Who'da thunk when I turned in my mission papers that I would be directing film and editing movies and supervising translations and whatnot? Cah-razy.
This weekend was super fun and a bit stressful and I don't think I can do it justice in words. But I will say this. I saw MIRACLES this weekend.
Here is the main one. We have been planning on going to the temple to film outside and interview people and we were planning in Cambridge with a member from Cambridge who is a harvard grad and she suggested that we at least give the temple president a heads up of what we were doing. We thought that would be the cordial thing to do so I called and the temple president was like 'you aren't allowed to do that.' I don't think it was so much that he didn't want us to do it, he just didn't feel that he had the authority to let us film on that property. We were kind of shocked. So we found out on Thursday that it was a no when we were in the mission home helping to serve dinner to the departing missionaries. We were like uhhhhh......
Through out the week I felt impressed that I should fast on Friday, so we fasted that we could submit our will to what heavenly father had instore and if it be right that we get permission and proper weather.
We have been trying to capitalize on Ashley as much as possible since she is moving soon and leaving her work and so she a.) won't be here and b.) won't have access to borrow the equipment.So we were trying to get EVERYTHING done this weekend and really put all our eggs in one basket. On thursday night, president said he would try figuring things out for us but it didn't really end up happening so there we are on Friday night at like 9:30 with nothing. President said he would ask the area 70, Elder Bennet. He called. No answer.
So it's like 11 on Friday and we haven't heard back from President about the area 70. Ashley told us how to write out the scripts and manage the day and, according to her instructions (and because we are both over-achievers) I had scheduled out the day in 10 minute increments.Literally you should see our excell sheet - almost embarrassing. We had pages of interview questions/shots we wanted. We had emailed questions out to participants and requested families to wear complimentary colors. We had permission forms for people to sign. We had another missionary (Elder Tait who is really good at filming) coming to help. Ashley had borrowed all the equipment from work. We had a food supply - apples, oreos, and cheez its. Brain food. And to top it all off there was about an 80% chance of rain from 8 am to 8 pm.
We started making back up ideas. We could go to the Rollins house where they have a pretty yard that we could pretend was the temple. We could film at the Belmont chapel right next door to the temple. In the back of my mind I almost thought that if it rained we would have an excuse to call off this non-sense altogether. We had correlated so many people's schedules to be there and I didn't want it to all come tumbling down because we didn't have permission in the first place. So we came up with some ideas but figured it would be what it would be (we had spent a lot of mental energy dreaming up shots for the temple...it seemed like our minds would be able to work quickly enough to think of new shots at new locations). So we left it up to the Lord and went to bed.
We knew that the Lord could perform miracles-He could make it so we had permission, he could keep it from raining. But the real question was whether this whole thing was according to his will and in his timetable. So it's not like our testimonies would be shaken or that we would think that our fasts hadn't 'worked' if it didn't go as we had planned. We would have just been really disappointed. And confused--because as we had picked out the people, and planned the topics and the shots it had felt like we were doing a good thing.
Well. We wake up at like 5:45 the next day. Drive to Watertown to pick up Ashley about 7:40. Still no word from Elder Bennett, the area 70. We decided that if we didn't hear by 8am we would just call him ourselves. Sounds rash, but hey, when you have Christmas brunch at the man's house, you get a bit of a more appropriate excuse. Pays to know people man, pays to know. So we pulled over on a side neighborhood connected to the highway just down the way from where the temple is.Literally we have the camera out, we are like little puppy dogs waiting for christmas morning. Ring ring - elder bennett answers! He tells me that he gives us his blessing and is willing to give us permission as long as we don't show it to people outside the editing process until we have more official permission from someone more official in the church.
Let me repeat that.
ELDER BENNETT (our area authority) GAVE US PERMISSION AT ALMOST THE LAST POSSIBLE MOMENT!!! One thing I learned from this is that we need to move forward in faith. We weren't going to film inside the temple gate if we didn't get permission. But we still had everything planned as if we did have the permission and it didn't rain (pretty much the most we had done was tell a family that we could let them know if we called it off due to rain and ignored their question about whether the temple president knew we were filming).
So yeah. We got to the temple and I felt so blessed that the Lord had heard our prayers and was willing to let us try to do this project to glorify Him.I just wanted to tell everyone about the miracle we had just experienced!
Well, we got to the temple and low and behold it was raining. Not really RAIN raining but drizzling. Enough to make us nervous with the cameras. But we kept calm and carried on. At some points we covered the cameras with umbrellas. Everyone showed up who was supposed to. We interviewed a Haitian family, a family from Central Falls, a family from Framingham, Sister Kendall, Sister Belchior (a msisionary from Mozambique with an amazing story and amazing faith), and Elder Calvert. We filmed for the first part of the day at the temple and at the church next door. Then we went into Cambridge and filmed at the LP chapel (where my momma and papa met!) and in Longfellow Park and near the Charles River. It was so much fun!
It was a really fun team to work with. It was great to see some people from earlier parts of my mission and Elder Tait and Elder Calvert were SOOO fun / hilarious to work with. They talk like they are 50s gangsters like all the time. It's ridiculous. And Sister Belchior is so lovely and we got to talk about international law stuff. And Ashley was such a gem. She volunteered so much time and talent to help us.
MORAL OF THE STORY. Revelation is a process.
I love the Lord and I have loved learning more about His holy house, the temple. I'm so thankful for the power of prayer and fasting and consecrated individuals who are willing to donate of themselves to help spread the gospel.
Love,
Sister Bell & Sister Jenny Hurst
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