Sister Shaela Draney's Mission

Hello Everyone!!!

Merry Christmas!

This week has been absolutely crazy. So, remember how I said we were sharing a car between 6 sisters? Well we ended up walking for hours this week. The most we ever walked for was 6 hours and we barely made it into our area. With how deep the snow is and how heavy my boots are I’m going to have some awesome muscles by the time I’m done! We just got a car today, but we’ll still be doing a lot of walking.

One night we got a ride to our dinner appointment and we decided to do some work out there because there were a lot of people on our list in that area. It was -9F outside, but there were so many people that we weren’t worried. But, we went from house to house and no one was home! The only person who answered didn’t let us in because they were putting their kids to bed. So we were outside, freezing for 40 minutes. I had forgotten my gloves and my hands hurt so bad that I couldn’t touch anything inside my pockets, so I had to give Sister Horrocks the phone and keys and she had to knock on all of the doors. We ended up going back to the place we had dinner at and begging for a ride home because we couldn’t walk and all of our other plans had fallen through and the lady wasn’t home that we had planned on asking a ride from. It was really fun though. Often the worst memories in the moment make for the best stories.

We got another sister in our companionship this week: Sister Nashio. She’s from Arizona in the north and she had her 20^th birthday the day after we got her. So we celebrated of course! We’re very happy to have her. It’s interesting trying to fit us all into our apartment. We only have two beds so Sister Horrocks told us she wanted to sleep on the couch, like a champ, and no one could persuade her otherwise! It’s a bit cramped now, but as always, we can’t complain! At least I’m not taking bucket shower in a room with a dirt floor! J We also got to go out to lunch with President and Sister Mecham when we picked her up which was so fun! They took us out to Mexican food. I was so happy! It did stink to lose an entire day to driving though. We weren’t too happy about that, but Sister Nashio will be an excellent part of our companionship!

A ward member also took us out to Applebees this week. I was so excited! I didn’t know that people did that but it was so good! It definitely was a change of pace and I really enjoyed it. Sister Horrocks says she’s all fast-fooded out. (yes, I know fooded isn’t a word)

We spent 2 hours tracting this week because we ran out of people to see and it would take too long to walk anywhere else. Tracting is actually really exhausting. At one point I was on such autopilot because no one would let us in that I accidentally asked someone how he was twice in a row. It went like this: “Me: Hi, how are you? Him: Good, how are you? ME: Awesome, so, how are you?” Luckily he was a less active in hiding and really nice so we just laughed it off and he told us about his brother on a mission, but I was so embarrassed. Tracting can be tough because you never know what their reaction will be. One person said ok to hearing a message on his doorstep and I was so flabbergasted that I completely forgot the message! Sister Horrocks had to rescue me. Then he said he didn’t believe in God. Yeah, at that point I was so tired that I was about ready to just go to sleep in the snow.

One night while we were walking through about a foot and a half of snow sister Horrocks realized she had lost her nametag. This was 3 miles away from the apartment. It might not seem like much, but in deep snow, that’s a long ways and it’s hard to find something like that. So luckily, since I’m always prepared (haha) I whipped out my flashlight and we backtracked the whole 3 miles, only to find her name tag in the apartment complex parking lot. We were glad, it was a tender mercy, but by that point we couldn’t walk back out to our area before curfew.

Well, since I forgot my notes of what went on this week, that’s all I can remember, but I’ll keep you posted if I remember anything else.

Have a very merry Christmas and remember the reason for the season. Christ gives us so much every day, especially the Atonement. I feel like if He were here all that He would want for Christmas is for us to serve someone else or better ourselves. Remember to give back this year and brighten someone else’s day. (Matthew 25:40) Also, remember to wish the missionaries serving in your area merry Christmas. It can be a hard time for a lot of them and I know that we all appreciate it when people go out of their way to do something nice for us when we’re away from home.

Have an excellent rest of the year; stay safe, stay happy, stay prayerful.

I love you!!!

Sister Draney