Home to the Abbotsford zone!!! Transfer calls were this week and I found out I'm being transferred to Langley YSA!!!!!! I could hardly believe my ears! I'm going to be living in the same apartment I lived in while I was in Brookswood and Willoughby, going to the same chapel, and I'm going
to be in the same zone! Not to mention my new area covers 11 areas in
total, including all 3 of my areas on the lower mainland! I am BEYOND EXCITED!!!! I'm also going to be able to go on exchanges in the Abbotsford 2nd ward! That makes me SO HAPPY! I can't even believe this transfer call! It is literately everything I could have ever wished for! I thought I was staying in Nanaimo but every now and then this thought would pop in my mind of "you know it would be so nice to go back to Abbotsford. I would totally be ok with that." And now I'm going to Langley YSA! Words cannot express how happy I am!!!!
I am quite sad to be leaving Nanaimo. This ward is ON FIRE! I have never had such a big teaching pool in my life. It's incredible! It will be sad to say goodbye. I do feel that I'm headed to where God needs me though. It will be exciting to see what He has in store! I can't wait to hit the ground running and just get to work!
This week has been insane! I feel like I've
been running around like a chicken with my head cut off. And it doesn't
look like that will be stopping anytime soon haha. We have been running
from appointment to appointment along with finding so many other people
to teach. I have never been so busy in my life!
This
week we reconnected with someone who had been taught a lot in the past!
She is so sweet and it's amazing to see how she may have not been ready
a year ago, but now is her time to accept the gospel. She loves
watching Mormon movies, like the Best Two years and the other side of
heaven, and you could just see the happiness in her face when we told
her she didn't just have to watch the magic from the sidelines, but that
she could be a part of it! The gospel is for everyone and everyone can
be a part of it!
This week we also had
MLC! It was an awesome MLC where we spent a lot of time planning for our
zones. Then after MLC we literately ran out of there as fast as we
could to catch our ferry. In the summer it's a lot more busy. We missed
the Nanaimo ferry but were able to get on the Victoria ferry. Once we
got into Victoria it was about 7:30 and we had a decision to make. Do we
stay the night in Victoria or do we attempt to drive back to Nanaimo (2
hours) to get home at 9:30 (we had permission to get home at 9:30). The GPS said we would get home
at 9:35... which was pushing is a little bit. As we started to leave
Victoria we said a prayer asking if we should stay or not. The first
impression I got was that we needed to stay in Victoria. As I started to reason it out in my mind I
couldn't logically find any reason why we would need to stay. It would
just be a nuisance. And the spirit confirmed to me that we would be able
to make it home safely. I just wanted to get home
because we had been so stressed out the whole week. So as we drove we
talked about what the best option would be without making a decision.
Then before we had decided we reached the point of no return. That's
when we realized that we should have stayed but it was too late now. We
rushed home and pulled in at 9:35. We were perfectly fine and were able to let the APs know we had made it home safely. I
was pretty satisfied with myself haha. That is until we opened the
trunk to find that we had a bunch of stuff that needed to be delivered
to Victoria. That's when it hit me. That spiritual prompting was not for
my benefit. Heavenly Father needed us to stay not for ourselves, but to
help someone else. Our reasoning was exactly correct, we were able to
make it home safely and everything was ok. We
just missed out on an opportunity to be of service to someone else. In
the end, everything will be ok. We do have a way to deliver the stuff to
Victoria and we are safe. But I learned a lot from that experience. I
learned the importance of being obedient to the spirit. This last
general conference President Eyring said "Obedience may mean to move
quickly. It may mean to prepare. Or it may mean to wait in patience for
further inspiration." Most of the time we won't understand the reasoning
behind different promptings from the spirit. But it is so important
that we listen. Because God knows far more than we do. Not to mention,
the reason we have the gift of the holy ghost is not to bless our own
life, it's to bless the life of others. Our life shouldn't be for us.
That was a lesson I had to learn this week. I
listen to the spirit not for my own benefit, but for the benefit of
others. President Eyring also said "It seems to me that we receive the
Holy Spirit best when we are focused on serving others. That is why we
have the priesthood responsibility to serve for the Savior. When we are
engaged in service to tohers, we think less about ourselves, and the
Holy Ghost can more readily come to us and help us in our lifelong quest
to have the gift of charity bestowed upon us"
It
was so sad saying goodbye to everyone in Nanaimo! We have so many
people planning on getting baptized and had a ton of people at church on
Sunday. More than I have ever had on my mission. The people here are amazing and I'm so grateful for the time I've had to serve here. It made me so happy to see people in the ward just accept and love all those who came to church.
Well I
have so much more to say but not much time left. Just know we had like a
billion lessons, invited a ton of people to be baptized (and they said
yes!), invited a ton of people to church (and they came!), and had an
amazing week! Oh we also had a spontaneous basketball game with a bunch
of Japanese foreign exchange students. I do not remember the rules to basketball nor do I speak Japanese. That made for and interesting experience.
Have a wonderful week!
Sister Bloomfield
