Skype Details

She was very late getting on--although we found out it wasn't her fault. She had told us 7:00 p.m.  We waited and waited, and sometime around 7:40 we heard her trying to dial on.  It ended up that the Cambodian family that they had planned to skype from stood them up, and so they were scrambling at the last minute to try to find any family that would let them skype.  It was a lot to ask of these members, because there are 3 missionaries in the companionship and each one needed to talk to their family for 40 minutes to an hour and so that’s a lot of time for a family to give up to missionaries.

When Janessa first got on, we asked her, “how much time do you have?”  She said, “I don’t know.  I think an hour.”  And then the members whose home she was at said in the background, “What? We only got 40 minutes with our missionary child.”  So then Janessa said, “So I guess we have sometime between 40 minutes and an hour.”

She was very enthusiastic and happy and bright eyed.  She thanked us heartily for her presents.  She and her companions had opened each other’s presents before Christmas so that if the presents came unwrapped a companion could wrap them and put them under the tree.  That way the missionary wouldn’t know what they were getting, but the companions would know.

She told us that right before Christmas, Janessa was in the mall with her companions and she nearly bought herself a hand-mixer because she has been so frustrated at trying to whip cream by hand. Her companions knew that we had sent her one for Christmas, and so they were able to distract her from her purchase by suggesting that they go get some food to eat.

She said that this winter is the coldest winter on record in Washington State in the last 20 years.  Every night from 5:00-7:00 is consecrated “tracting time” throughout the whole mission. So before 5:00 Janessa said that she and her companions go home and put on all of their warm clothing. She said they wear several pairs of tights, several pairs of leggings, and then they all wear Janessa’s knee socks, as well as boots and coats and head out for the “chilly hours” of tracting. She said that most people won’t let them in or talk to them when they knock because “it’s too cold” and they don’t want to let the cold in.  Janessa says that she’s always thinking, “I know how cold it is.  We’re standing out here in the cold!”

She also talked about the 1 day a month called “Park day” where the missionaries can’t drive to any appointments. They park their car for the day and walk everywhere they go, contacting everyone they meet along the way. She said that December’s park day was brutal because they were frozen all day and they were outside all day and couldn’t go back home to put on more clothes.  She and her two companions all  wear her knee socks daily.  She said her comps didn’t have any boots when they arrived in the mission, so she loaned them boots from her small collection.  

She talked about writing a Christmas skit about a missionary doing door approaches and the investigator on the other side pretending not to speak English, so when the missionary counters with Spanish, they pretend not to speak Spanish, and so on and so on, with about 5 other language attempts--every time the missionary is able to speak the language that they say they speak, only to have the investigator come up with another nationality that they think will foil the missionary. Until finally at the end, the investigator says in perfect English, Well, I'm just not interested." Janessa says this happens all of the time. The Cambodians hide behind "I don't speak English--I'm Cambodian--in heavily accented, broken English, and when Janessa pulls out the Cambodian, they say, in perfect English, well, I'm just not interested."

She also rewrote a Christmas song for the missionaries which was supposed to be quite witty. She said she'd send us a copy.

We each spent 5-6 minutes with her alone—each of the siblings, each of the parents, filling her in on our lives and asking her questions.

Janessa skyped from a laptop on her lap on the couch, so the sound and the picture were not great.  We missed a bunch of things she was saying and had to ask for “repeats.”  Also, the picture would suddenly just shift and jiggle all over. She did show us that she was wearing the lacy crocheted tights that James and I had bought her in Rome. She had a pair of red tights underneath them that showed through.

She was also sitting on the couch in a house that had a huge red Christmas bow decoration right above her head, so when she sat up straight, it looked as if this Christmas bow was right on her head.

Over all—she seemed in a really good mood.  She was really responsive and happy about everything we told her.  She was really grateful about everyone that sent her Christmas items.  And she just told us some fun stories in her engaging and dramatic way—like how many layers they would put on before they went out.

Merry Christmas

Janessa's Zone at the Mission Christmas Party 

at the Church

Thanks to Janessa's Mission President's wife, Sister Weaver for posting this photos on the mission blog!

Chestnuts roastin on an open fire, baptism fills you with a new desire

December 17, 2013

I love my tiny live Christmas tree! You should've been there to see my reaction when we got home and saw it on our porch. I about woke up the whole complex screaming I LOVE CHRISTMAS THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE THE CHURCH IS TRUE etc. 

Also I got the winter wear package, which was perfectly timed and has been keeping me snug for tracting all week. And I got the one at the mission office, and a big one that says "Don't open till Christmas". Also the Dunford family sent me the cutest ever package that I wasn't sure if I was supposed to save for Christmas, but I'm so glad I opened it because it significantly improved the quality of my life. Think tiny Christmas treats and notebooks all wrapped in little baggies with bows. I am so spoiled. 

Sorry I didn't have time to email last week! I was writing our zone's skit for the Christmas party and then before I knew it my computer was timed out and I never got to send what I wrote.

News:

1. transfers today- I stay with my girls for another 7 weeks, but all our bestest friends in the zone have been scattered far and wide which has caused exceeding tears and distress. We've had the most dope crew this past transfer and we've gotten so close with each other, and it's sad to think it'll never be like it was again. My companionship is lucky enough that we have bigger boundaries than most, so we'll be able to see our friends while we're teaching cambodians in their areas. But we won't be all reunited as a crew until September 2015 when the last of us are home. Still though, we're pretty lucky- this has been a heartbreaking transfer for some, with many going clear across the mission and having to spend Christmas after only a week in a brand-new area with strangers. Transfers are so tough sometimes!

2. I usually make lunch every week for our Wednesday district meetings. There's 12-14 in our district, depending on if the zone leaders come (they switch-off every other week). Some weeks I'm way elaborate, like steak and potatoes and lion house rolls. One time for zone meeting I asked every person what meal they missed from home and then made everyone their own separate lunch. There's 2 districts in our zone and most everyone is either an elder or a sister with the appetite of an elder. That one took forever. Anyway, this picture is from the time I decided to try to create a griddle on the church stove to cook pancakes on. It worked really well, at least the pancakes were delicious, but then unfortunately it melted the bottom of the pan and so the stove and the pan were ruined. 

Don't ever listen to anyone who says a mission is a sacrifice. It's not. You're giving up nothing compared to what you get in return. The investigators and less-actives I've worked with here have absolutely changed my life. I am a better person, a better missionary, and a better Christian because of the experiences I've had here, and I'm not even half-done. If you're thinking about going on a mission, stop thinking. Just go. You will never regret that decision, and you'll spend everyday thanking your heavenly father for trusting you enough to serve and teach his children.

I've been in the WA-TAC 29 weeks, and the church is true here too!

-Sister McQuivey

Thanksgiving and

12/3/2013

For thanksgiving we dressed in coordinating fall colors!

The best thing about 5 sisters living in 1 apartment complex is 5 closets to pull from. No one shown in this picture is wearing clothes that actually belong to them.

 I love these girls so much. I really lucked out big time by getting to have them as companions. We have so much fun and laugh nonstop which means that we don't pause long enough to let the craziness of what we're doing stress us out. We found out today there's a 4th sister who's been called and is coming Cambodian speaking in the end of March/beginning of April. At which point we'll finally be two separate companionships! Hopefully by then we'll have some sort of branch or at least a group to work with. Right now we're not assigned to any ward, so we just try to get all the inactives and investigators to come to the wards which are in there areas, and then pick which ward we want to go to each Sunday. But we don't have a bishop to work under or a ward mission leader or ward missionaries to work with. So we're just pioneering it and hoping eventually we'll get enough people to church in their respective wards that it'll legitimize a need for a single group that all the Cambodians go to. After all, we cover all the wards in the mission but we can only translate in one meeting at a time! 

The work is slow moving. We're getting dropped a lot (the term for investigators deciding they no longer want to meet with us and instead pretending they're not home). Also we spend a lot of time just trying to find out where the inactive members live now because most have moved at least 2x in the last 8 years and very few have kept in contact with each other. A huge problem we're finding is that many of these inactives didn't understand the gospel when they were baptized back in '82. They weren't really taught, at least not very well, and so they got baptized to thank the members of the church who helped them make a life here when they moved from Cambodia. But they think that Buddha and Jesus are the same, and that it doesn't matter which path we follow because true happiness comes from having a lot of money. This is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. I don't know who the missionaries were who served here in '82, but we seem to be doing a lot of clean-up from instatisms (instant baptisms, without teaching lessons first) they performed.

I've been in the WA-TAC 27 weeks, and the church is true here too!

-Sister McQuivey (the tall one in the picture)

Cambodian Reunion Photos, plus a bonus picture!

Our Cambodian Reunion/Activity. We had no idea if we'd get 10 people or 200.  We had 70!  We were very happy with the turnout!

Janessa singing at the Cambodian reunion.

 From Sister Weaver's blog:  Janessa and her comps at the Cambodian reunion

 Cambodian Reunion

Janessa singing at the Cambodian reunion (Thanks Sister Weaver)

All of the missionaries in Mountain View spelling M.V. with their bodies!

Photos--In which I'm a stoplight, Jessie, and a chef, amongst other things.

We're a Stoplight!

 Our Zone

Me and Cassell on Halloween.  I'm dressed up like Jessie from Toy Story.

At a park close to our appointment. Sister McQuivey and Sister Cassell.

I fixed Sister Cassell her favorite lunch--steak and potatoes.

A mission wide conference in which I meet Elder Neil L. Andersen and shake his hand...

11/26/2013

This past Saturday, we attended our mission-wide conference in which a member of the Quorum of the 12 and a member of the 70 came to speak to us. For security issues, they couldn't tell us who was coming until they were already here. So it remained a surprise to us until only a few minutes before the meeting started that Elder Neil L. Anderson and Elder Craig C. Christiansen were assigned to come speak to our mission. Elder Anderson wanted to shake all of our hands individually, and as we lined up and it got to my turn, I said quickly, "You were my mom's mission president in France, Sister Megan Kelly" to which he said, "Oh of course you're Megan's daughter! How is your family doing?" He talked to me for a bit, remembered that we were in Boston and said, "I've met your dad now, I think" and said he was told I was Hmong speaking in Washington, which is pretty close anyway. Then he said, "Thank you so much for stopping me and telling me! It's good to see you." which alone I thought was pretty cool. But after he'd shook all the missionaries hands and went up to the podium to speak, he said, "I just want to show you how we're all connected. Sister McQuivey, stand up so everyone can see who you are" and then talked about how he was my Mom's mission president years ago and how weird it is to think that his missionaries now have kids who are serving missions and that one day, we'll have kids that will be serving missions and if he's not too old he could one day meet them at a mission conference too. He also said, "and she looks exactly like Megan, with her red hair and everything" which is awkward considering I'm a bottle redhead and have only had red hair for a few weeks. So that was way cool!

It was an incredible meeting. He was great humored and very calm and comfortable which made us relax a little more. He talked about how key the principle of repentance is, and how no one should ever be baptized without having first repented and having a full understanding of what repentance is. He also made a significant remark about being sure to only bear testimony of principles we have a definite testimony of. He said if there's something we're teaching that we're unsure of or are questioning, it's better to let our companion bear testimony of it than to try to say the words anyway if we don't fully believe it. Without conviction, the spirit can't be present, and so it's better to bear testimony of things that we have a testimony of rather than try to force it. He said it's okay to say, "I'm still learning this in my own life, but from my experience this is what I understand.." I thought this was pretty important because it makes you step back and think, "do I have a testimony of this principle?" before jumping in and declaring something. And it helps you recognize if the answer is no, which principles you need to study out and 'experiment' upon in order to gain a stronger testimony of them.

Another thing that stood out to me was when Elder Anderson spoke about the atonement, he broke it down to the mercy, merits, and grace of Christ that we can learn from. Especially regarding the mercy of Christ he said, "We should be teaching this everyday, shouldn't we? What else is there?". I think as a missionary I've kind of been hesitant to teach mercy because I find the Cambodian people think it gives them permission to have an "eat, drink, and be merry" attitude because they think if they can be forgiven through the mercy of Christ later, there's no need to repent now. But that's something I need to learn to teach more clearly, with emphasis on the balance between justice and mercy and the focus being to invite the spirit so they'll feel a desire to repent. The atonement isn't something that you can gain an appreciation for without applying it first in your own life.

So to bring both points together, if you don't have a strong testimony of the atonement, apply it in your own life until you do. There's a quote I love from George Q. Morris in 1956 that says, "the principle question is not whether we comprehend the atonement, but do we accept it". In light of that quote, my challenge is that we work to accept the atonement in our own lives through daily repentance, including forgiving ourselves and moving beyond our past mistakes.

Something I need to repent for is not being a good enough missionary before my mission. I had no idea all that I could be doing to be more involved, and I didn't realize how many opportunities I missed to share the gospel with those around me. Now that I know, I'll be a much better member missionary when I get home a year from now.

I don't ever really know what to write about, so maybe send me questions of things you want to know and I'll respond to those.

I've been in the WA-TAC 26 weeks, and the church is true here too!

-Sister McQuivey