Monday, May 06, 2013
Transfer 8, week 1: Home Home on the Range! Howdy from MONTANA!
Home, Home on the range!!! Where the deer, and the
antelope play… where seldom is heard, a discouraging word, and missionaries
love where they serve….. (Okay that didn’t rhyme but too bad) Well, howdy y’all! I’m up here in Montana
until July 24th. (And yes, my new pday is Mondays).
Wow. It is so beautiful here. My companion is so great
and got to the area just a month or so ago- her name is Sister Thompson and
she’s from CA/UT. She’s 23 and she’s been out about 5 months.
I’m already in love with the weather (although it’s
still kinda chilly still)…. And (get ready for this Mom) I learned HOW TO RIDE
A BIKE this week!!!! AHHHHHH!!!! So it
was like death the first two days (nicknamed my bike "Pickle Juice" because
riding it felt like drinking pickle juice), but now I really love it. (And my
tailbone does too…. Haha!!) I’m figuring out what skirts will NOT work and what
does, and to get up hills I just start singing at the top of my lungs "Onward
Christian Soldiers", or "True to the Faith", or "I’ll Go Where You Want Me to Go
Dear Lord", and miraculously it works! (Or I just walk it up the super steep
ones and my precious patient companion just waits for me at the top and smiles.)
We live with a lovely lady member in a beautiful house,
the members feed us every day, great mission president, the elders are
hysterical comic relief, there are dogs everywhere (and we’ve become friends)
and there are so many wonderful people to teach, reactivate, testify too, and
love.
I do miss Temple Square in regards to seeing the
wonderful missionary sisters everyday each day, but this is great too. It’s neat to see
the work go forward in the same ways all over the world.
I haven’t been here too long, but we already set a
baptismal date with C (part member family) who just started progressing!!!
(May 25th) We’ve been praying to find new investigators to teach and
BAM! On Friday we met this other 20 year old named J who was trying to lug
up the huge hills here his groceries. So we asked where he lived and we helped
him carry his groceries home (thinking that he meant the close few streets away
____ drive, instead of the 30 minute walk away _____drive…haha... oh well). It
gave us a lot of time to talk with him. He then went back the next day to teach
about the Restoration and we invited him to go to church the next day, and to
our shock (we didn’t think he was that interested)----- he came!
I do want to share with you one experience that
I’ve had that was particularly meaningful. All the families we eat with we
always prepare and pray about what message we should give them and this
particular message was pure inspiration. (Because we usually haven’t even met
them yet so we have to rely solely on the thoughts and impressions we receive
about what to share)
So we come in, and the home is a bit chaotic, and then
Dad comes in we meet everyone and we all settle down for dinner. The kids are
picking at each other and Dad is also being sarcastic back to the kids and mom
is just frustrated you can tell and we were wondering if the Spirit was ever
going to be there, and if we should share the message we have prepared at all,
and if it is even the right one to share! But both Sister T and I
felt like we should. So we did.
We asked them to write down on a piece of paper what
they wanted to become at the end of their lives. Who they really wanted to be,
and what they wanted to be remembered for. We then asked them to write
down what advice they would give themselves right now (if they were at the end
of their lives looking back), that would help them get there. We then had them all share them with us. When Dad shared his, before he even started,
this stiff, stubborn man started to cry as he read “To be a good father, and a
good husband. Because my family means everything to me. And what I
would tell myself right now, is to just keep trying even though I still mess
up.” At that moment all the family
members had tears in their eyes. Some of those kids probably hadn’t been told
enough that Dad loves them, and that they meant everything to him. I just saw
in their face, that these answers to the questions God had given us to share,
were exactly what those kids needed to hear. It was neat to be a part of.
That is my challenge to you all this week. Have each
family member answer these two questions and share them at Family Home Evening.
1. Who do I want to
be at the end of my life?
2. What advice
would I give myself right now, to be that in the end?
I promise as we have a bit more of an eternal
perspective that Heavenly Father will give us the revelation we need right now,
to become who He wants us to be.
I love you all. I am particularly grateful to my angel
mother who is an absolutely miraculous woman of valiance, sacrifice, courage,
faith, love, devotion and hard work. I owe everything that I am to her and my
Dad. I can’t even put into words the love and gratitude I have for her and her
concern for me, steadfastness, unconditional love and encouragement. Love you
Mama.
I love all of y’all too,
Sister Fisher
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