#thestruggle
Honestly what a week..
The struggle is real and haunts my life. If only Elder Bickley were in here to laugh at all my problems.
Well let's start off:
Wednesday:
We got to host again, I hosted a cute girl from San Clemente that knows ma gurl A-Pundy so shout out to ash hole, it's Sister (anneliese?) Carter, but finally gave me something to talk about other than "when did you get your call?" "don't drink the orange juice." typical conversation i have with everyone and their dog! and then at dinner i ran into Elder Cameron Tribe! holla!
The struggle began first thing in the morning, walking down the stairs as the sisters were mopping, avoiding the bucket, doing just fine.... all of a sudden BAM slipped and fell flat on my ace. Okay.. funny yeah, laugh it off, didn't really hurt, we're all good. Stand up, next step BAM flat on my ace and slid down the whole entire staircase! I was laughing so hard cause it was so ridiculous but it honestly hurt so bad. I have a huge black bruise on my butt the size of my hand, don't worry I took pictures. (as modestly as I could) but seriously i had to laugh so I wouldn't cry, I had to limp alll the way across the campus only to find out we had to walk 15 minutes to a church off campus for In-Field Orientation..... really? kill me. so I limped down there and sat on my bruised butt for an 8 hour training.. it was awful. But one of the teachers was Brother Christensen, from the District! (any recent missionary probs knows exactly who he is... the Law of Chastity lesson fail, LOL) so yeah he is on "the District" which is about as famous as we get here in the MTC, and you all know how i love my celebrities so I was lovin life!
Friday:
OKay a little background story, there is this super annoying (by annoying i mean he is superrr nice but there is literally NEVER a time when he is not talking....) elder in a different district, but he is flying to portugal with us, and we figured out if they do our seats on the flight by alpabetical order then it will go Elder Collier, Elder Curfew (the chatter box) and then me Sister Dumas for 3 plane rides..... Collier suggested one of us needs to take one for the team and switch him spots so we're both not having our ears chatted off the entire time and he challenged me to a 1 of 1 Rock, Paper, Scissors, to settle the debt. Deal. I threw rock, he threw PAPER! nooooo! I've literally never seen him so happy! he jumped out of his desk shouting YES!! soo yeah my day started off bad... and progressively got worse when I got called into the travel office only to find out i have NO VISA. i repeat, NO visa. Yes I have had my travel plans for a week and a half and they didn't bother to tell me that didn't mean i don't have my visa yet.
I was so upset. The lady told me they are closed on the weekend, but we will know for sure on Monday if I get it in time. Then she told me if not, I would stay in the MTC and be a solo sister for a couple days and then probably be reassigned.. seriously 4 days before i am supposed to leave you're going to drop this ball on me? I'm literally gonna be bouncing around missions like a beach ball at a Nickel Back concert. I just started crying, went back to my class and half my district was in there so i told them the news and they were all shocked. Elder Zaccaria ran and shut the door and was like okay let's pray. So we all knelt down and Elder Bowden prayed that I would recieve my visa if it's the Lord's will and if not then I would be comforted that what ever happens is for a reason. Sister King and sister Hancock both suggested we fast the next day. Then Bro Kyle Lemperle (served in Portugal, from viewmont so yeah he know the blotter twins and all them) came by to say bye, give us some last advice on Portugal and tell us his new district is going to portugal, so I told him it looks like I may be joining his class until my reassignment or visa comes and he told us we need to have a District fast. and then got us pumped about Portugal, as always. And then everyone included me in all the prayers that were said throughout the day (which we all know is a LOT here in the MTC)
Honestly i love every single person in my district. I was just a mess all during class. The reason I was so upset, is not that I have to stay at the MTC and it's not that I don't get to Portugal yet, cause honestly my Portuguese could use some help still and being reassigned would actually be really cool for a little while, but i was so upset because I LOVE my district and I want to be able to travel with them (whether I'm sitting by chatter box or not) and stay with them that first night in the mission home and see where they all get transferred too.
Saturday:
My whole district fasted. I also don't think it was any coincidence when Irmao Taylor taught the lesson on Faith that day. but we were all doing fine as the morning started until lunch came around and the MTC thought it would be a good idea to have this huge BBQ grillin burgers outside for daysss. You could smell it everywhere you went and had to walk past it a bunch of times. It was literally like The great and spacious building from Lehi's Dream.. If you have been around Elder Zaccaria at all, you would know all he wants is a cheeseburger! honestly he brings it up and cries about it everyday, it's all he talks about. He always threatens that he is running away to get a cheeseburger. And the one day they decide to do this huge delicious smelling BBQ we were all fasting, I felt so bad for him, definitely a huge trial of his faith (which he passed)
To smooth everything over I got a package with all new clothes, thanks dennis, and the T-shirts to surprise my district with. I made them all close their eyes as i passed them out and when they opened them... Oh my goish they LOVED them, to say the least. Honestly throughout the whole day they would all just look at it and be like oh these are so cool I love them! tell your mom thanks so much blah blah blah they loved them! and I loved them, so thanks for making them!!
Sunday:
The World wide broadcast was awesome! I hope you were all there, and if you were I hope you saw me singing in the choir! Because you will never see that again. If you missed it, go to LDS.org and it's right on the front page and my moment of fame is at 2:15, you can also see martis, and our picture is right on the front page of LDS.org as a link to the LDS Newsroom which is a huge picture of us! so cool, you don't understand the fight and struggle we went through to get that perfect seat... oh what all of us missionaries will do for 3 seconds of camera time...
But my favorite part about the broadcast, besides getting pumped for missionary work, having Elder Russel M. Nelson blow us a kiss, waved at by all the Apostles and a thumbs up from Elder David A. Bednar and M. Russell Ballard, was when they played the little movie with the song "I'll go where you want me to go dear Lord" which obviously has been on my mind a lot the past couple days.... but it's true. I will definitely miss my district, and won't have as much fun flying all the way to Portugal by myself, but if that's the Lord's will, then so be it. He's in charge and I am just one of his many instruments (1 of over 70,000!!) preaching the gospel of happiness to His other brothers and sisters and children of God no matter where I am in the world. Portugal, provo or vernal.....
Monday:
Started packing, just in case, but stopped halfway through cause I decided I would rather stay up late packing my bags then trying to unpack when they tell me I've still got time to be served in the Provo penitentiary. Then we had our last class with Irmao Taylor, he is the greatest, such an inspired, faithful guy. Honestly no one be surprised when he's the first Apostle to be called at age 23. halfway through class I realized I had to pick up my alterations before 2 so we left, and on the way there I ran into the lady from the travel office that has been helping me, along with Don (mom's new best friend), but she told me the Visa did not come.. and to come into her office and we would call Don and see if I was staying in the MTC or when I would be reassigned. I told her we had to run to alterations and we'd be right back.
At this point i was a little bummed, but nothing too bad, no tears were shed. I know it's all up to the Lord. so we ran up to get our alterations and this oldddd lady hands me my skirt and put on her hater shades and starts judging mad hard. and goes "umm you should definitely take off that nailpolish. it's very worldly. You're out there trying to spread the gospel, and not that. So take that off and have a great time in Portugal" umm... okay geez. A. low blow, I just found out I for sure don't have a Visa and B. I'm not taking my nailpolish off and neither are the other 2,000 girls in here but I just said okay thanks and left.
Went back down stairs to hear my fate and the guy goes okay Sister D we have some news for you, and my companion was like yeah we heard, the visa hasn't come and the guy was like no, your Visa just got here. two minutes ago.
...what? No honestly.. WHAT!?
it's a christmas miracle!!
For real, how does a visa show up after they've already checked the mail and it wasn't there?? I screamed and jumped for joy! i was SO HAPPY!!!!!!!! There were two random elders in there and I justed looked them straight in the eye and told them "fasting and prayer work!" and then the guy told me they'd call me down when they get everything settled with my travel plans.
I LEAVE FOR PORTUGAL IN 16 HOURS!!! ahhhh!!! I went back and told my class the whole story, including the ridiculous nail polish encounter, and when i got to the end they all cheered and Zaccaria ran and shut the door again and asked Brother Taylor if we could all kneel and pray again, so we did. The faithfulness in my district never ceases to amaze me.
This week definitely had it's very high ups and very low downs, but miracles do happen. Even Elder Collier is giving me another chance to win back my spot not next to the chatter box in a best of 15 rock, paper, scissors. The Church is true. Fasting and prayer work. There is no way I should have my Visa, and yet it is here. God answers prayers. I am off to Portugal in the morning and I couldn't be happier. Trust in the Lord and always have faith. Eu SEI que a igreja e verdadeira.
Love and miss you all,
xoxo, Sister Dumash
Peace out America. PORTUGAL HERE I COME!!!
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