So.. Monday we had Nancy come to Family Home Evening! I can't remember if I told you about her. She is awesome! And she brought her friend Paige too! But later in the week.. she told us her parents said she couldn't take the lessons. She does want to have us over for dinner though and still come to activities so that's good!
Tuesday was awesome!! I'm super proud of myself!! I SANG MY FIRST SOLO!! And I rocked it! Our little singing group is like mission famous now! Didn't crack or anything. Elder Pino was the General Authority and he greeted each one of us! He had us line up and shake his hand and he talked to each of us for a minute. So then the super awesome spiritual learning happened. I'm not kidding, the spirit was exploding for me! I felt like the meeting was just for me and everyone else was there for fun. We all got a little booklet called adjusting to missionary life that talks about dealing with stress and pain and homesickness and eating healthy and relaxing etc. IT'S PURE AWESOMENESS! I love it!! Sister Pino talked and she talked about obedience and putting all my trust and glory in my Heavenly Father. She also reminded me to be humble and ask Him for help. Lastly she spoke on spiritual power. One of my favorite subjects recently. Being in tune with the spirit and teaching with it. Then Elder Pino talked. He talked about the vision for our mission. Being obedient. He said to try new things and not to get stuck in our ways. He also talked about how even though our call letters are the same as everyone else's, they're unique. Next he talked about raising the bar and being at the level the Lord has asked us to be at. That's one thing that I continue to work on daily. It's hard. But he said to never get tired of obeying. That was cool. He talked for 1 hour and 45 minutes! and I tried to soak it all up!
Also Tuesday.. I stole an idea from Emily, about burying Word of Wisdom things. We read Cha the story of the people of Ammon and told her we wanted her to pick a day to bury them and we would give up something too. We're giving up milk...................... I know............ I know............. Milk. We're going to bury it in the ground. Milk. Oh man.. I also decided on my own to bury my chocolate.... For Cha. She knows that I love chocolate way more than milk. I'm hoping that by having less sugar I will get rid of my permanent headaches. (Yes permanent. I've had only 4 days so far out here headache free. Otherwise I'm battling a severe migraine. I'm drinking tons of water now though so don't worry) Cha picked Friday but it fell through. She forgot to get her things. So we're going for Tuesday. She's doing awesome and we're going to discuss that she can be ready for baptism soon! Hopefully Dec. 14th.
Wednesday we did a lot of tracting with a member named Kevyn who is planning to go on her mission within a year. She's so funny and cute! She even gave out a Book of Mormon!! We also set a goal as a district to pass out 500 Book of Mormons by the end of the transfer. It's going to happen!!
Thursday, we went tracting again and met this super weird lady haha She was nuts!! She had dread locks and really puffy bangs and huge sunglasses and 2 shaved dogs in sweaters. She started talking to us outside in the parking lot and she was just... crazy. She talked about her ex-millionaire husband that she sued and he paid for her house and kid’s college and she was a news anchor and she kept doing this really loud laugh that was just one HA!. No matter what we tried we couldn't walk away. Sister Giles eventually had to cut her off kinda and we escaped. That was by far my weirdest contact ever! Also.. Carre.... We took Kyle with us to teach her and she asked him all the same questions she's asked us. He gave the same and some better answers. Then she started to talk about Joseph Smith. Kyle’s hero. He LOVES Joseph Smith. She called Joseph a criminal, a liar, a convict, and laughed when Kyle told her that an angry mob killed him. She said "probably by people like me". That HURT. Sister Giles just sat there, I tried not to cry, and Kyle just testified with his whole soul. So we have decided to drop her until she reads the Book of Mormon. Otherwise we just can't meet with her. It was cool though because all her bashing made me think "No. You're lying. I know the truth. Joseph Smith IS a prophet. The Book of Mormon IS true." She can't shake my testimony in a million years. So it was a cool testimony builder for me.
Friday was interviews! President is the best! He remembered things he said to me in my first interview in the airport! Crazy! He made me remember that I can do it. The first thing I did was cry (which I tried SO HARD not to!!) and said "A mission is hard!" He kinda laughed and said "yeah it is." He told me about remembering to rely on the Lord. Will do President!
Saturday we went and visited Emad at Romas. The elders asked us to stop by and invite him to church because they were busy. We stopped by right before dinner time - Free pizza!! WHOO! He's just a good funny guy! He loves the similarities in our churches but he thought we still believed in polygamy. Haha that was the one thing he thought was different. We fixed that belief though.
I learned yesterday about needing to have a few moments in Gethsemane. I cannot expect to represent Christ without feeling at least a tiny bit of the pain that he felt. I even found it saying that in Jacob 1 today. Yesterday was amazing! Miracle Mania! I had a huge headache before studies and so I started studies with a prayer and asked for help because I couldn't focus. I started to study with a bad attitude of "I can't do anything if I don't feel great. I can't do it. I might as well give up until my headache is gone." Well... once I started studying and reading the Book of Mormon and sharing things during companion study.. boom. Headache gone. The second miracle was that evening. We were praying to go tracting and I had the word “Hospital” pop into my mind. We occasionally go there to visit members. After the prayer... I didn't even plan to say this. The words kinda fell out of my mouth "Sister, we should go to the hospital. I don't know why, but we should" So we went. We were going to visit a member on the 9th floor, got to the room and the bed was all made up. So we left to go see another member. When we got to the elevators, a couple walked out and the lady said "oh you must be looking for us." We were really confused. Well, they were members! Less actives. They were married and got baptized 3 years ago and they loved their missionaries!!! They were talking about divorce actually just 2 days ago. They had been in a fight but she felt like she needed to be at the hospital with her husband. They have a strong marriage, they just don't know it. They have been struggling with inactivity and have been separated but they are starting to work things out and they really want to go back to church!! They wanted to go to the temple a while ago but had no clue how to. Tracey got scared because she thought that weekend that her husband was going to die and she was so scared that they hadn't been sealed as a family to their two kids. So sad! I told her it's never too late, whether in this life or in the next. We contacted the missionaries in their ward after we left and they are going to help them get to the temple!! It's amazing! And it was super convenient because we skipped out on the hour and a half crazy storm with tornado warnings that was going on. It was a scary loud storm though..So.. great week!
Well. That's about it. I am doing great. Still some struggles here and there but I'm getting through them. My mission is wonderful!! And.. I realized today.. that I am going to hate it when transfers happen and me and Sister Giles possible won’t be together anymore. I can't imagine the stress of a new companion or a new area.. I just don't want to do it!! AH! I still got 4 weeks though. Ok that's all. I love you!!
~Sister Rokovitz~
On the way to Zone Conference - Sister Giles, Sister Tenny, Sister Rokovitz
Sister Rokovitz and Sister West (one of Amber's MTC roommates)
Sister Johnson and Sister Rokovitz
Taking one last swig of milk until Cha gets baptized. Milk is Amber's "drink of choice." She could probably go through a gallon in a day or two.
