You'll Never Walk Alone

Well tea and crumpets folks, it's happened again. (Crumpets are actually a real thing and they're super delicious and my favourite).  This has been a wild and eventful month. To start the month, I got to have a lovely Skype call with my family. They are just the best. I miss them to bits. It's hard to be away, but the mission life is good. We've seen some serious miracles in the people that were working with as well as in ourselves. It's been wonderful to see the Atonement of Jesus Christ work in lifting and strengthening, as well as making us all clean and new. I've done a lot of changing in these past four weeks. It's so encouraging to feel that same cleansing and strengthening power we promise to others working in my own life. 

It is a bit of an adventure to become someone you've never been before. Especially in a place where no one knows the person you used to be. To use a trivial example, I am now a lactose intolerant person. That is a person I never was before, but it's a huge part of who I am out here. Mainly because people are cooking for me all the time, and I have to get cozy with the idea that I will forever be a difficult dinner guest. It's still a struggle for me to tell people. I hate being an inconvenience, so it's really hard for me to tell people that feeding me will not be straightforward. My companion usually has to say it for me. I'm working on it. Maybe by the time I get home I won't be embarrassed about not being able to eat ice cream and chocolate. There are loads of delicious things I can eat, but they're not as obvious or common.... It's hard. But it's okay! I'm getting used to it.

One thing that has been a huge change in me its month has been my testimony of obedience. As members of the church, obedience is a huge part of our lives. As missionaries, it is even more so. There are a lot of things that we are asked to do. A very specific schedule we are asked to follow, a specific dress code we are expected to wear, and so many things in our thoughts and our conduct that need to be just so in order to fall in line with what we are asked to do. I believe in obedience. I have always believed in keeping the commandments of God, and I have always believed in following the missionaries standards. What I have struggled with throughout my mission is conviction, and my dedication to that belief. 

This really became clear a couple of weeks ago when Sister Belnap got sick. She had this nasty flu-like thing that totally laid her out for a few days. We weren't really able to do anything. We had to stay in the flat all day, and it was driving her up the wall. I was fine. In fact, I was enjoying the fact that we didn't go out and work every day. That bothered me. I didn't want to work, but I wanted to want to work. So, like the missionary that I am, I set to studying obedience, because I didn't understand why it was so important, and I needed to. I struggled for the rest of the week until that Sunday.

That Sunday was amazing. Because Sister Belnap was so sick, we had literally not done any real missionary work that week. However, we had so many people at church. We had investigators that we had lost contact with, and new people we had never met before. In a talk from General conference that I love, Jeffery R. Holland says that in the gospel, we get credit for trying. I had never really believed that before. I had always thought that maybe that was true for someone else, but that I wasn't even trying hard enough to get the minimum blessings. I learned that day that I was wrong. I hadn't even wanted to be obedient. I had only wanted to want to be obedient. And the Lord has blessed me abundantly for that.

And then it clicked. Obedience gives us power. Obedience to God's laws gives us spiritual power that we need in order to do what we are called to do. As members of the church, we need a certain amount of spiritual power to withstand the rigours of our lives. Because it's hard to be a member of the church! It's a rough world out there for people who are trying diligently to follow God! We desperately need the power that obedience gives us. As missionaries, we need even more spiritual power than we do as members before we are called. We are face to face with the reality of unbelief, and Satan's power over the earth. He is strong, but as we are obedient, we obtain the power that comes through Jesus Christ. And that power has always been and forever will be stronger than our adversary in this word. I've seen that as I've made a greater effort to be obedient. I have had more power and more strength. I have had what I have needed. But it only came after I humbled myself and submitted to the will of my kind and loving Father and my gentle Saviour. I invite you to do what I've done. If you need help from God, look at what you can do to qualify for that help you feel you need. He is a just God. He won't give us things we are not prepared to receive. He is also a merciful God. He will give us everything that He possibly can. He will give us absolutely everything we qualify for. All we have to do is qualify for it.

This is especially applicable, because I've just found out that I am going to need a lot more spiritual power in these next few transfers. Yesterday, Sunday, I got the call from President that I've been called to be a Sister Training Leader, and that I'll be serving in Nottingham with Sister Marsden. I'm excited and nervous, but I know that, as I am obedient, the Lord will bless me. And that's good cause I'm gonna need it.

This is kind of on a different note, but in the same theme. Not too long ago, I saw forget-me-nots for the first time. They are the most adorable teeniest tiniest little blue flowers. They are sooooo itty bitty, and they are the most beautiful blue ever. If sunshine were blue, it would be the colour of forget-me-nots. They are so pretty, but so small and so common that most people don't even notice them. One member actually thought they were weeds when we were weeding her garden! I fell absolutely in love with them on the spot, and I remembered that President Uchtdorf had given a lovely talk about forget-me-nots a while ago. So I looked it up, and it is totally awesome. He talks about how the five petals of the forget-me-not represent five things that we ought not to forget. All of them are great, but the one I really liked was "Forget not to be happy". He talked about how there are so many lovely little moments in our lives that make life beautiful, that we often just walk past, just like we do with forget-me-nots. We don't allow them to really beautify and give colour to our lives. 

I thought about that a lot. I thought about how many little things happen in the day to day life of a missionary that aren't big journal-worthy moments, but that are still good and wonderful and are the little blue flowers of our lives. I wanted to remember those too. So I created my Forget-Me-Not book. It's a little blue book that I carry with me all the time, and whenever something small but good happens that makes my day better, I Forget-Me-Not it. It's brought me a lot of happiness, and I'm already super grateful for it, as I'm leaving Cheltenham. I've recorded a lot of lovely things from here that will bring me joy. It's helped me to remember that even little good things are incredibly valuable. And things don't have to be rare to be beautiful. Also, forget-me-nots are now my favourite flower. Do you think they'll grow in Arizona?

So. We have this investigator named Vicki. She came to the general women's meeting, which was all about serving, and mainly about serving the refugees. At the end of the meeting, the Stake Relief Society president got up and talked about how she felt prompted to get up and tell everyone that she was thinking that the way the stake could get involved might be through putting dignity packs together through a local charity. Everyone thought it sounded like a great idea. The only thing was, there was no program for dignity packs already in place. But it was alright, we thought, we'd figure it out eventually.

Eventually was not good enough for Vicki. That day, she told us later, she sat out in her garden, and a concept for a full on charity organisation blossomed in her head. She gives full credit to Heavenly Father for giving her the idea, but I and everyone else give her full credit for listening. By the time we went to see her the next Tuesday, four days later, she had it entirely on lock.

So the concept is that she would hand out these bags, D.A.P.S, or Dignity Aid Packs, to people with a list of suggestions for things that they could put in. People could then take the packs, fill them with whatever they felt women and children in refugee camps might need that they could afford, and return them to Vicki, who would pass them off to the charity who would distribute them to refugees. By the time we got to her, she had all the graphics done for the stickers and things that would go on and in the bags, she had a logo figured out, she had the funding she needed to get everything printed up and she was ready to go. A few days later, D.A.P.S had both a Twitter ands Facebook account. When the print and the bags came in, we helped her package them up so that they looked all pretty, and they started going out to people. This was all about a month ago. The ward in Cheltenham caught wind of it, and the Relief Society took it on board. And then the stake relief society president, the one who really kicked this whole thing off in the first place, found out about it, and now there is going to be a stake service day in June, centred around filling these dignity packs. 

And then, it really exploded. People had already started taking four or five or ten and handing them out to their friends to fill and return. Through Facebook, a socialite here in Cheltenham caught wind of it, got inspired, and asked for 50 bags. Another woman asked for 25. People all over the country have been asking for these bags. The charity, People in Motion, are doing a talk at a school sometime soon about the refugee situation, and at the end, they'll be handing out D.A.P.S. They're getting another batch of bags made up, because they're already almost out.

But that's not even the most exciting part. The packs have started coming back. Not just a couple. The first round of packs have come back, and there are around 120 bags, from people that Vicki doesn't even know. At first, she thought this would be a kind of localised thing. Now, the perspective is shifting. The local newspaper is going to do a story on it, and Vicki's partner, who just so happens to be a graphic designer and a professional photographer, has offered to put a website together, and take a trip to the main refugee camp in France to do some photo-journalism pro bono. It's amazing what she's accomplished!

I guess this brings everything back around to my big take away from this month. In everything that has happened this month, the hand of the Lord has been so evident.  The truth is, we will never walk alone. God loves us too much to leave us without help for even a minute. The help is always, always there. He cares so deeply about us that He sent His son, Jesus Christ, to perform the atonement that He might know how to help us. When we turn to God in prayer, when we read the scriptures, we always have that help that we need. The only time we will ever be alone is when we ignore Christ's presence right beside us, ever offering us more than we can dream of. Remember that. Christ is there to support and strengthen us through every trial, every affliction. The Atonement does not just cleanse sin, it strengthens hearts. It is the reason we are able to change and become new. It is the way. He is the way. 

I know this is true. I know that God is supporting me. I know that, without the strength that comes from relying on the Atonement of Christ, I wouldn't be able to do any of this. I wouldn't have even been able to get out on a mission. Without Him, I can do nothing. But I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. He is my light and my hope. And I am forever grateful for Him, and indebted to Him. 

This next month is going to be a crazy one for me. I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen, but I know it's going to be awesome! Have a great month, friends! Enjoy summer!!

Toodle pip!

Sister Pike 

I Know I Am Nothing

Hey everyone. Does anyone know where April went? It was just here and now it's gone. So what happened this month?

This past month has been really exciting in the England Birmingham Mission (EBM) because we had our first ever Mission-Wide Challenge Week! Those of you who have been on missions likely know generally what that means, but I'll explain for the rest of you. 'Challenge Week' is generally organised by mission leadership, i.e. a district or zone leader for their respective district of zone. Everyday, a message goes out to each of the teams, telling them the challenges for the next day and the points that accompany each one. If it's a zone challenge week, it's district against district. If it's a district challenge week, it's team against team. It's a fun little competition and it usually helps to get the district or zone fired up about missionary work. And, of course, there's some little prize for the winning team.

This challenge week was on a whole other level. The zone that won would get a zone p-day and EBM T-shirts. To put that in context, district p-days are organised fairly regularly. Zone p-days are not allowed and are unheard of. Cheltenham zone wanted that p-day. Our whole zone went 100% for the challenges for three days. That's a whole stake full of missionaries not missing a single challenge. Thursday and Friday were rough, but we picked it up through the weekend. And on Monday, we found out. We won. By one point. We were so hyped. Cheltenham pride so strong.

Winning was great. It was a priceless moment, and an amazing week of zone unity. What was even better than that was the feeling of waking up. We did everything I'm our power to hit those goals, and then prayed with all our faith for the power we didn't have, and miracles happened left and right. The craziest thing was, and we saw this as we went through the week, we didn't have to go too far out of our way to hit the goals. We just woke up to the work that was around us. And it feels good to be awake! 

The zone p-day was, in a word, amazing. President organised us all, and then he said that we would be separated into teams for the games that day, but that there was a Harry Potter theme, so we would be sorted into our houses by the Sorting Beanie. President made the final decision. I ended up in Slytherin. Don't read too far into it. It was great though, cause some of my favourite people in the mission were on my team too. We got cool green ribbons and then we played QUIDDITCH. I don't know how to describe it except to say that it's exactly what you think it is, just without the flying and magic. It was so much fun, and so exhausting. Slytherin didn't win the tournament, but Gryffindor didn't either, so I was happy. #SlytherinPride

After the Quidditch, we had a massive hog roast provided by a Tongan family in Cheltenham that was amazing.  It was the funnest day of my mission, and it ranks as one of the funnest days of my life. Every time a big group of missionaries gets together, it's for a meeting, and we're all in our formal wear. This will likely be the only time on my mission that I will have gotten to just hang out with missionaries- no pressure, no business. It was nice to just relax and have some fun.

That was the end of our month. It was a good end of the month. Honestly, we had a lot of heartbreak this month. Sometimes, people that you grow to care about and love with all your soul decide to take a different path than the one you hope they will choose. We had a couple that we were really excited about that we had an absolutely heartbreaking lesson with. It turned out that, though they were lovely people and wanted to be friends with us, they weren't interested at all. That was a rough day. Only a week later, a member friend, that we care very much about, lit up a cigarette right in front of us and ended up by asking us to leave. That was rough. She called us later and apologised, but the fact of it is that the mission, if you put your heart into, involves heartbreak.

Our purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ. That's a very personal, very involved process. You get close to people. You're there as they struggle and try to change their lives. You get to see the victories and experience the indescribable joy. You also get to see the failures, ranging from disheartening to devastating. I've felt it all in spades this month. And if there is one thing that I've learned, one take away from this month, it is that, without God, I am absolutely nothing. All things that are good in my life, God has given me. All good things that are a part of me, God shaped within me. And any strength I have to deal with the life I live is borrowed from the strength of Him who gave me life.

He is everything. He created everything. He is in everything. He is my light, my life, my strength, and my hope for my future. I don't know what will happen to me even six weeks down the line from here, but I know that I can do it, simply because, wherever I may be, whoever I will be working with, my God, my best friend, my loving Father in Heaven will always always be there. There is nothing He can't do, and He is eternally on my side.

I know that I am nothing without God. I know, without His strength, I am weak. If ever I boast, it is not of myself, but of my God. In His strength, I can do everything He needs me to do. I have seen so many miracles that have been worked by His eternal love. And for this, I will praise His name forever.

Please know that God is there for you. You may have a hard time seeing His hand in your life. You may have a hard time believing that He really does love you. You may even have a hard time believing that He exists.  If you cannot believe for yourself, believe me. God is there. He loves you. He knows you by name and waits for you to ask for help so that He can pour His love upon you. If you have questions, ask Him. And listen. And watch. And ask again. He will answer you. He always does.

I love you so much. I miss you, but I know that we are all where we need to be, and that God will guide us all back to each other in His own due time. Have a great month!!

Sister Alyssa Pike

Spring Will Come

This blog comes to you in two parts! Part one: Goodbye Cannock! Part Two: Hello Cheltenham! That's right! Transfers have happened, and I am no longer in the Glorious town called Cannock. It's crazy to think that I was there for six months. Crazy to think that I've left.... 

Anyway! We'll start at the beginning. You guys know that my time in Cannock was a bit of an emotional roller coaster. I love that place and those people so much, but Cannock was my boulder. I pushed and I pushed and I pushed on that thing until I thought I was going to break in half and I got nothing. Then, I relaxed a little. I accepted that I wasn't going to move the boulder. I just had to be content to push and trust the Lord to do the rest. And would you believe it? The cheeky thing started to move. By the time my time in Cannock was over, really exciting things were happening. We were teaching a young couple with a family, a lovely Thai lady, and Oliver was progressing rapidly, as well as a few of our star less actives making good progress and the ward really coming together and working with us. It was hard to leave.

Even harder than leaving, though, was the week leading up to the calls that tell us what's happening, or 'dodge calls'. I don't know why we call it dodge, but we do. And the night we get the call is 'dodge night'. I love dodge night. I love dodge night because it means the end of my agony. I do not handle uncertainty well. I just don't do well with it. I like to know what's happening. And maybe I wouldn't mind so much if, once you got the call, it wasn't a two day turn around. We get the call Saturday night, and we leave on Tuesday. So I have a condition that I like to call Pre-Dodge Panic. Because, much like the toy dinosaur says in Toy Story 3, "I hate all this uncertainty!" It's just really hard for me to function that last week. I'm getting better. But anyway, I don't have to think about that for another month now. 

Part of the stress of Pre-Dodge Panic is that, if someone leaves, you'll have to get to know a new companion. Not that I really worried too much, but Sister Woolsey and I got into a nice flow after living together for three months. It took us a good while though, because, as we came to realise, we are exact opposites. I'm a bit of a city girl. She is totally a country girl. I like to drive cars on roads, she likes to drive them up rocks. I like science, she does not. She likes pushing the boundaries. I would rather stay safely within the lines. The list is endless. We actually had the bishop's daughter ask us a series of 'either-or' questions, and we answered every single one honestly and oppositely. But, despite our differences, we came together and made a really effective companionship. It's totally the principle of yin and yang. There has to be opposition, but there must be balance, each one making compromises so that it all flows together. By the end of it all, we became good friends. We had some good times, and it was sad to leave. 

On top of all of that, I had to say goodbye to a whole ward full of people that I absolutely love. We found out Saturday, so I had loads of people to say goodbye to on Sunday. It was a little strange to have everyone making a bit of a fuss over me. I enjoyed it, but it was weird. As a missionary, nothing you do is really about you. It's about the Lord, and His will for all those around you. I thought about this a lot as I was going through that day, and I came to the conclusion that it's not so much the things you do with the people you love that matter-it's the connections you make that are important. People were thanking me for things I had done, but the fuss wasn't really about that. I love them, and I miss them, and that's what it was all about.

And so we say goodbye to Cannock! So long! Farewell! (I can't spell that German one!) Goodbye! I got on a train Tuesday morning with everything I own in the world (which fit in two suitcases and a duffle bag) (and a bike) and made my way to Cheltenham! In the EBM, we all travel to the mission home first and disperse from there. Sometimes you meet your new companion there, most times, you get on a coach (bus) and get taken to your Zone to meet your companion. However, I would have been the only sister on the coach, so the Sister Training Leaders from Nottingham had to drive me to Gloucester, which is very far away from Nottingham. It worked though. I arrived at the Gloucester train station, got out of the car and walked right into a huge hug from Sister Belnap, my new companion. 

From the moment I met her, it was like I'd known her for years. We were instantaneously best friends. We've only had a couple weeks together, but I have laughed harder and felt the spirit stronger than I have at any time of my mission so far. Cheltenham is a beautiful city. It's town centre is so much bigger than Cannock's. And town is gorgeous. I can't wait for spring to explode on it. There's this big pedestrian walkway called the Promenade where a bunch of shops and café's are, and there are these big trees lining the walkway. It's beautiful now. I can't even begin to imagine it with all the green. It'll be awesome.

Cheltenham is considerably further south than Cannock is. Actually, this may be the closest to London I ever get. Oh! Speaking of! So, in Cheltenham, there's a big racecourse for horses, and one week during the spring they have a big tournament thing. This is called 'Race Week' and it makes Chelt super interesting because there are drunk people everywhere. The people flock to the races and drink all day. We were on our way to town one morning and some Welsh guys asked us if they were going the right way for town, and we were like, "Yeah, what are you going for?" They were going to drink. At 11:00 in the morning. Race Week was crazy, and that was my first week in Cheltenham. Apparently, on one of the days, the Queen came to Cheltenham, so that was cool. She came to me. :)

So, Sister Belnap. Sister Belnap is amazing. We are crazy similar. We're both from Arizona. We grew up about a 15 minute drive away from each other. We were both in the Gilbert Temple Cultural Celebration. We think the same way and we have the same sense of humour. So basically, we are the same person. We have so much fun and work so well. We are the Arizona twins. It's bomb. 

One of the first challenges we faced as a companionship was an extremely messy flat. Missionaries, as we go through our missions, acquire a lot of stuff. When you get transferred, you have to fit everything you own into two suitcases and a backpack, so some stuff just has to go. Often, we just leave things behind. These are called "flat finds", and they can to be pretty cool. What I found in the Cheltenham flat could be called "When Flat Finds Go Wild". There was so much junk everywhere. We have a lot of storage space in this flat, but we didn't have anywhere to put anything because it was all full of old clothes and just plain old rubbish. It was ridiculous.

We decided that things needed to change. If you remember in the fifth Harry Potter book, the people in the Order of the Phoenix all go to stay in a creepy old house called Grimauld place. And that place is full of junk. But that junk is like, scary magical cursed junk. Of course, this doesn't stop the indomitable Molly Weasly, who sweeps through the house like a wildfire, wand at the ready, trying to purge the place. I told you all of that because Sister Belnap and I took to calling our flat purge 'Molly Weasly-ing' the flat. We threw out so much junk, and found so many strange things. It was crazy. We didn't find any Cornish pixies or anything, and I'm grateful for that, but we did find a nightie that we could fit in at the same time and a bible from the early 1900's. No idea why it was there. We would have kept it, but it had pretty much disintegrated. Too bad. So yeah! That was fun.

Despite all of that, I have had a marvellous time in Cheltenham so far. It feels like coming home. There are three teams of missionaries in this ward, and I love them all a lot. And because of a military something-or-other here in Chelt, there are quite a few American families in the ward, which is super fun. Actually, one of them is from Arizona and Kevin Brown went to Corona del Sol, my old high school. We had the same choir director, and he now has a son who is like, 9. Crazy crazy connections. It is a teeny tiny world. Somehow, he found out about who I was and where I was from and what High school I'd been to before I even showed up in Cheltenham. He did confess that there was some Facebook stalking involved, but I'm still not quite clear on it. Anyway! Doesn't really matter. It's been a lot of fun getting to know people here and getting settled. It's way weird that the last place I lived is now not Arizona, but I think I'll get used to it. 

One of the really exciting things about moving away from Cannock is that, since Cheltenham is bigger, there are more fun things to do that are close. In one of the towns that's really close, Gloucester (Gloster), there's a cathedral where a few scenes from Harry Potter were filmed. So naturally we went there last Monday. It was a great time. For some reason I thought that the Great Hall scenes had been filmed there, but it was really just a couple of hallways and the entrance to the girls lavatory where they fight the troll. It was a beautiful cathedral, and it really did feel like we were in Hogwarts. We went with the Elders in our district, and we were cracking Harry Potter jokes the whole time. It was awesome. We even took a train to get there. So Hogwarts. 

My main takeaway from this month is that spring will come. We all have seasons in our lives. There are the summers and the autumns, good times of plenty and fun and friends and family. Then there are the winters. Bleak times when all that you love about the world seems to abandon you. These times can seem long. They can drag on forever. But the Lord, our Father in Heaven, has given us a promise that He will never abandon us in winter. Though it may not be to our benefit for Him to change the seasons, He can change our hearts, and we can feel spring—a time of new beginnings—long before we see spring around us. Spring will always come. Have faith, and look onward with a perfect brightness of hope. Whatever it is cannot and will not last forever.

I see now more clearly than ever that I had no real idea of what I was signing up for when I came out on my mission. I thought it was going to be amazing, but it is so much more crazy, wild and wonderful than I could have ever imagined before. I am growing and changing so rapidly that from one week to another, I hardly recognise myself. It's incredible to feel the Master's hand in your life, guiding and shaping you into what He sees. More than ever I realise that my life is not my own, but was given to me as an investment. The Lord has given me much. He expects me to do much in return, and I am happy to answer the call. 

I am grateful for new beginnings. For chances to start again and grow to a new level. I am grateful that the Lord, in all His wisdom, has seen fit for me to face new trials and new challenges. I know that He does the same for all of us in our lives. He guides us and shapes us and will lead us to where and who we need to be as far as we let Him. He is gentle and kind. He knows us perfectly and loves us as we are. As we trust Him, He will demonstrate that love to us. I'm thankful to all of you for your support and your love for me. I feel the power of your prayers working in my life. You give me strength beyond my own. Be strong. Spring is coming.

The Lord loves you and so do I,

Sister Alyssa Pike