April 16, 2012

Hello Everyone!    Wow...I honestly do NOT even know where to begin. I have had the most interesting and amazing week...and almost none of it has to do with missionary work in my area! First things first, last Thursday I had one of the most amazing experiences of my mission. So, background first. The mission is organizing a huge choir production that required three practices and three performances, all of which were over a hundred miles from where I serve. The first two practices I stayed in Fort Myers with two other sisters who were not singing and was able to continue the missionary work in their area. However, the transfer Gods came through and wiped out my untalented allies and I am now currently the ONLY sister missionary in the entire south half of the mission who is not in the choir. As there is no one for me to stay behind with, I now have to go to everything, including the practice in Sarasota last Thursday, the first performance yesterday, and the final two performances the next two Sundays. I'm not going to lie, I was pretty frustrated with the amount of time I had to lose doing missionary work in my area, especially since my area needs a lot of work.    Needless to say, I was not a happy camper this week with the prospect of losing two full days of missionary work. However, Tuesday I received a letter from my Dad that was extremely interesting. Inside the letter was a postcard that said "Suzanne (my Mom), I have recently completed a new work of family history on the Powers line, but I no longer have your e-mail address. If you could contact me I would be happy to e-mail it to you. Love Cousin Hollis." the note from my Dad said that he had seen from my previous letters that I am occasionally in Fort Myers and that my cousin actually lived in Fort Myers. He said that he had gotten the letter back in January and had meant to send it on to my Mom, but had never gotten around to it. He said that if I had the chance I should knock on their door and meet them. That was Tuesday, and I had a trip planned to Sarasota (Fort Myers is on the way) on Thursday, two days later. So, I called the other sisters and asked if we could go a half an hour early to try and find my long-lost cousin. They were of course excited at the prospect and were perfectly willing to join in on the fun. So away we went on Thursday morning with a mission. We arrived at the address at about 11:15 am (thanks to my trusty GPS) and I knocked on their door, trying desperately to battle down the butterflies that were flying around in my stomach. No one was home. There was a 'for sale' sign in the front. I was starting to think that I was too late, after all, he had sent the post card in January. However, being the good detective that I am I peeked through their window for indication of whether or not anyone lived there. I saw a paper sitting on the kitchen table and was able to make out the date, April 12th. It took me a good 15 seconds or so to realize that was the date that day (missionary life messes with your concept of time and dates a lot!). So I went back to the car where everyone was waiting and started to get into my backpack to leave them a note. Lucky for me, I was surrounded by great missionaries who immediately started praying that they would come back so I could meet them, when they said 'amen' a car pulled up behind us wondering why we were in their driveway. I ran up to the man driving and said, "Excuse me sir, but do you happen to know Hollis Powers?"  His response was amazing..."I'm Hollis Powers." I was so excited I launched into this explanation of who I was and how I had come there at this time and how excited I was to meet him and to hear about our family. I think he was mostly in shock and then really excited too. In the end I was able to get two big books of names, dates and places of the paternal line of my Mom's side of the family. It was amazing! I am so sorry that I did not get a picture with him, I was too excited and it didn't even cross my mind. However, I did gain a firm testimony of why I was there at that time and why the Lord had to work so hard to make sure I was the only sister missionary around that wasn't in the choir so He could get me in Fort Myers that day. Did I mention that my cousin Hollis is moving to Tallahassee in two weeks? Talk about timing. It was such an amazingly cool experience for me. I am so grateful for that moment I had.       The next story is from Saturday. So, as you all know, missionaries are NOT allowed to go to the beach. However, there are occasional exceptions, like baptisms and service projects. Lucky for me, this Saturday happened to be one such occasion as the Bahia ward joined in the "Keep Collier County Beaches Beautiful" beach clean-up project. So Saturday morning found me on the beach at 8:00 am for the greatest service project that has ever been thought of. The service project was scheduled from 8-11, most of the cleaners lasted only about an hour, but we were there the whole time...shocking I know! It was so much fun walking along the beach and feeling the breeze and talking with my friends. Elder Boud just got down here from St Pete, so we had a lot of fun talking about all of our favorite people from there and the crazy things that happened to us there. It was awesome. Also, we may or may not have picked up a few seashells along with all the trash, it was a good day.      The final story is from yesterday. We went to the English ward at 9am so that we could take the Sacrament (FYI: hymns sound weird in English, and there are way too many blond people there.) Then we started to drive up to Lakeland at about 12:30. We had to pick up several missionaries along the way, and so didn't arrive in Lakeland until about 4:30. It was a VERY long drive. Again, I have to say that my attitude was not what it should have been (I am none to happy about missing church three weeks in a row when I have so few left to begin with). Oh well. Again, God knows me, and He knows how to humble me with unexpected blessings when I think that nothing good can come from a situation. As I was killing time in the hall waiting for the program to start at 6:30 I was talking to a few of the other missionaries, when all of a sudden Jose, Elizabeth, and Adreanna come walking around the corner (my favorite family in the whole world). I was literally in the middle of a bite of apple when I threw it in a bag threw everything down and said, "That's my family!" I ran to Elizabeth and squeezed her for a good two minutes (I may also have cried a little as well.) Then about fifteen minutes later as I was trying to get us all to choose our seats I had another surprise, Lazaro walked in, my first convert. I have never been so happy to see the people I love in my whole life, I felt like I was allowed to spend the evening at home. I am so grateful for last night and the love that I felt.     To sum up this VERY long e-mail, I want to testify to each of you that the hand of the Lord is in the details of our lives. He knows our struggles and He knows what we need. So often He is just waiting to give us blessings and open the windows of Heaven upon us. I need to to remember to not only be more grateful for the blessings that I have, but also the struggles. I invite each of you to see the good in a situation that right now seems very difficult. Know that the Lord loves you and is aware of your situation. Know that I love you, and am praying for you. Thank you all for the love and support that I constantly receive from each of you. I love you all!    Hermana Levanger