Week 59

dear family,

This week....yep you guessed it. It was good. It was actually great. Why, the fourth of July!! And I got to go back to Clinton.

The week was pretty busy, we saw tons of people and found a few new investigators. Tuesday I went to Clinton to surprise Sister Scott for her birthday. We drove half way to meet the clinton sisters and one of my other favorite families drove the clinton sisters so I got to talk to her the whole way home. It was awesome. Then in Clinton I was serving with Sister Carter who is also one of my favorite sisters because she is so funny. We went to where Sister scott was at and surprised her and it was so funny. She was so happy. Then we saw a few investigators there and were able to visit a few families. Then we had a birthday bbq party for sister scott. It was a lot of fun. Then the next day we went to another 4th of july bbq at one of the other families we used to see and then we changed back. We got back to Meridian and went to yet another bbq with the bishop and a few other families in the ward. It was a ton of fun. We had to be in early that night so we didnt stay for too long but it was fun. 

Thursday we were able to teach one guy a little bit and then we saw a few other ward members. Then the rest of the week we saw more members and found 2 new investigators. They seem really nice. We were trying to  contact this lady who ordered something off mormon.org so we were going to deliver it to her and then I decided to try the people next door and they took a Book of Mormon and said we can come back. It was pretty exciting. Then we also decided to go to a store and look around and we found two people there. So shopping/looking is a great finding tool.

We went to the carousel again this week because Sister Richards had never been. I love that thing. They have a carousel in the mall and it costs 3 dollars and it is little and stupid, this one is old and awesome and costs 50 cents and we paid for two rides. The guy was really nice and let us go extra long on the second ride.

Church was good on sunday. They talked alot about the importance of the book of mormon. No one is showing up for our book of mormon class still, so maybe this will help them. The lessons in relief society have all been about missionary work too so it is great.

Also I still have not met or talked to the mission president. I think at the end of the week we may get to meet him...so far it just feels like we dont have a president.

So last night. I went out to our kitchen/ dining area to put something away and on the wall was a giant huge roach. It was sick nasty. So naturally I run in the room screaming for Richards to come kill it.  Well she comes in gets a jar and tries to catch it. She is crazy. She says she has never caught one before. My thoughts...yeah usually because a roach isnt something you just want to catch and keep for a pet... Any way after what seems like forever and a million screams later she finally catches it and it is not in a jar in our apt. Sick nasty. 

This week hopefully we will get to see the president this week. I dont know what else we have planned but it will be a good one. Also please please write. I hate having an empty mail box day after day after day. It is depressing. I love you all. 

Week 58

Dear family,

Greetings from the land of the sauna. The weather has been ridiculous here! It is waay to hot. Saturday it was 103 degrees. 106 if you include the heat index. It is HOT. They say it is going to be the hottest summer because this is late july/august weather. Any way enough about the sauna I live in....

This week was good. We were pretty busy. The funny thing is, I am not really sure what we did. Not because we did not do memorable things but because we ran out of planners here in Meridian and a missionaries life is based out of a planner and with out one you forget everything. So I had to go the whole week with out one. (I did eventually get one but that is a funny story to tell later). Anyway I will try to do my best to remember...

So I will start off by telling you about this family. They are recently re active members. He was raised in the church and she is a convert. They are awesome. She is in charge of our meal calendar and getting people to feed us and she is so sweet because lately in Relief Society there have only been about 10 sisters, and 3 of them are usually visitors. So basically we have not been getting fed which is fine but we ran out of money so it sucked because we did not have money to buy groceries and point of my story is that this family invited us over 4 times last week. 4. what a huge miracle. They are so sweet and it is not like they have the most money to do it but they are so kind. That is what stuck out from the week.

We went to this art museum here to see if we could volunteer and after looking around we didnt really think there would be volunteer opportunitites, but we decided to ask anyway and they have a whole set of art classes that they are going to let us help with which will be a great way to get our name out in the community so its awesome. We also saw one of the less active ladies we see each week and she has gotten so far in the book of mormon she loves to read it and really does have a strong testimony of it. We also got to see one lady this week. She was supposed to come to church yesterday but didnt end up coming. It was sad but she is still letting us go over there on thursday to actually teach her a lesson and not just a doorstep lesson. We taught on her doorstep on Saturday and it was so hot!!! Like we were so hot. It was so disgusting. It is ok though. Then we also saw the hoarder family and they too made us stay outside. So funny story- so we were talking to the hoarders and all of a sudden a gun shot goes off. And they didnt even stall in conversation. I mean i know it happens and it was not just target practice because we were in the ghetto so that was cool.

Other funny story...so here is my planner story...We did not have any. The elders were supposed to get some for us at transfer point but I guess the people bringing them forgot so then I was just using a notebook/using Richards. So then I call to ask if they will mail one because apparantly the zone leaders have them but we are in the middle of no where and no one comes to meridian so we dont ever see anyone...so I call the supply lady and she is super nice and is going to mail one. She is officially one of my favorite senior couple missionary people ever because she was like I just feel so bad you have no contact with anyone and she kept saying to call if we ever needed anything because she just really wanted us not to feel so alone. In all actuality we really do not feel alone we love not being bothered but she was sweet. So back to the story, I get my planner on friday and open it up and it is a spanish planner!!!!!!! Like hello I am not a spanish missionary why do I have a spanish planner. So it was hilarious because now I am learning my planner in spanish and that is what I am stuck with:)

So onto waldo...we had thought he was dead because he has not been seen in over two weeks so Sister Richards and I mourned for him and got over it...well saturday night we were driving into our apt complex which has a lot of trees and is off a highway so we see this cat in the ditch by the trees before pulling in and it was waldo!!!! We pulled into our apt complex to park and went back to get him but by the time we got back he was gone. But we have been on the look out ever since and at least he is alive. We think he probably hates us after being so nice and feeding him and then stopping. 

So yesterday was a really good sunday. The theme seemed to be dare to stand alone and hold onto the gospel. One of the members said one of my favorite quotes "When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on". He talked about how the knot is your testimony and no matter what happens hold onto the knot. Tie as many as you need to keep from falling. It was really cool. We also were able to visit 2 families yesterday and use our harvesting tool on them (peace and blessings in the home). We are doing it that way because we have no support in our Book of Mormon class. NONE. It stinks because we have tried so hard and last week one person showed up because we invited them at the dinner appt we were at. So we have been trying to visit more members and help them understand. Any way one of the members yesterday was kind of shut off to it and we talked to them a little more about it and by the end they were really opening up and really trying and this couple does NOT open up at all. But the spirit was really working on them and helping them so much. It was incredible. 

Well that is all I got. I get to go on an exchange tomorrow to clinton!!! It is Sister Scotts birthday so we are surprising her. We also do not really have plans for the 4th so that will be lame but it is weird to think about how last year I was here for the 4th thinking about what we were going to do also.

Oh we also got a new mission president...I have yet to meet, see, hear, or talk to him. So maybe this next week I will.

So my mail kind of sucked last week:) PLEASE write letters!! I love you all

Week 57

Dear family,

This week was pretty eventful! For the big news! I am staying in Meridian...which I am ok with. I will still be with Sister Richards and it will be great.  Also I do not know if you all checked the date yet but it is June 25. That means I am now 13. I am now a teenager and as of Friday the second oldest Sister in the mission. 2 went home friday and after this transfer I really will be the oldest. Scary. President also goes home at the end of this week. Sad day. I am sure going to miss that man. The new president I will not even get to meet for I believe three more weeks. Weird. That is ok though.

As for this week! It was  a great one and really productive. Tuesday one of the ward members came with us to a referral. She is awesome. A very typical southern lady. She is black and so very sweet. She is probably in her 60s. She was so receptive. We taught her a little about the Book of Mormon and she told us she would read and come back any time. We have already been back once and it was awesome. The only hold up is that she has a lot of health problems and may not be able to make it to church and stuff so hopefully things come of that. Wednesday we saw a few other people and were able to contact a lot of referrals that we once had. We also got taken to a Thai restaurant. We get it a lot and it has become my new favorite kind of food. Thursday was soo busy. We saw an LA named lady who we see each week. She does not come to church all too often because she does not have transportation and her husband is not super supportive but she sure does have a strong testimony and she is awesome. Then we decided we were going to start tracting every other day even if it is just for 15 minutes and we actually had some interested people. One lady even is going to let us come back this week so that is awesome. We are really trying to work hard on finding new people to teach, whether it be through the ward or us. We also started a Book of Mormon class here. It was not very successful the first night but maybe this week it will be ok. It turned out really good for those who were there. Friday we went and volunteered at the soup kitchen again. It is always so funny there. Like they were handing out these dessert things and they were only allowed to have one and one girl came and got another and so the lady told her no and she freaked out and threw a fit over it. It was hilarious. Ah i just love the south. On saturday we were able to hand out 40 mormon.org cards and invite even more to listen to us. it was awesome. We have one of the highest records for it. That is kind of what we have to do because we can never find people at the same address twice here in the south. Then yesterday church was awesome. It was all about missionary work and doing it. And how the gospel=joy and doing missionary work =your duty which = your joy. Our relief society president took us out yesterday too to visit people and feed us lunch and she is just so funny. she ended up talking to us for an hour about twilight haha. We also were able to teach her husband because he is not a member so that was great. Then that was about the week. 

Week 56

Dear family,

First off southernism for the week: people call canteloupe can tee lope. I'm fixin to get me some canteelope. It is pretty funny. Also I may be on tuesday next week. It may be monday if i do not get transferred so still write for monday.

We got to have dinner with an awesome couple this week. She is a member and her husband is not. We have been meeting with them for a while now and they are awesome but we are not quite sure why he is not baptized yet. But they are awesome. We also were able to spend time with our ward mission leader and his family. Wednesday was good. We drove to Hattiesburg yet again for a leadership training. It was really good. It was of course on the doctrine of Christ but we also discussed the conference talk "The Honor and Order of the Priesthood" (http://www.lds.org/liahona/2012/06/the-honor-and-order-of-the-priesthood?lang=eng&query=honor+order+priesthood). We talked about how important having the priesthood in the home is and how lucky we are. He related it to the sisters too for how the priesthood is not complete until a temple marriage and stuff. He talked alot more but I cannot remember everything. We also talked about being diligent in all things. Whether it be our missions now or back home. We also talked about how if we are constantly trying to do what is right and keeping in mind Heavenly Father then we will not have room to stray. It was really good. After leadership Sis Richards and I were going on exchanges so I took Sister Aebischer with me and she went to clinton. I also got to have one final interview before President Tucker leaves. He only met with me and my comp though so it was kind of a neat experience to have. Then Sis a and I drove back to meridian and this lady use to be a church book distributor here and she is getting ready to move so she was selling a bunch of stuff and she let the missionaries have whatever they wanted to have. It was awesome. It took all my will power not to take a million books. She was giving away prophets biographies. I only took a couple that i would be able to fit in to my suitcase or that would be easy to send home. We went to a less active ladies house that we visit each week and we used the harvesting tool on her and we were able to bless her home and it was such an amazing experience. I have never had an experience like that. I was saying the prayer and we have specific warning we have to use and after the words just came. It was 100 percent the spirit.

The next day we had district meeting and all but one of us had gone to the training so it was just kind of a fun meeting and not as serious. We played a few games. Then we went to one of the members houses who was driving us to jackson to meet up with the other sisters. We got to spend time at one of the ward members there and it was a lot of fun. Then Friday we went and volunteered at Loves kitchen, the soup kitchen here. It is always quite the experience to do so. We meet a lot of fun random people. Then saturday we tried to contact some people and we went on a 2 mile walk. It is fun because we get to hand out so many mormon.org cards and meet alot of people.

Sunday was really good. Our sacrament service was really good. 2 ward members did this musical number to some sort of country song and the guy played the guitar and it was a good song about fathers but everyone was just kind of confused if it was approved or not and we were looking at the bishop and he was on the stand trying not to laugh haha. it was hilarious. Our lesson was all about doing missionary work and getting over the fear of it. It was great. Then we tried to contact some more people and then we went to dinner at my new favorite families house. They have recently moved in and are just so funny. It is so entertaining to go there.

Sorry this is pretty short. The week was just crazy busy. Here is a link to a mormon.org video. It is one of my favorites. It is hilarious at the beginning what the guy does to the cat. I always have to repeat it 10 times.

http://mormon.org/me/4KJH/

Please write letters and all that fun stuff. Love you all. 

Week 55

Dear Family,

This week was great. We had a lot of fun.

Monday the Relief Society president took us out to visit people and we went out to a small town that we cover that is about 20 minutes away. The people we saw were hilarious. One of them was not a member and she had this 3 year old little girl that LOVED us. Like she knew the RS president and gave her a hug but she saw us and just ran to the couch we were sitting on (she had never even seen misisonaries before). She wanted to play and just hang around us all night and the rs president kept trying to get her away but she couldn't. It was hilarious.

Tuesday we did service for one of the members. I have become quite the painter since being on my mission. It is kind of funny too. One of the ward members took us to get "southern" food tuesday also. We were thinking we were going to some sort of restaurant and they take us to a gas station and tell us to order haha. we were so confused. It was not too bad but they did not have alligator. so we fed our left overs to our cat waldo. Waldo eats anything. He also ate a lemon bar and chicken strips. Oh and Sister Richards b-day cake.

Wednesday we saw a few people and that night a ward member threw a mini b-day party for sis richards. It was alot of fun. It was hilarious because we were walking up to their house and this random lady was like are you going to my brothers house and we were like yeah hoping she was talking about the right person and then she all of a sudden starts telling us that she cant find a wedding dress and her wedding is in three weeks and she is so stressed because none of them are modest and we almost could not control our laughter. Like who walks up to random people and starts talking about their wedding dresses?

Friday was Sister Richards b-day! We had a lot of fun and I made her some random stuff and one of the members took us out to a mexican restaurant and they sang and it was hilarious. Then we went back to their house and played the card game golf. It is fun. the elders came too.

Saturday we tried to find people to teach and it was rainy and hot and gross all day. Nothing super exciting happened except we did go with the elders to one of the LA members that we visit. She lives in a trailer and is a hoarder and we usually sit in the back yard in some sort of tent contraption she made. The elders came so they could give her a blessing becuase she hurt her foot. We were talking with her and she said she wasnt going to be able to come to church because her foot (she has not been to church in 25 years). She proceeds to talk to us for 45 minutes and then they give her the blessing and during the blessing the spirit was so strong. it was incredible. Right after the blessing she said she was coming to church even if she had to hitch hike. So we got her a ride and worried a little that she would cancel because she has done that multiple times before. BUT sunday she showed up and was so excited. It was amazing. Our sunday was good. We did not have a dinner appointment but by the end of church we had two. It is quite funny the way that works.

This week will be busy. We have to go to Hattiesburg yet again to go to a leadership training and right after we are going on exchanges. I will be staying in Meridian. Sister Richards gets to go to clinton and meet the scotts:( Did I tell you guys also that my cat rafiki whom I have had since my first day in the mission at the scotts died? Sister scott called me a few weeks ago crying to tell me that rafiki died but i did not believe her because she has done it a few times before but i knew she was really crying and really worried and so i knew he really was dead. I did not cry but i did mourn a little bit for him. I dont know why but i always find a cat to love in each area. Except in this area waldo is kind of gross so the most loving he gets is all our leftovers.

That is my week. I hope ya'll have a great week. Please please write. 

Week 54

Dear family,

This week was good as usual because that is what I always say. We actually got to see alot of people and it was pretty great. Plus we had zone conference and that is always fun.

So monday we went to the mall because Sister Richard's wanted to buy clothes with her b-day money and so I was trying to talk to as many people there as I could about the church. So we were able to find 2 really neat people. One was a worker at a JCPenney and she actually came up to us and wanted to know who we were. We are going to try calling her this week to see if we can meet with her. We also found this guy in this really random store that sold random tshirts. He actually asked us about it too and said he knew some members and asked some basic beliefs and we were able to refer him to mormon.org. It was cool because he said he was going to look at it at soon as we left the store because he had his laptop open. On Tuesday we were able to do some service for one of my favorite families. They are getting ready to move in the next few months to Tupelo MS. Which is out of our mission which means I will propably not see them for a while. It stinks. But they are moving to a small town and are really nervous about it so I told them I am from a small town and told them all about it and they said it really helped so I guess thank goodness we lived in green river. Wednesday we got to see Shavanka and her family. They were all really depressed when we came and they were not really in the mood for a lesson so we offered to come back but they said they knew they needed to hear from us and that is what they wanted. So we started teaching them about obedience and the 10 commandments. We have these hand symbols/actions for them so you can remember all 10 in order and they loved it. It really helped them to be happy and to actually get into the lesson. We tried to make it based on keeping the sabbath day holy so they would come to church but it turned more into honoring thy father and mother which is what the kids were struggling with anyway. It turned out to be good. And the kids said they would come to church because the mom had to work. We also got to have dinner with one of my other favorite families. They are hilarious and she graduated from the paul mitchell in st george. So they are just alot of fun to be around. 

Thursday was zone conference in Hattiesburg so we had to wake up super early at 6 and drive. It was such a good conference. We wanted to be in Hattiesburg early so we could finish cleaning our car because it is a requirement. So we go on this long adventure trying to find a place where there is a car wash and it took forever and they didnt even have free vacuum's  it was so lame and they took off our bike rack because apparantly it could not go through the wash and then they were supposed to put it back on but they tried to blame us that we lost the pin that holds it in but we were in our car the whole time and it was dumb. Anyway they found the pin and could still not get it back on so we are outside on the ground in our skirts trying to put the bike rack on but we cant get it so we just give up and leave but we did  get to give both the guys books of mormon and tell them a little. It was awesome. .we arrived at the conference with only 20 mintues to actually fine tune our car. Any way the conference was great. Usually we are combined with other zones and this time it was just one zone so we are the only sisters there so that was kind of lame. But we have won the hearts of all the senior couples so it was worth it. We did not win the clean car award but the car guy after did tell us we would have won but because I have won every time it would not have been fair especially since our car is brand new. So its all good. we would have won. President Tucker introduced a new finding tool which is really cool. Because as a missionary we are literal representatives of Jesus Christ so we are going to start leaving blessings on homes. not actually blessing it but i dont even know how to describe it. It should work. Our mission doctor also told us about bugs and bites and stuff. it was sick nasty the pictures he showed us. We then drove back to meridian in pouring rain and a tornado warning. It was scary. The sky was green and it is so intense to see.

The rest of the week we just tried to find more people and on saturday we saw a lady. She was looking alot better from her previous depressed state and said we could come back this week. We went to a park to find people and we ended up watching a dance contest. This thing was so legit. Black people really know how to dance. We found three people there. One guy gave us his phone number to call him later that night and i tried calling him later and his number already was saved in our phone. So we didnt call him and will be giving him to the elders. But we did find two really nice ladies that may be interested. We also went to a farmers market to find people. It was kind of lame though. Like not very much stuff but there was this kettle corn man that was hilarious. people were gathered around him to watch his "show". Then we went to this little store we saw in the down town area and I was telling the lady about mormon.org and I wanted a video for her to watch but i could not remember her name and all of a sudden it popped into my head as to who she needed to see. It was so cool. The spirit is amazing. The Lord really is preparing people here in Merdian and it is amazing. Sunday we got to church and 2 of Shavankas kids were there waiting. It was amazing. They are so neat and they really do love the gospel. Miracles are happening everyday. I also got to take sister R to the hoarders house yesterday. Her face was priceless. It made my week haha. Just kidding.

I hope you all have a great week. the church is so true. If you want to see miracles in your life, do missionary work. I love you all.

Week 53

Dear family, 

This week was good. Not a whole lot of new things are going on here. We are still trying to find new people to teach as always. This week we were not as successful in that area. 

On Tuesday we were at a service project at one of the members house and we were only there for about 40 minutes before the office couple called who takes care of apartments and stuff and they told us they were almost at our apartment to come check it. We knew they were coming just not that early. So we rush home and they check our apt (we passed of course) and they tell us that we are not getting new mattresses because it doesnt matter what we sleep on. Well we knew that we were because sister tucker had already called about it and he was just tricking us. So Sister and Elder Scott (not the scotts from Clinton) took us to sams club to get our new mattresses and they bought us a nice expensive meal at sams. Just kidding. It was good and reminded me of how much I miss costco. They gave us lots of new stuff for our apt though so that is nice. Also funny story, my mattress was so awful they just threw it away with another one that they had brought with them and I told Sister Scott that I bet out mattresses would be gone out of the dumpster by the end of the day from someone taking them out of the trash. Well later that night Sister Richards and I were getting ready to leave to go see people and we walk outside and this old lady has our mattresses tied to this rolling crate thing. It was so funny. She was struggling so we told her we would put them on our car and drive them over to her apt. It was hilarious because she was like look what I found. Someone just left them over there (like she did not just take them out of the dumpster). However she was really nice and told us we could come back over and see her. So thank goodness we threw the mattresses away in that dumpster. 

We also made a new mission plan for this area. It is a little slow and the members are great but we want them to be more mission minded so we came up with a new plan and we are on board to start a Book Of Mormon class. We hope people will come and the way we are planning on doing it is a lot different than previous classes I have attended. So it should be really good. 

We finally got to see another girl again though. We only could talk to her for like 5 minutes because she was busy but it was a good short lesson on trusting in Heavenly Father's plan for us. She liked it. Now all we need to do is get her to keep her commitments on everything else. It is a little frustrating. We also got to know a really awesome less active girl. Also on Thursday was the coolest thing ever. We got to go to the Navy base and tour the airplanes and stuff and then we got to go on the flight simulators they train the navy on to fly. It was so legit. It was awesome. It was the coolest thing ever. It felt like you were really flying.  And I got to do it for like 40 minutes. I almost landed perfectly every time. It was probably the coolest thing ever. Mike one of our investigators took us with his wife who is a member. They are awesome. 

FRIDAY!!! I TURNED 1 YEAR OLD!!! Woohoo. I made it. It was not a very eventful day. We met up with the elders and watched 17 miracles though so that was pretty cool. And I got an awesome package. Thank you Thank you Thank you!!! I also got to burn one of my shirts which is tradition. So that was fun. 

That is about all we did this week. Sorry this is short. But thats about it.