Transfer season

Houston, we have a problem.

I'm afraid we have lost a transfer. Really though. I'm not sure where the last SIX. WEEKS. just went. I have no idea. I, I honestly don't know. I didn't think it could speed up anymore, I was so wrong. We are already half way done with our time together as a companionship in Dyker Heights. That blows my mind. This also means we have transfers tomorrow. Fun story: our stake boundaries are changing. Therefore they are moving some of the wards and which chapels they attend. Our ward is moving to the Bensonhurst chapel. This means we are switching apartments! Yay. We are moving into the sister training leaders' apartment (it's right by the chapel there) and they're moving into ours. It will be an interesting change, not to mention trying to take six bags and two crates full of books on public transportation thirty minutes both ways :) it'll be an adventure for sure! The other fun part is that Elder Weisler is going to be our new district leader! We will also be in a new zone. However, because there's only one set of Spanish elders and one set of Spanish sisters, they need to be bringing in another set of Spanish elders. We'll see tomorrow who is coming with us!

Anyway, enough of that. This week was great. We found a few really cool people to talk to while planting seeds this week, maybe something will come of one of them :) however, we know if not in our time, in the Lord's time.  :)

We got to teach one of our favorite families again. They are awesome, we had a great lesson with them. We also met with a less active family we were given as a referral. The youngest boy is eight and wants to be baptized so we have begun to teach them to help him have a better understanding of the church before he picks his big day. It's awesome to see him so excited about it, he really gets the significance of it.  Not fully of course, but he gets it.

Thursday morning we went to the church for some language study.  Later that day we had a lesson planned. She was supposed to meet us at the church. Never showed. It was a little frustrating for me but the soccer ball was in the gym. We went in there and during our dinner hour (which was supposed to be the lesson...) instead of eating much I kicked the ball against the wall to get a little bit out. Kinda hard in a skirt though haha. I was actually kicking hard enough that I bruised a bit (cause I was
shooting against the wall barefoot! Can't kick with those flats on! 😜). It was a good stress reliever though! #whatdoyoudowhenyouremad? #workout #bake #shoot

Another thing from Thursday was when we were walking down 86th street from the bus (this is one of the really busy roads with all the big stores) and we're walking along and we pass this group of younger men on my side and one of them goes, "Shoot. She Mormon!" It was a surprise to say the least!

Friday was pineapple carving day! :) the first week we were all together our elders had these pineapples they were leaving with during lunch. We asked what in the world they were going to do and they said they were going to fill them up at seven eleven! They did it and showed us pictures so we made a goal to do it this transfer. Well we did it three days before it ended haha! But we did it! I can now say for myself that pineapple slurpees are amazing --even better when the pineapple is only a dollar and you get to eat pineapple while practicing your knife skills.

We got back from 7-11 with our slurpees and the elders were in the kitchen...opening a seven pound can of tomato sauce for spaghetti. Our elders. They're something special :) I got my package Friday as well (THANK YOU! We opened it and we're taking everything out and my compañera goes, "I think you needed this today." Yup :) so thank you lots!). We gave Elder Creager a bag of muddy buddies and Elder Weisler the Oreos so that he wouldn't die. They went through those so fast haha.

On Saturday we had this emergency prep meeting we were supposed to go to. It was long but a good opportunity to meet some non-members and give them an impression of our members. We met a few really cool Dominican ladies who we got to talk to for a bit. One of their seven contacts :)

Right after the emergency prep meeting we had a chapel tour with our new investigator! She is so awesome. She was just taking everything in and was understanding so well all of the new information. We closed by showing her the chapel last and teaching her about the sacrament. She read the sacrament prayers and we ended with a prayer in the chapel. She even agreed to come to church with us the next day for the first meeting. Sunday we picked her up and walked to church together. I
think it was very new for her but she took it all very well and we know she felt the Spirit. She even sang the songs (she doesn't even know them but she still wanted to sing!) We were praying for her the
whole time to be able to feel the Spirit, and the talks were perfect. She left after sacrament meeting and we said we'd see her at two for our scheduled lesson. She sent us a message at twelve saying her mom told her our beliefs are too different from theirs and she can't go to the chapel or church anymore. I was so sad. We sent her our testimonies and some scriptures and invited her to pray to know what she's supposed to do. It's hard when you see so much progress and potential in someone and then they have a trial like that thrown in the way. We're not sure what will happen with teaching her, but we know she will come join with us again when it's right. She'll be in our prayers :)

We had a super cool experience Saturday however. We had a member present planned for our lesson with our little family. We called to make sure she was still good to come with us but turns out she was in Manhattan! We knew we couldn't do this lesson without a member present so we got creative. Facebook lesson (thank you to the new church videos for this idea!). We checked to see if it was alright with the mom of the family and the member and we put everyone in this nice little Facebook group chat. And we had a lesson. We recorded the prayers and sent them, sent little pictures, it was awesome! Everyone fully participated and our investigator opened up way more through the messaging than she ever had during lessons in person. She also got to "meet" a member, which was awesome #fellowshipping. God really does have so much more for us to do with this technology He has given us than we currently use it for. It was awesome to still be able to teach our investigator, allow her to open up more, and have a member there when before the lesson would have needed to be rescheduled. The Lord works in mysterious ways :)

Sunday we had all of our lessons canceled. That was fun. It was a little ironic and I felt like Job for a bit cause I happened to be fasting, particularly in gratitude of all the Lord has blessed us with this transfer. We came here with no investigators and not a single person to teach, now we have a thriving pool and our days fill themselves. It's been a huge blessing and testimony builder to me that the Lord does bless us to find when we seek and helps us do His work His way when we give all of our effort. So the ironic part is that on the day I'm giving thanks for all the blessings we've been given with the work here we end up literally on plan G. Every plan up to that point fell through. We got to see one sister after church, which was awesome (and plan C haha) but everyone else we tried to find, called,
had lessons set for, it all fell through. We headed to the church for our final plan and tried to contact some referrals. We ended up dropping a few who we finally contacted who very much were not interested. Sad time, but one day they'll learn and whether they accept it then or not will still be their choice. #anotheronebitesthedust

All in all it was a great week. I learned a lot and got to see the blessings we've received from our efforts here the last six weeks and how the Lord does His work. Sometimes it can be hard when you don't see what the plan is, but if you keep taking it one step at a time the Lord will guide and sooner or later you'll have climbed a mountain without even realizing it. Be grateful for the little trials, those
are what build our faith the most I think. Hope it's a great week! Next Monday we'll be writing from Bensonhurst! Love you!

Tanto amor,
Hermana Karra Gourley

PICTURES:  We did slightly better this week than the last haha.
We've got our pineapple carving and the end result #newfavoritething #randomselfies
A pumping party on fifth ave for Mexico Independence Day (the party went for literally ten blocks all down fifth ave. Needless to say, transportation was fun!)
And here pictures of us in Park Slope courtesy of Hermana Voss :)