Me and Sister Gustaveson went off sweets. The exception though is we can have it if it is from a member... so we've had sweets every day because members feed us all the time! But we've still had less than usual. So that's good.
I think last week was the first time I'd ever had Sweet Potato Pie and it was seriously heaven!! I need to keep that in mind for when I move back to TN and start cooking classic Southern meals for all the missionaries I have over.
Well.. about my week.. my oh so exciting iced-in week.
Monday:
Iced in. Didn't go anywhere except outside to play a lot and to the church for martial arts. Real exciting day
Tuesday:
Iced in day 2
We were told to plan as much as we could, and we tried. But there just wasn't much to plan. We trekked to CVS to buy the last 2 out of 3 gallons of milk. It was cold and slippery and it looked like we lived in the land of desolation! Everyone was gone! No noise, nothing. Just snow... Haha
Walking home from CVS with our milk.
Wednesday:
We tried contacting some people who had been contacted before in our complex. No one was home, so that didn't last very long. We also went next door to Andi's and she made us homemade pasta and sauce. We emailed there and watched 17 Miracles. I bawled! I was in my bed in the corner just crying to myself haha. Oh it was embarrassing! But it is such a good movie!
Thursday:
We got out! Hallelujah! Sister Gustaveson's iPad was wiped on Monday, we don't know how, so we spent a couple hours with Brother Sims trying to resurrect it and all her pictures, but it's gone. So Brother Sims emailed all her companions and members and is going to gather as many pictures as he can to give to her as a gift. We seriously have the best ward mission leader on the face of the planet. He needs to keep his calling for life!
We had dinner with the Davis' that night and they were a lot of fun! They have two little boys, Aiden and Evan and they just talked our ears off haha. It was a fun dinner and I was happy to be outside the apartment!
Traded hats with my dinner partner.
Lastly we found a Less active that we've been trying to contact forever! She's totally the perfect rich lady right down to the fluffy white cats who are her babies. It's so funny! We helped her get ready for her husband to come home. She hardly sees him because of work and so she was setting up dinner and everything for him when they got home from the airport. She's a really nice lady and offered to feed us dinner in the future! So I'm excited to work with her! What's sad though is I feel she hasn't come to church because she's so wrapped up in life and work.... and she doesn't see the importance of church. We should always remember to make church our first priority!
Friday:
We did our weekly planning which went really well! We set some sweet goals for the rest of the transfer and I'm excited for them! We made a vision as a companionship of what we want to accomplish in the next 4 weeks. Then our appointments cancelled and it started snowing super hard.. so we went to the bus and we were going to ride it to mark down where all the stops were because they're not all marked on the map. We were coming up to our stop where we needed to get off and turn around, and I forgot that I didn't know what time the bus across the street would come. The bus we were on was 40 minutes behind schedule. So if we got off we would have to wait up to an hour...... we panicked and just stayed on the bus which ended up going all the way to downtown Nashville! Oops... We then had to ride it all the way back up to our area. On the bus we taught someone who said that everything was beautiful and wanted my name and wanted to know what I required in a partner for marriage. Super awkward. We listened to the "F" word about..... a lot. Like every other word for 10 minutes. We taught a drunk. We also taught 3 amazing people though! Keith is a YSA from Nashville and is interested so we gave his info to the YSA sisters, Jerral is interested. I didn't get to talk to him, but I guess he was this super tough guy with piercings all over telling Sister Gustaveson about some adorable kittens he rescued. And I taught a girl named Iesha but she wasn't really interested. She was really nice though and was laughing at us teaching the drunk man. We got called in early that night and we had permission to watch The Work and the Glory so we watched that.
Saturday:
We contacted a lot of potentials this day..... we thought we had success... with a guy named Miguel. He had been taught by the Hermanas and we taught him that day and his parents told us to leave but he told them no, because he was talking to us. He said he'd come to a church tour yesterday but never showed up. I'm trying to have faith in him, but I just don't know if he's really interested.
We also saw Sarah and Kassie. Tim wasn't home. Sarah told us she believes everything - The Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, the Priesthood, but she doesn't want to be Mormon. So something isn't clicking and I don't know what it is. They mean a lot to me and since Sister Gustaveson wasn't there from the beginning, she kind of wants to drop them... I hope she doesn't do that when I leave. They have so much potential!!!
We had dinner at the Bishop's that night and I just love him to death! He has such a love and fire for missionary work. And he loves the missionaries in his ward. He's been my favorite Bishop.
We also got to see Debbie and watched Finding Faith in Christ with her. She loved it! About half way through she said "I know all these stories!" She is the sweetest lady ever and I can't wait for y'all to meet her!
Sunday:
We didn't get to go to church because of the weather. Our whole day was thrown off. That night after dinner we were getting ready to leave and I was looking at what time the bus would come and realized it was coming at that very minute. The next bus wouldn't come for an hour..... So I sat down and tried to figure things out and Sister Gustaveson kept saying "Let's just get out the door and just go do something." I was getting kind of stressed because I am a planner, and I wanted to make sure we had some good plans before we went out into the freezing cold. She kept pushing me to get out. So I snapped and I don't really know what caused it. We started to work things out and then we realized we needed to plan better.... so we tried to do some good planning, but that didn't quite work out. I just didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to change the situation. I'm the oldest one in the apartment, the STL, the most experienced on a mission, and I failed. I finally went and asked Sister Gustaveson to come to the room and we knelt down. I started to pray. I felt peace just envelop me. I felt forgiveness. I repented in front of her and that was one of the absolute hardest things I've EVER done. It was humiliating. But then, after it was all said and done, I felt ok. I have an amazing companion who just dropped it all and forgave me right then and there.
As I prayed that night, I really felt the atonement start to work. I had studied a few days before about how quick the Savior is to forgive... but how could He so quickly forgive me? I felt it though. In a split second it was all gone. And I felt renewed. At that moment, all I could feel was that God KNEW me. He KNEW me so perfectly and it didn't matter what anyone else said. It was rewarding. I studied repentance this morning and one thing I read said that repentance is accepting the loving chastening of the Lord. Trials and challenges and temptations come to us to test how we will react. I reacted wrong, but because of the atonement I can be forgiven. The atonement is to bring about unto us faith unto repentance. And I experienced that last night. I had the faith that I had a God who loved me. He sent His son to die for me and because of that, I had the faith I needed to repent.
Now... Pday is rushed again and we need to go run around like crazy some more. Sorry this is a shorter email. This week wasn't super eventful.
Love you!
~Sister Rokovitz~
I wanted to send my Daddy a giant teddy bear for Valentine's day....but I couldn't figure out how to send it.
Me with the flowers you sent me for Valentine's Day.
Remember this toy?
Frozen branches
A frozen leaf
