The
perks, or down side, of being in the office all the time is that you
get to see the transfer board before the texts come out if the
assistants update it soon enough..so I got to see it early! To be
honest, the result was a bit surprising. But so has every other transfer
on my mission so far so it shouldn't be that surprising.
NORTH BROOKFIELD, MA.
It
is an adorable branch about 2 hours west of Boston. I'm getting
banished to the boonies! I've actually stayed the night there once
before because of a Fireside we brought the PVC to and my new companion,
Sister Layton I hear is AMAZING so I'm very excited. We are called as
the Sister Training Leaders for that zone/stake which is good - it'll
give me a chance to hopefully redeem myself from the last time I had
that assignment. I was probably the worst in the history of the worst so
thank heavens God's letting me go up to bat again. It will be
interesting to see what the Lord wants us to do there.
It hasn't quite hit me yet that I'm leaving the PVC but I can imagine if it did sink in, it would be really really hard.
So, thank goodness it hasn't sunk in. I feel like i'm giving up my
first born child. I've had the most amazing opportunities that most
people can't afford - literally the experience i've gained, people we've
established relationships with, and professionals we've received
indirect training by are very expensive in the real world. Most
importantly, I feel like I've learned even deeper the language of the
spirit - how to listen and how to follow. In the Book of Mormon, God
chose Nephi, someone who didn't know how to build a boat I believe for
partly because he knew he was humble and receptive to follow God's plan
instead of relying on his own experience and intuition. The Lord was
then able to supply him with instruction and he was able to use his
experience of drive and desire to execute it. I feel like lucky Nephi
who said, "You want a miracle, but I've never done it before. But I want
to do it, so if you just give me a few stepping stones, I'm willing to
jump to each one!"
My last event we went out
with a bang. We got to do church tours in New Haven. One of the members
sent out a mass email to all of the Yale divinity students - and people
came because of it! So many members brought friends and it was a
touching experience knowing it was my last time doing church tours on
the PVC.
The PVC is flying in so many new miraculous
directions of possibilities. It's beyond incredible. The teaching app
that we are creating with the programmer is done! At least the one
subject tester one! We are gearing up so when the missionaries get iPads
we're ready to roll.
Today was strangely
mirculous. Things fell into place - things you just really can't plan
for or expect when you are looking at your planner in the morning. For
example, President Packard oddly decided to cancel his lunch appt and
work in the office today which meant we could film him for a side
project we were helping the stake RS with thats due..tomorrow.
We had THE best lunch with the stake RS president who is my new idol -
she taught me so so much in such a short amount of time of our
interactions.Then a senior couple that we have been trying to get a hold
of 'accidently' called the wrong number. We said, "did you get our
message?" He said, "No I really accidently just hit your name in the
phone. But yes we can meet today because im leaving out of town tomorrow". Oh
in Cambridge? We just so happen to have to go there anyway!! While in
Cambridge walking through the chapel doors out pops the next person
we've been trying to meet - the institute director at LP that we're
trying to correlate doing a weekly-biweekly PVC visit for the building
because its such a high traffic area!! Then 15 other weird happenstances
- including Brandon being 10 minutes away from me! I'm tellin you...God
is in the details. You just gotta look up from your facebook every once
in a while to notice them!
We also had an amazing Sunday
- the lessons were...incredible. The testimonies were all about the
change of moving and the lessons were conveniently all about change. I
thought about the changes in our lives - why we have them and how we can
respond to them. The teacher pointed out beautiful scriptures and
talked about change and perfection and what it means to become perfect
in Christ. Did you know that in hebrew there is no translation for
perfect...the closest thing that translates is merciful. Perfection in
Greek is to make full, to complete, accomplish. We don't seek perfection
as an end goal, we seek it as a current state. If it was an end goal
for after we die, that would be mean there is no learning and we know
from the sciptures that that is not the case. So what does perfection
really mean? We practice becoming perfect in Christ - we let him fill
us, complete us. We have a balanced partnership in our lives and just
like any other relationship, we work on healing it, growing it, and seek
to further understand the communication. Because of His atonement, we
can become a new creature.
I told God before transfers that
He could give me a challenge - I said go ahead and lay it all out on the
table buddy, it'll be fun. I am very excited to be transferred to North
Brookfield but it definetly wasn't the change and challenge I was
expecting by far which i suppose makes it the true challenge.
I
hope that we can each evaulate the change that is occuring in our lives
and seek to become perfect in Christ as we develop in our new changes.
Eclesiastisies 3:11, 2 Corinsthians 5:17, Ezekiel 36:25-27
Love you all! Thank you for your prayers and support.
Sister Bell
And as always, don't forget to keep it real.
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