From: Jessica McKay <jessica.mckay@myldsmail.net>
Subject: Sleep Walks and Surprises
Date: August 5, 2013 9:45:40 AM MDT
Whew! It’s already Monday?!?!?
What a week. Wednesday Sister Christenot and I went to Mission Leadership Council (It’s the same thing as what Zone Leader Council was, it just includes the sister leaders now). So that was fun 🙂 Except the part that it took all day long, which we weren’t planning on, and we ended up having to miss two of our appointments. Sister Tenney was out with the other sister leader’s companion, so they got to go, but the poor things got lost…even with the GPS. This was only because the other sister she was with was driving and didn’t actually follow the GPS, and she would go like 10 mph under the speed limit and then get frustrated when people would pass her haha. But they made it to the appointments eventually and actually had some neat experiences.
Being in a new mission is quite the adventure because there are so many things that haven’t been established yet. There are a lot of things left open to the mission president’s discretion, and since he’s only been here a month so far, there were still some things to discuss and go over at our council meeting. I am really grateful for the Spirit’s guidance in the all of the decisions we make. The Spirit is SO IMPORTANT in everything we do. Another purpose to our council meeting was to discuss zone conferences that would be occurring in the days to follow, ours being that Friday. Well, as we were discussing the agenda, we hear, “And the sister leaders will be giving a training…” Haha, surprise!! We had no idea we would be training at zone conference…and we only had a day to plan. So that was a little bit unnerving, but we had faith that Heavenly Father would help us know the needs of the two zones that would be at this conference. We were asked to prepare a training on Chapter 4 in Preach My Gospel, “Recognizing the Spirit.” Thursday we had Sister Tenney go out with the Andover Sisters so we could have a couple hours to do sister leader stuff.
As we prepared our training, the Spirit guided us to know how to go about organizing it so that it would address the needs of the missionaries and people in the Derby and Wichita zones. We decided to take a quote from President Hinckley that talks about how knowing how an investigator, missionary, and member must feel in the conversion process. We talked about how to more fully notice and identify the Spirit’s presence in lessons so the investigator can place a name to the feelings they have and begin to understand how the Spirit talks to us. Anyways, it actually went really well and we felt that the Lord had guided us to say what the missionaries needed to hear. That was our only prayer going into our training, and it was answered 🙂
So Zone Conference on Friday was really great. The Spirit did a lot of teaching and we were all edified and further motivated for our work in Kansas! It was fun to see all of the missionaries in my mission. It’s still hard not to have very many of my MTC district in my mission anymore, though. We were the greatest district. 🙂 I just got a picture of the rest of my district in Missouri. It was fun to see them all together–even if it was a little bitter sweet. But hey, I’m in the heartland doing things only a new mission can provide 🙂
Saturday we had a lesson with Gaby, the sweet sister who was baptized a couple of weeks ago. She is amazing. We started the new member lessons with her and taught her the restoration. That was such a fun and spiritual lesson. She’s so excited and wants to continue to grow in the gospel. I hope I get to be here when she goes through the temple!
Alllllllllllllllllllright. Story of the week. It’s actually kindof ridiculous…because something about me is whacked. I think I may be a little bit stressed, and it’s beginning to show in other areas haha:
Saturday night I went to bed downstairs exhausted. I only sleep with a top-sheet, so I cozied up with my little sheet and was out like a light bulb. I woke up at 3:30 am…on the upstairs couch, with no idea where I was, or how I got there. Once I realized I was upstairs in the living room, I was like, “What the heck?!? How did I get here?!?!?” The good news is, I still had my top-sheet…
So now I can add sleepwalking to my repertoire of things I’ve learned to do on my mission. I still have no idea how I got up there. I don’t remember anything except going to bed downstairs and waking up upstairs. But the couch upstairs is actually a whole lot more comfortable than my bed, so I can see why I ended up there 😉
Thankfully I woke up this morning in the same place I left myself last night.
Another funny story:
We were at a park the Saturday afternoon to try to find a floating referral we received from a member. Sister Christenot and I sat down on a bench next to the swing-set to fill out more pass-along cards and Sister Tenney went to swing next to these two young girls. They started talking and Sister Tenney says, “So what religion are you? Are you Christian? Catholic?” To which the 13-yr-old girl responds, “Umm…American?” Hahaha I love Wichita.
Well tonight we are headed out on our road-trip to visit the sisters in Pratt, Dodge City, Ulysses, and Garden City, and then we’ll stay for their zone conference on Friday and give another training. It will be similar to the one we did last Friday, just catered more to the Dodge City and Garden City zone’s needs. I know you pray for me already, but don’t stop now! Obviously I could use all the prayers I can get. Thank you for sending the package so quickly! I got it on Thursday 🙂 You are amazing. And you’re right, it is an awfully small ipod, but that’s ok. It is sufficient for my needs 🙂
Love you all! Take care to stay in bed once you’ve fallen asleep and don’t forget to say your morning and evening prayers!
Sister McKay
Sister McKay 