West Bountiful to West Virginia: Ministering

Cutting wood for some elderly ladies

1-20-15

We got a new zone leader, Elder Trujillo. He spent all day with us yesterday and he just brought so much happiness with him. He is wonderful!

Also, we had a really awesome district meeting back in the cave. We made a little fire and our meeting had a fire theme. Elder Johnson was doing his 5-minute principle and he was talking about this talk called, "But if Not". It talks about the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and how they were going to be thrown in the fire and they said, "Our God can save us. He can do that. But if he doesn't. . . But if Not. . . we will stand by our standards and do whatever we need to." God talked to me through Elder Johnson that day. I needed the message he shared, and It's so amazing to feel God mistering through someone else.

Along those same lines, Kevin gave me this CD with a really cool compilation of quotes from apostles set to sweet music and I had this weird impression to give it to our district leader and his companion. I just thought it would be cool, but anyway, I had the thought for a long time and finally gave it to them the day before district meeting when they were down here blitzing our area. The next day at district meeting there were like, "Sister Lytle, where did you get that song??" It apparently had a message that prompted them to take action on something they needed to do, and it was HUGE for them. Cool huh? Weird little coincidences and God helping things to fall into place. I love the mission!!

So the night of transfers we were supposed to have correlation meeting at Brother M-------'s at 7:00 and have dinner. We got there and we were knocking and knocking and nobody was answering, but lights are on. We can't call them because our phones don't have service out there (I LOVE THIS PLACE) so we all decide to walk across the street to Bishop's house to see what he knows. We walk over all together and Bishop lets us in and calls for us and it turns out no one is there and they totally forgot about it. We were fine, no big deal, but Bishop says, "Well, what do you guys want to eat? What are we gonna make??" So we made rice and eggs, which apparently is a staple meal in the B------ household, and we all played with the kids and laughed and talked while it cooked.

That night, Elder Trujillo got the best introduction to the Bluefield Ward in the world. I wish you could have been there, in the B-----'s warm home with the sound of K---- and M-----'s laughter and the B------ boys showing us their shark teeth from their vacation. It was almost like we had our own little world there, with our own little family. Miles away from town, in the most beautiful country there ever was. Bishop fed us good food that night, and my soul was fed as well. Everything just felt so right, so home. So... exactly where I was supposed to be. A few days later Elder Trujillo put my feelings for this ward and these people here better than I could. When asked how many people were in his family. He counted each one of us one by one and said, "You all are my family now."