprised by how nice everyone was. We met this one guy who has taken missionary discussions before, and another lady who feels like she needs to "let God and Jesus into her life more." But anyway, the night was mostly just us handing out pamphlets, and I'm honestly not really sure if anything will come from it. But we were at least able to plant the seed, and sometimes that's all you can really do as a missionary. It was such a hilarious experience though, and definitely helped put me out of my comfort zone.
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| The photo booth pictures we took as a "reward" for me handing out all of my pamphlets. It was a struggle, but it was worth it! |
Lastly, we were able to go to a wedding dress shop and see Judith in her final fitting!! I figured that most missionaries don't ever get to do that, so I thought it was pretty cool. She looked so beautiful in her dress, and I am so excited for the wedding. We are actually going to try and find bridesmaids dresses later today, so wish me luck that we will be able to find something mission appropriate lol.
One last story I would like to share, we had an AWESOME lesson with Jade. Honestly, it is probably my favorite lesson that we have ever taught so far. We have been meeting with her several times now, but we have just felt like something was missing, that things just weren't clicking like they should be. At the end of our lesson, we were baring testimony that we know that what we teach is true, and she kind of had this manic episode where she just excitedly told us what she was feeling. She said "I just LOVE how PASSIONATE you ladies are!! It's like, every time you guys come over I just feel so GOOD and like in my HEART *starts pounding on her chest* I can just feel your LOVE and I just have this feeling, like, I know it's not indigestion, but I don't really know what it is but it just feels so GOOD. It's like, yeah, ya know, I could get down with these guys! And my cat recently ran away, and I was praying to God and He told me that he was going to answer my prayer, but not in the way that I expected, and then he sent YOU GUYS and every time you come over it's just like WHAT is this feeling? Like, I love it!! It's just like yes, YEEEES." We were all laughing so hard, and finally Sister Phillips asked her, "Jade, do you know what that feeling is?" and started pointing to a scripture we had just read, Moroni 10:5. "It is the holy ghost, bearing truth". Jade was kind of quiet for a moment........and for whatever reason, Sister Phillips felt the need to literally say "mic drop", and do the corresponding action. Jade absolutely LOST IT and started saying over and over, "OOOOH Sister Phillips dropped the mic on me!!". For the remainder of the lesson, whenever she referenced us teaching her, she called it us "dropping the mic on her". Before giving the closing prayer, we prompted her to pray to know if what we were teaching her really was true. In her prayer she literally said, "Heavenly Father, are Sister Yocum and Sister Phillips really dropping the mic on me?". It was so difficult not to laugh. But honestly, the Spirit was so strong and it was incredible to see someone else feeling it too, even if she couldn't really put into words what it was like
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| Judith in her dress! Also I feel the need to explain that she is wearing 6 inch heels and standing on a platform, she is not usually this tall ahahah |
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| Jade!! She asked us to take a picture with her because she had been telling her friends about us |
Well, those were the highlights of the week. Lots of incredible, weird, hilarious, and difficult times. But that's just kind of how life on the mission goes! As I said before, I truly love it here and I know that I was called to this specific place, at this specific time, for a reason.
I love you all, thank you for everything.
Sister Yocum
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| This morning, we went to a "waterfall" as a district! It was mostly just a trickle lol but it was fun to be in nature for a little while |
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| Went on an exchange with Sister Thomas, who is my "sister" since Sister Phillips also trained her, haha. She also went to high school with a whole bunch of my BYU friends, AND her mom and my aunt were friends in high school? Coincidence?? I think NOT. But seriously, we had an absolute blast together and I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard |
Excerpt from Sister Thomas's letter home to her family. Olivia's Auntie D forwarded this:
WEDNESDAY
We started off our day with working out which consisted of more laughing on the floor. Our studies were so LIT
I learned so much in personal such but then even more from Sister Yocum, she's a little spiritual bomb of light! I love her. Our day consisted of street contacting, stopping by less actives, and heart attacking members. We had some fun experiences, Sister Yocum totally missed her opportunity for her exchange goal. This guy (from India) came up to her and asked if she was from India...she was so confused and was so thrown off she didn't talk to him long enough to hear the accent
we were dying hahaha At the end of the night I was reunited with my comp.
TUESDAY-EXCHANGES WITH MY SISTER...SISTER YOCUM!!!!!
Later on we exchanged with my MOM (my trainer Sister Phillips) and then I got to take her baby...my sister!! (Sister Yocum) back to my area and work with her there! I have never laughed so much and so hard in my life. We were laying down and we couldn't breathe and we both do the wheeze which made things even funnier. If I tried to explain to you of what our conversation consisted of you would probably never talk to us again because it made no sense and looking back it was so random. I will tell you that by the end of the night she had chosen her exchange goals. Which consisted of learning the true Indian accent, finding Carlos to rap for us, and learning how to contact people with the move, "Hit Em Wit It" I LOVE SISTER YOCUM, I'M SO GRATEFUL I GOT TO BE WITH HER. 《FUN FACT》 Her Aunt and My mom know each other and went to high school together. Coincidence...I THINK NOT!
WEDNESDAY
We started off our day with working out which consisted of more laughing on the floor. Our studies were so LIT
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