A Missionary's Tale......there & back again.: My Name Is On A Canadian Police Report.....

Hey Guys!

Well, another week has come and gone! Holy cow times sure goes by fast! We had a great week and saw lot of tender mercies and miracles!

On Tuesday, we had an amazing tender mercy. So we went to this apartment building to drop by two less-active members. We prayed that we would be able to get in and then headed off. When we got in the building, we were looking through the directory to see if we could find the less-actives on the list. As we were looking, a guy came and opened the door for us (blessings!) We dropped by both sisters, but neither of them were home. We'd been let into the building way too easily so we knew there must be a reason we were there. We began knocking on doors on the fourth floor and nobody was really interested. Then we get to door number twelve and a Portuguese woman named Maria answered. She's had a really difficult life, and it was so cool to be able to talk with her about the gospel and how it could help her. She agreed to let us bring a Portuguese Book of Mormon to her. Things happen! Fourth floor, twelfth door! (Read President Uchtdorf's talk from general conference last fall if you don't get that joke). ;)

Well, the other tender mercy that goes along with Maria goes as follows. Sister Holmstead and I were super tired that day! We were seriously falling asleep while we were standing up having conversations with people. When we came home for dinner that night, we decided we were more tired than hungry so we took a nap. We set a timer for thirty minutes so we could get up and get ready before our interviews with President at 5:00. Well, apparently when we fell asleep, we went out hard because the alarm on the phone went off, and we slept through the whole thing. Then, at about 4:50, President Shields called to let us know they were running about ten minutes late because of the traffic, but we slept through that too! (Apparently it was a much needed nap). Well, the Lord is so good to us because He made sure Sister Holmstead woke up at 4:55 so we could still have time to get up, throw a snack together, and still beat President and Sister Shields to the church. :)

For the funny experience of the week (this is also the craziest experience of my mission)...on Wednesday after district meeting we went on exchanges with our Churchville YSA sisters, and I don't think I've ever had such a powerful lesson about the Lord's timing. Sister Hollyman and I went off to our first appointment with one of their new converts. She happened to be a few minutes late so we just figured out our schedule really quickly. Then we had lunch and a lesson with her and we were off again. We dropped by a less-active member and then tracted in the area a little bit. While we were tracting, Sister Holmstead called and asked if I had accidentally taken my GPS with me. We checked the car, and sure enough, it was sitting in my bag. (Oops!) So we arranged to meet them at Square One and drove off to meet them. They took a wrong turn and got lost so they were a few minutes behind, but they eventually got there and all was well in Zion. We contacted around Square One for awhile and then started heading back to the car. Let me say, the Lord's timing is fantastic...it was such a tender mercy that their new convert was late for the lesson, that I accidentally took the GPS, that the other sisters were lost and showed up late, the length of our conversations with all the people we talked with, etc. because as we were going back to the car, we heard cars honking and slamming on the breaks. We looked ahead and saw a little girl running across the road. She ran up the steps to the mall and played there for a bit and then started running back again to the road. We took of running to catch her before she got to the road again. Luckily we caught her just as she was stepping out onto the road. So now Sister Hollyman and I are standing with this lost little girl trying to figure out what to do. We walked with her into the mall, and she was just holding my hand and chattering happily away as we searched for a security guard who could help us. We eventually found two and they took us back to their main office while they called the local police to see if anyone had reported a missing child. Eventually, the police called back and said they found the little girl's grandma and they were on their way. The police showed up, and the little girl was returned to her family. So now Sister Hollyman and I have our names on a Canadian police report, hahaha. As crazy as the experience was, it was a really good reminder that God's timing is much better than mine. Had our schedule turned out any differently that day, we would not have been where we needed to be to find that little girl and she could've been hit by a car.

But the story doesn't end there. Later that night, Sister Hollyman and I were driving home, and their GPS is very very old, so it wasn't giving me very good instructions. We got to a point in the road where I could take one of three forks in the road...left, straight, or right. Well, the moral of the story is always choose the right, because when you choose to go straight, the road takes you to the Toronto-Pearson International Airport, which is the home of the most confusing road system in the world in my opinion. We got lost at the aiport on exchanges. :) Sister Hollyman thought it was great though because it gave her ample opportunities to tease me and remind me that in 10 weeks, I'll be there. In fact, as we finally found our way out, a plane took off and flew right over our car. She turned to me and said, "Sister Dille, Sister Dille! What's that called?!...10 Weeks!" So that's our fun story about finding a missing child and getting lost at the airport, hahaha. Oh the things that happen on exchanges!

Love you!

Sister Dille