Surprises and Regrets

So. Surprise! I now have a third companion! Say hello to Sister Stout! :)

This week has been......... crazy. I can’t even think of another word for it. Crazy.

On Tuesday we get a call from President at around 5:30, asking S. McNeece and I if we were going to transfer meeting. We were super confused, and told him we weren’t planning on it, but we would if he needed us to? He seemed a bit perplexed, and told us he’d call us back in a few hours or so.

Shoot.

I was positive I was being transferred or something, so we spent the next couple hours or so, waaay stressed out. At around 8:00 at night, He calls us back and says he had been praying about it a lot, and he had decided that he wasn’t going to give S. Stout a new companion. (S. Mchaylee got transferred to West Columbia…) Instead, He was going to put us in a 3-pack, and that we needed to go pick her up from transfer meeting tomorrow. We are now covering the area of 2 companionships, which means that we cover two wards. (This makes church attendance really interestingJ… I wonder if this is what my dad feels like.) Also, because of the dual-ward coverage, we are members of TWO zones, we have TWO district leaders, and we report TWO separate sets of key indicators. Crazy. Exhausting. Terrifying. And completely wonderful J

Cool thing though… the Lord really truly qualifies us when he asks us to do tough things. For some reason, the three of us have really great unity in our teaching… something S. McNeece and I have been struggling with all transfer (you know me…. I just dominate in lessons ;)) We all enjoy each other, and laugh, and just have great fun J This is going to be a phenomenal transfer, I think J

So, I hope y’all enjoyed stake conference! Ours was perfect. It really made me want to be a better missionary, with all the talk of missionary work. It also reminded me of how much I’ve changed since I left home. I was reminded of a guy that I talked to a little bit in high school. If you knew me at all in high school, I was a pretty withdrawn sort of kid. Unless I was very comfortable around you, I didn’t say much. I kick myself because there was so many people that God put in my path that I could have shared the gospel with… If I wasn’t so fearful, I could have lifted those around me. Anyways, so this guy was the big brother of one of the girls I was best friends with in middle school, but I didn’t know him too terribly well. One day, he randomly started chatting with me on Facebook, and asked me what I had been up to that weekend. I had been to a youth conference. He started asking me questions about it. I froze up. I had no idea what to say. In my head, sharing my beliefs was something that was awkward, and I really didn’t know him very well, and….. My head filled up with excuses. I quickly excused myself, and signed off. To this day, I can’t remember what made me so afraid. I think about this guy often, and I think I regret that moment more than almost anything else I’ve ever done. So, to the people that read this blog…. Be braver than I was. The Lord will put people in your path… please love them enough to share yourself with them. President Duquette, the stake president of the Greenville East Stake, told us yesterday “I know that Jesus is the Christ. I could sit down right now and have shared with you the most important part of my soul.” Please. Be your brother’s keeper. Share yourself, your beliefs, your love with them….

Anyways. I hope your week is wonderful, and you’re sharing the gospel like crazy J

Y’all have a blessed week!

S. Derrick