Monday, February 27, 2017

"The Funeral Fumble" -February 27th, 2017

Aloha everyone! Hope you all had a great week. 

Life here in Alabama is still lovely. It's starting to warm up and I actually got some color on my skin at soccer on Saturday so that's a miracle haha I was getting tired of blending into my white shirts... 

As y'all know, transfers were this past week! Said goodbye to Elder Coleman and Butterfield and hello to Elder Matthews. We had a great week! Did quite a bit of planning for the Zone this transfer the first couple days. We planned a theme and planned weekly and daily challenges/sub-themes to be able to keep the focus on the bigger picture of the transfer theme. Our theme this transfer is Ohana! And as we know, thanks to Lilo and Stitch, Ohana means family and family means that nobody get left behind or forgotten! So this transfer we're focusing on family! Being a family in our zone, and helping others obtain their Ohana Mau Loa, or Eternal Family! We're really looking forward to all that this transfer will hold and I know that we'll see amazing things happen in our Zone because of this goal. 

Funny little side story from my time with Elder Matthews so far. Yesterday we were driving to an appointment and following up with people along the way. As we were driving Elder Matthews spotted a chick-fil-a car! Elder Matthews and I both have an unhealthy obsession for Chick-fil-a so we stopped the car, jumped out, knocked on his door, and he ended up being a past investigator who never fully had all his questions answered! So we proceeded to have a lesson right there, on the doorstep of a Chick-fil-a store manager/owner. We're planning on going back in a few weeks and answering some more questions... along with possibly trying to get some gift cards or something haha

Another funny little story from this past week. I'm actually going to quote Elder Ramsey who is serving in our district. He did a pretty good job of describing our experience haha He called it the "Funeral Fumble".... Enjoy;) 

"They invited us to a funeral service for a woman who had died out of state, but wanted to be buried in the Millbrook area. She was 81 years old and they weren't expecting more than a few family members to show up, so they needed help saying prayers, a musical number, and dedicating the grave. We showed up on Saturday for the funeral. We had the Zone Leaders, Elders Honn and Matthews with us and the Millbrook Sisters, Chavez and Saatkamp. We were originally just going to be saying a prayer and the Sisters were going to sing "I Stand All Amazed," but there was a change of program. All the missionaries were going to be singing the song instead as an opening, and just the Sisters were going to sing a closing song. The casket was brought in and the service began. We came to the front to sing, and I realized that there wasn't a piano in the room. Instead, there was a music track that began to play over the speakers. As we began to sing, other voices joined in... from the track. Our worst nightmare when we haven't practiced before. What's worse is that it was pretty quiet and it was going faster then it would normally be sung in church. We were off beat... badly. It honestly sound kind of creepy too as we were in dissonance with the track. The ten family members that were there looked stone faced... finally the song ended and we all sat down. The service resumed. And then it was time for the Sisters to get up for the closing song. They started and the same issues as before arose. We Elders tried, desperately, not to laugh. Some crouched their heads down below the pews. And others (including myself) bit their tongues and tried not to make eye contact. I looked over at the family, and they were doing the same at this point. Which at least made us feel slightly better about the whole thing. The Dedicatory Prayer was given at the grave site, and the service was done. This was an event that the Millbrook District won't soon forget."

haha well we've got MLC and Zone Training this week so it's going to be a busy one! I'll talk to y'all again soon:) 

Love you! 

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