Hermana Childs: Sick but Surviving

This week has been so crazy and amazing. God not only works miracles in the lives of our investigators, but our lives too. Sometimes we forget that.

We have been busy busy busy here in New Jersey Jersey Jersey. Hermana Stevens and I have been running around doing so many things trying to help the zone leaders or the President or the Sisters we serve. Whooo, and boy have we been knocked out at the end of the day. haha I love it. It's the best kind of tired there is.

You could say that we have been "hastening the work" ;)

Well, to cut to the chase, because even now we're pressed on time, this week we had zone conference. It was super awesome! It has a different twist from the Sister Training Leader perspective. I was leading most of the stations and role-plays instead of just participating and listening to them. Tuesday night, the zone leaders called us and asked us if we would be able to help them. Sure! Not even a question. We'd love to help. They needed a poster of our Zone goals drawn by the next day. Awesome! We'd get started right then. Well, it was 9:30 when they called and they needed it by 6:30 in the morning (when we wake up). Minor details, right? haha Well, though tired and feeling the pressure of time on our backs we came up with a really cool zone poster and finished it by exactly 6:30 in the morning. That alone was a miracle.

Next miracle. We had a double exchange. Meaning that we would be going from one exchange to the next. Back to back! Thursday afternoon I was with sweet Sister Cooper from Bountiful, Utah. We had a blast teaching lessons together. After a couple of lessons, we came home, had dinner, and were back out teaching. By the time we had sat down in our next appointment, my stomach wasn't feeling so good. The flu had been floating around our zone, but I didn't think that I had it, so I pushed it off. Well, by the time we stepped into our house at the end of the day, things were a little more evident that I probably had the flu.

The night was rough.

I prayed with all my heart to be better by the next morning so that I could finish the exchange and go to the next one. We had no other options. The sisters needed our help, and we're almost at the end of the transfer which means that President needs our reports on how the sisters are doing.

The morning came, and even though my tummy was sore, and my body was tired, I felt well enough to continue with our exchanges. I know that Heavenly Father was carrying me through the rest of the exchange with Sister Cooper.

From Sister Cooper's exchange to Hermana Mortensen's exchange, we had about 45 minutes to talk about how the sisters were doing while we drove to the next exchange. There I picked up my other temporary companion, Hermana Mortensen and headed back to Elizabeth. There, we taught the most powerful lesson I have ever had on my mission. We taught a man named Jorge. It was the first actual lesson we have had with him, but he has already come to church 3 times. We felt the spirit all the way through the lesson, even though he had his differences of doctrine. At the end of the lesson, he told us that he feels something when he's here (we taught him at the church). He has explored other churches and he says it's different. That was enough. We invited him to be baptized on the 25th of January.

What an adventure it has been.

It's crazy, but I love it. I wouldn't have it any other way. I KNOW that heavenly Father has been helping us this whole week. After two exchanges plus pillow talk we still had just enough energy to make it through a ward Blitz and teach all of our lessons before falling into bed Sunday night.

This work is true. The gospel is powerful. The Atonement is infinite.

I love being a missionary!

Hermana Childs