End of 3rd Transfer

8/27/13

Well, we have come to the end of my 3rd Transfer out here in Mesa!  Transfers are 6 weeks long usually, and us Sister Missionaries are only out for 12 of them!  The Saturday before transfers are "transfer news" days.  They are the most anxiety-filled days for all missionaries in the mission!  We watch the Sister Training leaders work on "The BEAST" ( the Visitors Center schedule for the transfer) through the little window in the VC presidents office and our excitement is even worse than Christmas Eve Night.  You may or may not have been able to find me and a few other sisters standing at the door trying to listen with cups pressed to our ears and the door :).  The news comes at the end of the day after planning, around 9:30pm -- I suppose to cut down on distractions that might happen in the middle of the day.  We found out immediately that Sister Rios and I will be staying together!  We are staying in our area, but one of our wards is being taken from us!  We would normally rejoice at the news of only having 2 wards, rather than 3 ... but that ward was the one that had literally ALL of our investigators and potential investigators!  Ken was in the ward that was taken from our area, and I have to admit I am more than just a little sad because of that.  We will be breaking the news to him and his wife tonight at our last meeting.  Ken has progressed SO far!  Thankfully we will still be meeting in the same building as him each Sunday, so we might catch a glimpse of him now and then.  Also, President wants us to go on exchanges (switch companions for the afternoon, or even overnight sometimes) with the Sisters that will be taking over that ward so that Ken can still see us and feel our love!  I love President Jenkins and his suggestions and ideas :)

We will be working to get the other two wards going now!  There are some potential investigators in those wards that mostly have been there still on the same list since I arrive 4 1/2 months ago.... so we have our work cut out :)  We will still be at the VC this next transfer, and I am really excited about that.  We have some great investigators at the VC right now!  Richard and Jim are our newest additions.  Both of them are very open minded, and actually the thing that drew them in was the beautiful lit up Christus statue that is more than visible from the street, especially at night!  They are both artists of sorts, and have interesting stories.  Richard has studied pretty much every religion, and as I testified to him the first day he came in to the VC, he completely felt what we said ring true to him.  The Godhead, rather than the trinity, is what he believes to be true, and that man has the strongest testimony of Joseph Smith already!  He has recognized the pattern that God has for calling prophets, and he has prayed to know, and has recieved that undeniable confirmation.  We started working with their Ward already, and although they don't want the missionaries there yet, and are happy with us, we are trying to get them involved in their home ward.

 It's so great to be able to work with other wards and missionaries from not only all over Mesa while working at the VC, but even all over the country and world!  We are also teaching a man from Congo through SKYPE!  Though the language/accent barrier is a big one for me, Sister Rios can understand him better than she can understand me at times!  So I just sit back and try to follow whats going on while Sister Rios and the man, Alain, speak in half English, half French! Crazy!

We have had so many visitors the past few months in the VC!  There were more than 15,000 last month through the VC, and we might beat that by the end of this month!  (and this is OFF season!) Because of the crazy crowds, our equipment has been acting up a bit.  Wednesdays nights are by far the craziest night of the week because of mutual.  We get about 500 in each wednesday night from 7-9 pm.  One of our two big theaters' sound shut off in the middle of a movie, and one of our main exhibits also had the sound shut off in the midde of a big tour.  It was a bit of a fiasco, but we ended up keeping everyone happy one way or the other.  The poor Senior Couples on shift looked like they were about to pull their hair out in the middle of that!

Oh! I almost forgot!  Melanie Cottem, the head of all the VC's, came this last week!  We had 7 am meetings two mornings in a row.  We also have to be there 20-30 minutes before any meeting to study, so we had some very long days that started at 5 am last week!  The meetings were good -- we learned a lot about the first presidencies true vision for the VC's!  We also found out that..... MESA AZ VC IS THE TOP BAPTIZING VC IN THE CHURCH!!! (per capita -- of course temple square has a few more baptisms but they have 5x the amount of missionaries!)  This is such an amazing area to work it.  Everyone here is so unafraid to share the gospel with their friends and neighbors, and it just inspires me each and every day as they bring people in for the first time and we get to see them experience what the spirit feels like sometimes for the first time in their lives!  Also, Melanie went around and checked all the things that need work or updating here..... and it is A LOT! We will be getting all new carpet, new wall coverings, new couches, new appliances, and probably much much more in the coming months.  The bigger things will be done after Christmas, and we can expect a 6 week period where ALL the VC sisters will be full-field during renovations!  We shall see!

Is it weird that I am already getting super excited for Christmas season here?  We started practicing our Christmas music in VC choir a month ago! August with Christmas music?!!! I love it!!!  There was one song in particlar that we tried to sing a few times, and finally they had to adjust the pitch pretty drastically.  The entire soprano section spent the song looking around guiltily as the one Sister that was classically trained in Opera sang a soprano section solo! 

It is starting to cool down more from time to time here at last!  I can't wait for the late fall weather! I won't be missing the summer time, I can promise you that :)

Although this has been a really challenging 6 weeks, I am so grateful for the experiences I have had!  This mission is truly the most humbling experience I have ever been through.  I am by far weaker than I expected, but God is SO mindful of me.  I have come to feel the Love of God more fully than ever, and I know for a fact that whom God loves, he chastens and challenges.  He sees us not as the weak people that we are, but each time that he looks at us he gives us our next challenge with our potential in mind!  He has given us each the path with its own set of challenges made individually for us.  He knows where we need to get to, so he adjusts our path accordingly.

I love you all SO MUCH! Thank you for the outpouring of love I constantly feel from you!  I am truly blessed. 

Keep me updated all of you!

Sister Becca Ann Younce