This week went by as fast as it ever does. It was packed with lessons and meetings and not too much time for finding. That's what happens when you get too many wards and too many investigators haha. But there should always be time to find new and prepared souls so we are going to focus on that a bit more this next week. I will highlight some of the bigger events of the week though.
Tuesday morning, funny thing happened: we go outside for our 30 minutes of exercise time and low and behold its raining. So instead of going back up to the apartment I suggest we run stairs. My companion surprised me by actually agreeing, so we wandered into the stairwell and ran 21 flights of stairs to the top of our building. It was great but we were then hot and sweaty so we went outside onto the roof and wandered around a bit looking at the view. When the time came we went back to the stairwell and then took the elevator from the 21 floor to the 3rd, where we live. When the doors opened I noticed that there was a really funky smell in the hallway that hadn't been there when we'd left. So we went over to our door and I had this really weird feeling, but I put the key in the lock and turned it. But it wouldn't turn. I pushed it in and pulled it out a little and jiggled it around and it just wouldn't turn. We were locked out of our own apartment?! No way. This was our key, no way. Suddenly my companion Sister Holm asks "Why does it say 16? it usually says 12" pointing up to the address plate above the door. What? What was going on here, did we get off on the wrong door, we thought? We checked, no, this was the third floor. We stood around in confusion. Then I noticed that that door across from us looked different than I remembered it. What? There was only one 3rd floor in our building right? Where the heck were we, we wondered. It was like while we were coming down in the elevator the time continuum had snapped and shuffled us to another dimension while we weren't looking. We were utterly confused for about 5 minutes before sister Holm, realized that we must be in the other side of our building. I didn't even know the building had two sides. We took the elevator down and walked around outside and sure enough, it was our lobby and our elevator and our third floor on the other side. We must have gotten turned about and taken the wrong door and stairs on the roof. We laughed about our trip to another reality for a while afterwards.
Wednesday we had presidential interviews and I was given the beginning of the death discussions. It is called "dying" when a missionary returns home out here. I talked with President and finalized my leave date and talked about what needed to happen between now and then for things such as school. Then Thursday I got my "Death Letter" the official letter that states you are a dying missionary and the end is near It helps you get everything organized and has information to send to your stake president at home and such. It was a weird feeling, I feel like I have just started this. It wasn't too long ago I was in TaiDong watching my companion there, Sister Collyer, receive her death letter and thinking some day in the very distant future I will be getting one of those. And then it was here, in my hands. A trippy moment to be sure, the time has all just been sucked away.
Sunday I had my first experience with translating: we were sitting in Sunday school when the Elders bring in a white guy, much to our surprise. Somehow, while sitting there talking to him, it was decided that I was going to be the one to help him translate for the class. So I sat beside him whispering English in his ear the whole class period while trying to listen to the discussion going on around us. It was a little bit of a challenge just to flip the words and the grammar and such around in my brain then spit it out in a different language fast enough to keep up with the conversation, but it was also pretty amusing. I think I did pretty ok. Then we went to sacrament meeting and I sat with this man, Karl, and another Elder, Elder Vandenbugh in the back. Elder Vandenburgh wanted to translate for him so I sat back intending to relax and just listen to sacrament meeting, and to step in if they needed help. So sitting back and relaxing worked well, until about three minutes into the first speaker when Elder Vandenbugh leaned across Karl and said "What is she even talking about??" And I had to take it from there. Sacrament meeting was much harder than Sunday school, we were sitting as far from the speaker as possible of course, and in the midst of squalling babies...It was hard to catch everything above the noise and then keep up with the speed that the speakers were moving along. The first lady I did pretty ok. But the guy after her moved about 20 times faster because he was very nervous and he used some pretty big wordage and I had no way to keep up. The lady after that shared a lot of stories which were pretty ok to translate, but I have a whole new understanding and sympathy for translators. Wow. That's a pretty intense gig. It was my first experience doing real translating for anyone, more than just a couple of sentences here or there. It is definitely a humbling experience and let me become very much uncomfortably aware of where the gaping holes are in my Chinese. But it was also something I'm glad I did. It really helped Karl (a fore mentioned white man). He expressed thanks after and also wonderment at our ability to even understand the complexities of Chinese. He said "I thought Spanish was hard enough on my mission. You guys really have the Lord with you!" haha. He wants to take us out to dinner tonight. Who are we to refuse?
Yesterday night we had a baptismal interview for a young woman. She is in a part member family but it has been a rocky road for her to baptism. Her mom and brother are both inactive members and she started coming to church without them. But then that reactivated her mom, whom she has some serious issues with, and so she stopped coming and stopped meeting with us. Of course this happened about a week before her baptismal service last time, so she stood up her own baptism. This is her second round at it, and we are pretty sure she is going to come this time :) she really wants my companion to see her get baptized and since this is the last week of the transfer and the chances are that Sister Holm will be the one moving it has to happen this week. She is ready for it. Its just a matter of it happening or not. We are doing our best to help her into the water.
Well, this winds down yet another transfer. Transfer 8 on island. Its crazy to think that next week will open up number 9. That means there are only three left. Just over 4 months. Its an odd feeling to be looking back and finding out that now the time has shifted so the bulk of my mission is already behind me and I'm beginning the end. I remember looking forward and seeing an eternity before me. I guess eternity doesn't last very long huh? Mind your time people. Mind your time. It slips by so silently, and then it lurks behind you and gloats. I've got so many goals to accomplish in the time I have left out here. I'm gonna have to kick it up a notch.
Well that's all for now. I will write y'all from the side of another transfer!
Love Sister Melissa Thiessen
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