Last Wednesday, Sister Chou and I left Norwich early in the morning
and took the train to London to meet our new companions. It definitely
felt weird to be leaving Norwich so soon, I only feel like it was
yesterday that I arrived in that city. But after a 2 1/2 hour train
drive we met our new companions in the Euston train station. I love
transfers because we all meet in the middle of a massive train
station, where there is an overwhelming amount of black name tags,
luggage, and happy reunions between old mission friends. In all of
this, I was able to find my new companion Sister Cardoso from Brazil!
She is so great, and I could tell we would get along well. Because I
am her follow up trainer, I needed to go to the new trainers meeting
in Hyde park. So we left Euston train station and faced our first
challenge together: the underground.
See, the problem with training is that you are expected to know what's
going on, and how to do important things like get to the mission home.
When in fact I had never had to make it there by myself before, I had
always been with another missionary who understood the underground
better than I did. I tried to pretend like I knew what I was doing,
but we ended up getting hopelessly lost in the middle of London. We
eventually found the right train and made it to the mission home 25
minutes late for the trainers meeting. I was absolutely mortified to
have to walk into the meeting so late in the middle of the training
the assistants to the president were giving, soaking wet from the
rain, and red faced and sweaty from running there with all my luggage.
I walked to the back of the room and sat down to listen to the last 5
minutes of the training. So basically I still have no idea how to
train. I guess I'll just have to figure it out as we go! Then after a
quick lunch we were back in the tube and on our way to Gillingham.
Luckily we made it there without getting lost.
Gillingham is a great area. And yes, it is a biking area. But we don't
use the bikes nearly as much as we did in Ashford. Often we will walk
so we can talk to more people on the way, and our area is so big that
to get to the other side we need to take a train! But I didn't realize
how much I missed being on a bike until we rode the other day. Man, it
felt so good! Especially in the nice may weather.
One sure way to win the Gillingham 2 ward's heart is to be able to
play the piano. Not a single person here can play the piano. Not one!
Before I came, the accompaniment was someone playing the music on
their gospel library app and holding it up to the microphone. So when
I came and the ward found out I could play, I received a new calling
to be the ward pianist. I messed up some of the hymns, which was
embarrassing, but it was better than nothing! Part of our area vision
is to find a new ward pianist.
While biking in the lovely sunshine, we got a phone call from our
sister training leader, Sister Rank, who used to serve in this area.
She told us that she had been thinking a lot about her time here, and
was thinking about a village in our area named Borden. She said that
she felt like she was always meant to find someone there, but never
had the opportunity to spend much time in that area. She asked us to
go see who we could find there! So off we went to find this golden
person. After tracting for nearly an hour, we had our miracle. The
woman who answered the door was an investigator named Jen, who Sister
Cardoso had met in the park the week before. They had been trying to
get a hold of her ever since, but with no luck. We had no idea where
she lived, so to suddenly knock on her door out of all the people here
was a huge miracle. Jen assured us that she hadn't been ignoring us,
she just had had a crazy week and didn't find time to reply. We set up
a return appointment and will be seeing her again next week! So
amazing! She is so prepared.
Hope y'all have a great week.
Please pray for me that I will be able to play hymns with no time to
practice.
Love,
Sister McFarland
Pictures:
1. Sister Cardoso and I
2. Sometimes when we go finding we find a dinosaur. Don't ask, I have no idea.
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