LONGUEUIL June 27 - 28, 2016

June 27, 2016

What a day! Missionary life is such a roller coaster. I'm sorry but I really won't have a ton of time to email today. We've had quite the day... First off lots of plans falling through and going crazy. P.Day is planned to be tomorrow so we can go to the temple...and things just keep going more and more crazy.
This last week we went on exchanges with some sisters and they have been really struggling. Yeah for being the STL's. It makes me appreciate the companions I've had so much more, and realize how blessed I've been and how easy it's been for me up to this point in my mission. But tonight we get to go on some emergency splits to help these sisters out. Please pray for us with all the energy of your hearts that Sister Beaumont and I will be inspired to know how to help them. It's crazy...we ended up calling our mission president for quite awhile too. Poor President Patrick is getting ready to finish his mission in just two days and has so much on his plate. Wow things are crazy.
But on a happier note...Robert is getting baptized this Saturday!  He's an absolute miracle. He loves loves loves the gospel and is the cutest old man...73 years old. Please pray for him that he'll hold strong for Saturday. Sorry that's all I have time for. I love you all and wish you the best of weeks. Be strong and know that I love you....and the Lord loves you even more!
Love,
Sister Shelley

Dear Mommy,

I'm doing well here. Lots of stresses trying to help different teams of sisters. Any advice on how to help a sister refind the desire to be obedient and work hard? We have a sister who is really really struggling with a lot of different obedience issues. And her poor companion is just drowning and feeling so alone. Sister Training Leader business is definitely crazy. I'm just so grateful every day that I'm with Sister Beaumont... trying so hard to cherish every day of this transfer because who knows what the next one will bring. Sister Beaumont really is wonderful and I love seeing how much better we work together now that we're both a bit more experienced missionaries and that I'm so much more comfortable now than at the beginning of my mission. I'm grateful we're together so I can realize even more the change and growth in me :) It really is exciting to see how much our missions really can change us as we let them. The Lord really can do wonderful things with our lives if we learn to submit our will to him. I'm still learning this. Still working on it. But I've definitely learned a lot about humility and letting  the Lord guide me right now.

 I love you though and wish you the best of weeks :)

love

June 28, 2016

Hey so here's just a little update of the last night... my goodness it was crazy. Sorry I'm just sending you and Carter the same little paragraph to explain craziness.. Hopefully he doesn't mind.

Happy day! My goodness yesterday was crazy.... I kind of mentioned yesterday, but we had this team of sisters that was just REALLY struggling with  their companionship, and the one was having such a hard time with obedience on lots of levels. We ended up canceling all but one of our lessons after the sisters asked if we could come over and have another mini-exchange to talk things out. We'd just finished talking with President and Sister Patrick to get advice on how to go about things. We ended up running home for a quick early dinner, packing a sleepover bag just in case, and running to one lesson before to their house. It had already been a crazy, stressful day. Then we had a pretty hard time teaching Robert about tithing. Robert who is supposed to be baptized this weekend and is amazing. But with his pension he only has a few cents to a few dollars left by the end of each month. So he said he'd gladly pay tithing on the money he saves from not smoking, but that it wasn't physically possible to pay the 10% we talked about. We really tried to help him understand the trial of faith it requires, and that the Lord would make it possible. But he had a really hard time understanding. So we were already a little emotional after this lesson.. Our perfect golden investigator finally had a mountain to climb just days before his baptism. It's hard because we'd planned to teach this lesson earlier and kept having to move it back. I just wish we would have taught it sooner. We'll keep working with him this week, though. Please pray for him though.

So we were feeling pretty down... and then got to go over to the Sisters and help them work out their issues. But it's amazing how helping others really can make you feel so much better... I really am learning how much forgetting ourselves is really the greatest recipe for happiness. So Sister Beaumont and I went on a split with these sisters to talk about things and help them regain their vision and desire to work together :) Thank goodness we planned ahead and brought a sleepover bag... because we didn't come back together until after 9h30... and then we had a great talk until almost 12. My goodness is the missionary schedule inspired. I was really so impressed with these sisters though. I think they were both pushed so far to their breaking point that they were just ready for help. Finally ready to let down their pride and work things out. They set some awesome goals. I think what's cool is that there wasn't some secret magical recipe for what they needed to say... we honestly had them follow pretty exactly what Preach My Gospel says for comp inventory.,.... it was 5 hours longer than normal, but it worked beautifully! They just got a transfers worth if inventory in one night :) It really was great. And now they're happily in the temple together this morning. So we're just praying things can work out.

Crazy evening! Please pray that these sisters can work things out :) I love you and wish you fun times in South Dakota :)