Hola!
This week has been wild! A roller coaster of emotions! My district has been busy making guesses on where we are getting reassigned. There were a bunch of Peru missionaries that got reassigned to California last week and then a bunch who got sent to New York! I was hoping that my reassignment would be to one of those places too.
On Monday a bunch of sister missionaries we don’t know but that are apparently going to Peru came to Dinner with their TRAVEL PLANS to Lima. We were all so jealous, we were like, “Oh, we’re waiting on our reassignments because we don’t have VISA’s yet.” and then Elder Toolson was looking at their travel plans and he was like, “Look, this is interesting Sister Cardon.” and I went over and looked at it and in on the top of the page in big bold letters it said, “YOU ARE TO MEET WITH YOUR TRAVEL LEADER, SISTER ALYSSA CARDON, BEFORE DEPARTURE. SHE WILL GIVE YOU FURTHER INFORMATION.”
My heart was pounding so hard and fast! My whole district ran to the mail room, we were pretty sure I was leaving but didn’t know about anyone else. We quickly said a prayer together that all of us would have travel plans and then we opened our mailbox and there they were! All of us are on different flights pretty much except for Elder T. and Hermana T. are on all the same flights–they are going to LAX and then to Lima from there.
Anyway, I am so full of emotions. Nervous, scared, sad, happy, suprised…. honestly, I am mostly just really sad to leave the MTC.
But, anyway, that was exciting and it’s crazy to think that this time next week I will be in Peru! The other exciting thing I wanted to tell you about was that this morning I got to go work in the Provo Temple while it is being closed for renovations/cleaning. I was there with the sisters from my district for three hours, our job was to take apart a chandelier in one of the 12 sealing rooms and clean it. It was painstakingly slow, but really cool! The chandelier was gorgeous– and completely made out of gold and crystal! We were in all white clothes while we worked and the spirit was really strong, suprisingly because there were like jackhammers going on somwhere nearby and it was kind of dark in there. Taking apart the chandelier took like an hour and a half– I would guess that it was somwhere between 1-2 thousand little crystal pieces we had to take off, one by one! Once each crystal piece had been removed and all that was left was the gold frame, we cleaned the frame and changed the lightbulbs– there were probably 30 lightbulbs on it! Then we put on these little white cotton gloves and cleaned each little crystal piece with a micofiber cloth and vinegar solution. Then we got back on the scaffolding and started putting all the pieces back on the chandelier skeleton, one by one! we were probably 1/4 of the way done putting it back together when it was time for us to leave, but the part that was done was shining so bright! As missionaries, it was so good to have that time to just talk and work together. After we finished working, we went to the brides’ room– the missionaries had finished the chandlier and sconces in there yesterday! It was so beautiful! Hopefully our chandelier will look just as good as theirs did when ours gets finished!
More and more I am just coming to learn that the Lord works that way with us. I could not but help feel that as I reached up and plucked a little crystal bead from the framework of the chandelier. One of the biggest rules we had to follow was “one piece at a time” because if you had two crystals in your hand they could scratch each other or you could drop one or both.
I don’t have anymore time but Kayla, I might send you my blowdryer and straigtener to get rid of some weight! And, if you have time before Friday night, it would be really awesome if you could send me some lipstick! I need Revlon 080 Strawberry Shortcake– It sounds weird but that is my favorite color and one of the sister missionary rules is you must always have something on your lips and I am almost out of lipstick!!
Thanks!! I love you all!
Hermana Cardon
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Flecks of Gold 