My Mission is Unlike No Other...

1/28/2014

And this is in part because of the people we work with. 

This past week I received a letter from our investigator Veasana. He's decided that Sister Dunster and I have STDs and wants to know the name of the guy responsible so he can beat them up in church. We explained to him that we don't even date as missionaries, that we're disease free, and that if we ever needed anyone beat-up, he'd be the first to know. I guess he was skeptical about that because he wrote a second letter in which he asked if Sister Walker would teach him from now on, because he feels like Sister Dunster and I can't teach the gospel effectively while we're dealing with such a devastating diagnosis. Yeah I don't get it at all but we sure get a good laugh every time we have a lesson with him. He's a little nuts but it just means he fits in super well in Tacoma. 

Sometimes I think the reason I was called here is because other people would probably get freaked out and not know what to do with stuff like that. Sometimes Veasana starts rolling his own joints in lessons, or insists we use an elaborate method involving dice and all of our names in a hat to select who says the prayer at the start and close of every lesson. One time he leaned over to me in Sacrament meeting and asked if the church would be opposed to him building a boxing ring right outside the chapel. But actually now I guess it makes sense because this was probably a part of the plot to beat up the guy who'd infected me and Sister Dunster. Hmm. 

Well his first Sunday in Gospel Principles I was a little unsure how to respond, he was ripping pages out of the GP book and writing love notes to us on them. But by the end of the lesson I had him in check- I walked him over to apologize to the teacher for yelling out rude comments during the lesson, and then to the Elder to whom the GP book belonged to apologize for drawing obscene things in it and ripping several pages. He knows the drill now- when he goes to Priesthood (the only time we can't keep an eye on him), I've assigned several people to watch his behavior and report if he does anything inappropriate so he doesn't think he can get away with shenanigans when we're not there. At our first sit down lesson with him, I composed him a list of rules- like if he's had anything to drink before we get there, we leave and don't teach him, he's required to call us Sister and not "Miss Thing" (this one is still a work in progress), and if he has personal questions like our ring sizes he needs to save them until the end of the lesson. We have to teach him a little differently, like over a game of monopoly or while rolling some sticky rice in banana leaves, but we're finding it helps if he has a menial task to occupy his brain and hands while we're teaching, otherwise his attention span fizzles out fast.

As promised, here's two harry potter pictures of my companions and I in front of hogwarts. Sister Walker is the one in Griffindor, Sister Dunster is a Ravenclaw, and I'm in Slytherin. 

 Notice the dark-mark tie, curtesy of an Elder in our zone for my birthday. 

I've been in the WA-TAC 35 weeks, and the church is true here too!

-Sister McQuivey, Slytherin house.

Tiny Note

1/28/2014

1. I got the flowers, the day before my birthday. That was the best surprise of all time, it made me feel super special and loved and also they were delivered UPS so that's a nice touch.

2. I did finally send off a letter today but I'm not sure if it'll send before tomorrow because I might have missed the mail pick up times. Anyway it details my birthday so I won't tell more here because you should get it really soon!

3. I laughed so hard over that little part about Lachlan's store and made my companions read it and also a homeless guy who came into the library to watch porn and the librarian at the front desk. She said in response, "shh, this is a library".

So It's My Birthday...

1/21/14

Janessa to Mom: So sorry you're sick! Both the pizza and cupcakes were huge surprises- the McMullins seem to have friends everywhere!

Sorry you didn't get to see the new temple movie. I'm probably going to get to see it in April when our mission does its yearly trip.

I had the best birthday of my entire life! And I've had 20 of those, you know. It was so much fun and I felt so spoiled all day. I was amazed by all the gifts- they just kept coming! And I absolutely love the bracelet, pendant, and ear warmer headband- you got my style perfectly.

Janessa to everyone:  No time for a big email this week..I know I say this every time but I'll do my best to write a letter and send it tomorrow. I have a lot to tell you about my birthday!

I loved the presents and the party package and the notes and everything. I love you and it was really good to know you were still thinking of me back home. Thank you so much for making that day so special!

I love you!

-Sister McQuivey

"Scared, Potter?"...

..."You wish."

We have the weirdest problems in our missionary work out here. For example: How do you report your numbers for the week if you're not sure if the person who came to church today is an investigator or a less-active member? Because you've been teaching them as an investigator for the last month or so, and this is their 2nd time at church, and then all of a sudden they have a flashback that indicates maybe they've done this before and so they tell you they're pretty sure they were already baptized in this church, but you can't find their records because they don't know how the cambodian spelling of their name was translated into English letters. So do you report that as an investigator at church, or not? This is the type of question we ask our district leader every week.

It's an interesting thing, because when I first got here I started the joke of, "all Cambodians are already members" because nearly every Cambodian person I met said, "oh yeah, I was baptized in your church in '82". Every referral we get from other missionaries we type into the gps and when we arrive at the house, we're like, hey, we already found this guy on a ward list a month ago. And then every once in a while, someone will call us and be like, "guys, I just found someone who moved from Cambodia a few months ago, so they're probably not a member already". And then as it turns out they were baptized in Cambodia like right before they came here. But still, there was a general understanding that this was an exaggeration. I mean, it had to be. There's no way every single Cambodian person here can already be members of the church.

Then Sunday happened, our investigator decided he remembers learning all this before, and tells us he's probably already been baptized. In '89. Now I'm starting to believe that every single person of Cambodian decent living in the greater Tacoma area is already a member of this church.

An Elder in our zone made us all wands that are hand-carved to match us personally. Mine is oak, and long and sleek with all these subtle details. I feel like a pretty powerful witch with it in my grasp. We spend a large amount of our getting-ready-time in the morning just trying out different wand poses in the mirror. Once we find ones we're satisfied with, you can expect a plethora of HP themed pictures.

Until then, here's a more everyday picture of me eating a Krispy Kreme donut off of my wand.

 And here's me with Hermione's cat Crookshanks. We are not friends.

Go watch something Harry Potterish for me this week, okay?

Oh yeah and also my birthday is Saturday so I would appreciate a telepathic e-card or something of that sort.

I've been in the WA-TAC 33 weeks, I'm almost 20 years old, and the church is true here too!

-Sister McQuivey

 These last two photos are from Janessa's Mission President's Wife's blog.  Just a little bonus!

The Curious Incident of the Missionary in the New Year

1/7/2014

First thing that happened:

I taught false doctrine to a less active. 

How this occurred:

I do not speak Cambodian well. I try, like, a lot, but I'm not particularly gifted in language ability. Also, I accidentally prayed to be humbled. DISCLAIMER- if you are considering offering such a prayer, do not do so without thinking very hard about it first. It will be answered. God is happy to answer prayers for humility and patience. I learned this nugget of truth when we were giving a lesson to this less-active family, the Ys. Cambodians love to talk about their health problems, so first off, as we sit down the grandma, she is pointing to different parts of her body and saying 'chu' which means pain or sick. After about 20 minutes of this, she moved on to tell us about the rest of the family and their medical hardships. They actually had had a real rough time of it lately, like several heart surgeries and broken bones among them. When she finished, we wanted to transition into a gospel message without completely disregarding all of the health issues she'd just told us about. So, I thought it would be good to testify that everything, even our bodies, will be made whole through Jesus Christ. 

I told them that in the resurrection, we're promised bodies that won't suffer the same ails as our earthly ones do. The trials that we endure in this life will all be made up to us, and despite our unworthiness, we're able to eventually become whole spiritually and physically through the atonement of Christ. Anyway, this is what I thought I said. But as I got to the end of it, the Y family is just looking way perplexed. So I turn the lesson over to my greenies, who each bare testimony of some other unrelated aspect of the gospel. Then we close with a prayer. At the end, this grandma had tears in her eyes, and thanked us for coming. She said that even though she hadn't been to church in almost 10 years, she'd never forgotten what she learned and how the spirit felt. She thanked us for bringing the spirit into her home and for visiting with them. 

I was feeling pretty good about all this, until after we left the lesson and started our discussion as a companionship about what went well, what we could do better next time, etc. It was at this point that one of my greenies spoke up and asked what exactly I'd taught about. I repeated to her pretty much what I said here, taking this as a teaching opportunity to talk about the needs of the family and why I felt that particular gospel principle would resonate with them at this time. My dear, dear greenies politely informed me that I'd accidentally said the word restoration instead of resurrection. 

So: All the while I thought I was testifying about one thing, I was actually teaching this sweet family that in the restoration of the gospel, we're all going to be given perfected bodies. I recall that the grandma had said something to the effect of, "yes, the resurrection was a wonderful gift from which we're all blessed" to which I responded, "well, yeah, it hasn't happened yet, but it's going to be a blessing to us. Great faith, Grandma.". Pretty much as my girls told me, they had no idea what I was talking about, and when I asked them to say something, they were like, "well gee, how are we supposed to follow that?" which is why they ended up each saying something unrelated like, "I know the scriptures are from God" and then closing. 

In summary: I prayed to be humbled, was reminded how little of the Cambodian language I really know, and taught and testified of false doctrine to a less active family. But they were still able to feel the spirit once my companions spoke, even to the point of moving them to tears. Which shows that no matter what you say, God makes it work to reach the people who are ready for the message.

A valuable lesson. I love my greenies. They're so patient with me.

I've been in the WA-TAC 32 weeks, and the church (minus the stuff I accidentally taught) is true here too!

-Sister McQuivey

Hope You Had the Merriest of Christmases...

and wishing you the Happiest of New Years!

12/31/2013

Thank you so much to everyone who sent me a letter, card, package, or carrier pigeon for Christmas. My walls are covered with Chrismas cards, and under our tree was full of packages. I so appreciate you thinking of me this season!

Last week and this week are tough for missionary work. It's not generally socially acceptable to drop by casually on people on Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Years Eve, and New Years Day. And the majority of what we do these days is casual drop-ins and drive-bys (where we slow down and try to see if the cars are in the driveway and the lights are on in the house and then if not we awkwardly pretend we were just turning around or something so they neighbors don't call the cops on us for driving slowly by the house on the daily). This means that those days end up being very unproductive; we do a lot of organization things at the apartment like planning and filling out records and post-it-ing referrals to the giant maps on our walls so we can figure out where things are and what work to do when. It's so weird, haven't not been on the internet (besides email) or watched tv or listened to the radio, I totally wouldn't even know it was Christmas or New Years unless my companions told me. It sure doesn't feel like it. But we did our best to make it look like it by buying out the holiday decorations aisle of the dollar store and spending way too much money on a live Christmas tree for our living room. Whatever. Walking in the house at the end of the day to it smelling like pine needles and gingerbread men (I constantly have some sort of cookie in the oven. Stress coping, you see.) makes it well worth-it. 

I got to talk to my cute family on Christmas. (When we're missionaries, our contact with home is limited so that we stay focused. We email weekly, and skype twice a year, on Christmas and Mothers Day). I pretty much went into panic mode for the 2 hours preceding the skype call, so by the time I saw them I was all hyperventilated out and didn't even remember what I wanted to tell them in the call anyway. (It's a lot of pressure when you haven't seen them in 9 months and you only have limited time to tell them about everything). It's okay. I spent the 2 hours following the call lying on the floor doing a play-by-play of the skype session, just to recap everything that was said and grumble about everything I should have said that I thought of right after it ended

Something weird to think about: My mothers day call home will be my very last one, because my mission ends in October, before the next call, which would be Christmas. 

My girls are good, they're still fresh enough that they're pumped up about being out here and working, so I don't have to push/encourage them much, which is nice. But they are rather homesick, because they haven't seen their families since September and now they're starting to realize what a long time it's going to be before they see them again. My technique when homesickness strikes is the act of distraction. This can take many forms: baked goods, lessons with crazy people, this-one-time-on-my-mission stories, a new cd we haven't gotten sick of yet, or stickers. We're working together well and they're very patient with me despite the fact that I sometimes pretend we're superheros and put googly eyes on the contents of our fridge.

I've been in the WA-TAC 31 weeks, for a total of 41 weeks on my mission. And I'm happy to report: the church is true here too.

-Sister McQuivey