TRANSFERS

Wow. My very first transfer of the mission is over?!?! That's insane. 7 weeks already. That went so fast. And I still don't know what's going on most of the time! Haha. Just kidding. I know what's going on like....10% of the time...

FIRST OF ALL: Thank you SO MUCH FOR THE BOX! I LOVE the MCO CD and I listen to it like every day. I am in love with it. Can someone find out what time signature "Alleluia" is in because I've been trying to dictate it in my head and I feel like it could be in 7/8 but I could be way off (my mind just keeps going 1-2,1-2,1-2-3 and I've been conducting it in 3). HAHA MUSIC NERD MUCH?!?! Anyway, thanks for everything! Loved the Easter card! And the Robin Eggs! AND THE FLASHDRIVE! Thanks Adam! And everything.That box made my day. Thank you thank you thaaank you! <3

Gosh, I feel like it's been forever since I've written since P-Day is on Tuesday this week with transfers and all. SISTER LOEAK IS GETTING TRANSFERED! :( But it's all good, cause she's gonna be a Sister Training Leader in Renton, which is like, right next to Maple Valley, so that means when we do exchanges I'll see her. I'm staying in Maple Valley another transfer (mixed feelings) and my new companion is Sister Stewart! She trained my MTC companion, Sister McClellan, and I've met her. She's super solid. I hope she brings big changes to Maple Valley, cause the work is kinda slow right now! (In terms of finding new investigators.) So, huge changes ahead. I am nervous for a new comp, but ready to learn from a new perspective and new missionary. It'll be a positive change. But change is change and change is hard sometimes. But it's good. Ya know. 

So quick update on Bro Work. He is working through some stuff right now he needs to resolve before he can be baptized, but he still wants to! He is so immersed in the ward already, it's awesome. He stood at the door and helped greet and give out programs on Sunday. He goes to all 3 hours and reads the Book of Mormon and does all the homework we give him. He is doing all the things he should, he just has a little hiccup. But, we have high hopes for him. His daughter is on board. It's all up to Bro Work. Sometimes we find commandments we don't understand or see why we need to follow. In that case, faith needs to kick in and we just need to be obedient, trusting that God will bless us for our sacrifice and compliance to His laws. His ways are just. Anyway, we are working towards a date in April. Fingers crossed! 

We have a couple other investigators, but not too many. We really need more. However, we are doing service for Bishop's next door neighbor this week, who apparently Bishop has been trying to have over for the lessons forever. We just happened to start talking to her while she was doing yard work and she's super nice! We hope to be able to teach her in the close future. It was a miracle for us to get an appointment after Bishop trying for so long. But, sometimes things just work out at the right time and place. Her heart was ready this time! So cool. Little miracles like this happen all the time on the mission but I sometimes don't even realize they are little miracles til later and I go, "waaaiiittt...." Haha. God is so real. Believe in God. Believe that He is. (Mosiah 4:9)

I went on my FIRST exchange this week! I went over to Renton and was with Sister Bailey. I learned sooooo much! She is the personification of charity. She just loves everyone and beams in the work. It was such a good example for me! She talks to EVERYONE! Even people working on a roof that obviously can't really talk. She just emitted love and charity. It inspired me so much. Sometimes charity is hard for me, especially with people I've never even met before. But, from her example, I left beaming and carrying a little more charity with me than I had before. :) There's a picture of all 4 of us after the exchange was over! Sister Bailey is the blonde one. Sister Goodman is the other Sister Training Leader. She just went home!!! She was a great missionary. 

We had an amazing training this week about Personal/Comp Study. Basically, it revolved around the importance of the Book of Mormon. President and Sister Eaton exhorted us with all energy of heart to always, always, always read the Book of Mormon, every day, every day, every day. It is the #1 to stay on the path and the #1 way to fall away if you stop reading. It is the KEYSTONE! We just feast upon the words. The Book of Mormon is the manual to life. Everyone always says, "There's not an instruction manual to life, you just gotta figure it out." Meh. I don't buy it. The Book of Mormon is TOTALLY the instruction manual for life. It is the blueprint, the rule book, the advice book, the book that contains the secrets to salvation. The key to happiness! However, as King Benjamin tells us in Mosiah 4, after we believe all we do, we must ACT! The Book of Mormon tells us a lot of things, but the second it starts working in your life is when you WORK. When you ACT on what it says in there! Right now, I am working on acting on this scripture: 

"For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father."

This scripture. Is. Amazing. It's the essence of the gospel in one verse. I've been ponder submissiveness lately. And temperance. And self-mastery. It's all interrelated. And all made possible through the Atonement. Isn't it amazing to have a knowledge of this Infinite Atonement? That we can change our very natures? Change our bad habits? Become saints? I AM SO GRATEFUL! It, indeed, makes me want to scream, HALLELUJAH! 

SO here's some pictures. Our area is super rural. So, we run into animals and stuff all the time. Like this horse. :) 

WHILE I WAS ON EXCHANGE IN RENTON, we met this man named Willie who volunteers for a food bank and because of that brings home a TON OF EXTRA FOOD! And while he wasn't interested in the gospel, he gave us an ENTIRE BOX OF FRUIT! It was a HUGE tender mercy because we didn't have time to go shopping on P-Day so we have zero food. Oh my gosh. And you know how much I love fruits and veggies. I couldn't help but just smile and laugh about it. LOOK AT IT ALL! Thanks, Willie, random, kind stranger!! :D

So one last cool this is that Sister Loeak got her Young Women's In Excellence award/medallion for the FIRST TIME this weekend! She worked on it for a year on her mission and JUST FINISHED! It was way cool, Bishop presented it to her in Sacrament. She never did it because back home in the Marshall Island they just don't do Personal Progress cause they don't know how. It's not really translated into Marshallese. So now she is going to take what she has learned and done back home and help the Young Women there. SO COOL! I'm happy for her. :) She would ask me questions about my personal progress and man, I just  couldn't remember haha. It's been sooo long! 

ALSO: MOM! GUESS WHAT! I got asked to play violin in the next Missionary Devotional that's once a month! And guess what I get to play? Yup. Savior, Redeemer of My Soul. The same arrangement I played in Stake Conf years ago. YUP! I'm pretty pumped!!! That'll be April 17 or something like that. So excited! YAY! And since I'm staying in the same ward, I already have a violin I can borrow. I think I am also playing an Easter song this Sunday in Sacrament for Easter in the ward! Cool cool. I love being able to use my talents. 
Welp, here's to transfer #2 on my mission. That's just crazy! Transfers happen at 2pm today. Sad to see Sister Loeak go! But I'll see her around. This is her LAST transfer!

Take care,

Sister Eldridge
Also, here's some fun pictures from a service project on saturday! We worked on a baseball field in Kent. I love other missionaries!!!

Sister Juliann Marie Eldridge
Washington Federal Way Mission
23175 224th PI SE Ste E
Maple Valley, WA 98038
United States