So I remembered a funny story/miracle that happened last
week..
The mission is getting rid of paper planners which I have
been having a pretty bad attitude about... And this story I'm about to tell didn't
really help matters.. We were about to leave an apartment complex to go to
dinner at the bishops house and we decided to knock on one more door before we
left. I was doing something with the sticky notes I was using to write down
information I would usually write in my planner. I was trying to stick it to
the front of my iPad when IT FLEW AWAY!! We had just met someone who was so
awesome and a few other people whose information was on that sticky note and it
flew over the fence into the wash..as we were trying to catch it, someone opened
the door that we had just knocked on.. So we introduced ourselves frantically
and he said he would go get his dad. So we waited for his dad to come back and
we were kinda looking by the wash to see if we could see the bright pink sticky
note somewhere but we couldn't see anything.. The kids dad came to the door and
all he said was "NO NO NO NO NO" and shut the door... So then we
started speed walking to the car so we could drive over to the other side of the
wash. And of course at that time EVERYONE decided to come out of their
apartments... So we tried to talk to a couple of them but no one was willing to
listen to us.. God was blessing us with people who weren't interested so we
could go find our sticky note with the information of people who are
interested! So we got to the car and drove out of the complex and around the
corner and parked the car. We decided to say a prayer and ask for help to find
it. We got out of the car and I had a feeling I knew exactly where it was. We
walked over to the wash and on the other side of the fence there was our sticky
note. It was just close enough for Sister Bradley to put her hand through the
fence and grab it. We then started screaming in excitement and hugged each
other jumping up and down. We looked down the street and there were two young
men staring at us like we were crazy. So we ran across the street back to the
car and said a prayer of gratitude! It was awesome!
And we were 5 minutes late for dinner.. Haha oops!
Last night we had an amazing blessing to preform in the
Paradise Stake choir for stake Patriotic night! It was amazing! We sang the
songs for each of the branches of the military while the men and women who
served stood up when they heard their song. It was a little weird being there
without my military men there with me. I love being there with my dad and my
brother who have both served our country and seeing them stand up. This time
when they asked people who have had family members serve in the military stand
up I stood up by myself without any of my family there with me. But I was still
proud to be standing.
Remembering how proud I was of my brother while he fought
for our country. It was hard while he was gone worrying about him and praying
for him every day but I'm proud to call him my brother and I love him so much!
I'm so thankful that he is now safe and I'm thankful for those who weren't so
lucky. One of he speakers said something that I loved! She quoted President
Monson and added a little bit to it. "Dare to be a Mormon. Dare to be an
American."
This week was full of lots of meetings and crazy
activities! So sadly we weren't able to work as much but we did get to go feed
the homeless with the Petersens! Brother Petersen is a member of the bishopric
and he and his wife are so, so sweet! Sister Petersen took some pictures for us
:)
Along with all the craziness, we also had some sad news. One of the Elders in
our zone who I have served with for most of my mission received the news this
week that his Dad passed away. From the way he talks about his family you can
tell they are close and it's amazing how strong he has been through all of it.
But as a mission and especially as a zone we become a family and when one of us
loses a family member it hits us all pretty hard. There were quite a few tears
this week! But its amazing to see someone be so strong and still work so hard
even when they are going through something that I can't even imagine.
It's been an amazing and crazy week and I hope everyone
had an amazing week as well!
I love you all and hope you have a great Independence Day
weekend!
Love,
Sister Eliza Hopper
