September 29, 2013

We were able to go on trade-offs this week and I went with Sister Fonoifua. She is actually a temple square missionary who is serving her outbound here (she is also Tongan). Me and her were instant friends! We were able to go and visit this family that we have been seeing and when we got there, their mom was running her daughter out the door to go somewhere, but she asked us to stay a little longer so that we could talk with her because she had some questions. It was crazy, because the last time we came, the Mom wanted nothing to do with us. the nine year old daughter had actually come to church the past Sunday, and she loved it! Anyway, we were able to give her the first lesson (the restoration)  and then we gave her, her own book of Mormon. The look she had on her face was priceless! She cradled the book in her arms like it was her most prized possession! When her Mom got back we started talking with her and we found out that she had not been to confession for three years because of all of this guilt that she felt and she had not partaken of the Eucharist because she did not feel worthy (The mom is catholic). You could just see the pain in her eyes, but we were able to speak with her about the atonement and talk to her about it's cleansing power. She really started to open up to us after that. She talks about having a forever family and you can just see that she wants everything that the gospel has to offer, she just has to take that leap of faith.

We also had a miracle with one investigator. We were actually going to go over and see if she had done the things we had asked of her and if not we were possibly going to drop her because she had not been progressing, but some how the spirit just took over and we had one of the most spiritual discussions ever with her. We then realized that we needed to still teach her and push her because she is right about to jump into the gospel, but we need to make sure it is with the Lord's church that has the fullness of the gospel and not a church that has partial truths, but feels more comfortable. She has been asked by her friend to come to the Baptist church down the road, and she has been supposed to go for the past two weeks, but her friend has had unexpected things come up to make it so that she could not attend. I know that she has not been able to go because the Lord did not want her to, he does not want her to mistake the feeling of comfort for the feeling of his holy Spirit and the truth that it testifies of.  I am so grateful that we have that spirit and that it can teach through us!

To close, I just wanted to tell you about an experience that we had today when we were eating lunch at Whataburger. The woman who was taking our order was this older black woman named Gretta. She was so kind and she just was smiling at us. She commented on how nice we both were and then she said "well of course you are so nice, you got Jesus' name on you!" she later came and brought us our food, commented on how amazing she thought my hair was,  and said "I really hope you touch a lot of souls today, because you have already touched mine." It made me realize that I am a disciple of Christ everywhere I go. People really do notice and they really appreciate the work we are doing. You may never realize the impact you have upon people, even at a fast food restaurant, but they take notice of how you act and especially how you treat them. It made me realize that I should always be kind, and always show that I am a disciple of Christ even when I am not wearing my badge, because I never know who could be watching, or who's life I could change just through my actions.

September 16, 2013

I am so happy to hear that you all are doing good! I am also happy to hear that you have been getting rain, I know we needed it so bad! It rains all the time here. We actually got caught in a terrible lightning/thunderstorm on night this week. We were out tracting and the lightning started and it seemed like it hit right in front of us, we were terrified, and we had this overwhelming feeling like we needed to get back to the car. We made it to the car before anything happened, but we were sure frightened. It was also so intense that we could feel the pressure from the outside in our heads and sinuses (I don't know if that makes any sense, but we had a huge headache on the drive home). 

So this week we almost got into a bible bash with the manager at Dominoes Pizza. He said that he liked our name tags and then he asked what church we were from, we told him The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, He then asked if that was the mormon church and we said yes, he then tells us that we don't read/believe in the real bible, but we told him we read it almost everyday, and then he said "well, you don't believe in Jesus" and we both thought, "come on dude we just told you we represent the church of Jesus Christ, but whatever," we stepped back and went on our merry way, because we were not going to get into that while we were waiting for our food.

We finally have a few investigators!  We have one named Moesha.   I just adore her! She has been through a crazy amount of trials lately and she has told us that she is searching for the truth. She is so elect it is not even funny, but we can't tell her that we are the answer to her prayers, she has to come to that conclusion on her own (which is really frustrating). We are also starting to teach a young 10 yr old boy. He is amazing! His family lives in a tiny trailer and they have very little. His 11 yr old brother teases him because he wants to get baptized, but I have a feeling that he will be converted too. We had a grand old time tossing around a football with him and his bothers while we just got to know them. They are so sweet and he is so prepared to be a member! He really reminds me a lot of Hayden, he just wants to go all the time, but he is so sweet and caring and you can tell he really loves his family and others.

So this week we also visited a less active sister. She is fabulous! She was raised hardcore baptist, and was dirt poor. She told us she didn't even know that there were clothes made for little girls until she was five and started to go to Kentucky to see her rich father, before then she ran around in her underwear. Every summer she would go and live with her dad, who was crazy wealthy and came from the family of Thomas Payne and Henry Clay and so they were well known. Her dad used to drive race cars at Daytona when he was young, but then stopped when he divorced her mom. When she was older she left the Baptist church and became an administrator for the Episcopal church. She raised three children, but never really liked being married (her father was abusive, and she just doesn't put up with anything that a man does, because she is afraid that she will get hurt). She then joined the church when she found that the doctrine at the Episcopal church changed with the times. She said that the hardest thing she has ever done was join the church, but she knows that it is true. She also was once "heart-attacked" by the activity day girls and she keeps the notes in her kitchen and reads them everyday. She truly treasures those notes of encouragement from those young girls. It made me think of Linda, and the time we did that for her. I think stuff like that really means much more to people than we ever realize. 

I love it here! We have definitely had some hard days, but the good days make it so that I can keep going and not think about the hard stuff as much.

P.S. The elders in our ward had a baptism yesterday! That was exciting and it was cool, because it was our Bishop's soon to be son-in-law.

I finally caught a lizard.

Sis Davidson walking down a beautiful southern road.

First week in Garden Cove Springs

Meagan arrived in Florida this week, here are some excerpts from her e-mail:

I love Florida! It is so beautiful here. The town that we are living in is called Green Cove Springs, and it reminds me of Logan, but it is more green. Apparently the Fountain of Youth is located here :) I could do without the bugs, but I guess I can just deal with that. Our apartment is super nice, It is a loft style home, and has a small spiral staircase that leads to the bedroom upstairs. It isn't super large, but we do have a washer and dryer, so we don't have to take time on P-day to find a place to do our laundry, which gives us almost 2 extra hours to do whatever we want. Today we are going to explore the town and go to the park. I feel like I should be in Princess and the Frog with the scenery around here, it is awesome. Missionary work never ceases to surprise me. Every person you talk to is different, and you have to change everything you teach when you start talking to someone else. It is crazy, but the Lord knows everyone and he knows what they need I just have to work on making sure the spirit can speak through me. 

So my companion, Sister Davidson, it pretty much amazing. We get along incredibly well and we are really similar personality wise. I am so thankful that the Lord has blessed me with a good companion, because I don't know if I could handle a bad companion for my first transfer. 

Sister Davidson and I are opening our area and we really have nothing to go on. We found out that there hasn't been any sisters here for over 18 years. We have spent the majority of the last four days compiling our ward roster and creating a map of where people are. We have a wonderful ward mission leader, Brother Barker, and he is super prepared. He gave us everything we needed and more. I don't think I will go hungry anytime soon because we have dinners scheduled almost every night this month. The people here are great, and they all have a beautiful southern drawl when they speak. So we live in this condo that is on the banks of the St. John's river. It is incredibly gorgeous. We are just getting settled and we still don't have bed frames so we just stacked our mattresses on the floor, but hey it works. The lizards here are as numerous as grasshoppers back home, and I have been trying to catch one everyday, but I have had no such luck. I did catch a frog though. Every morning we go jogging to our neighbors pier and we get to watch the sunrise, it is amazing! Also I am driving the car, which is crazy, but the Elders gave us their GPS so that we don't get lost. The poor guys are on bikes, because we don't have enough cars for them. ...

So this week when we stopped by a realty office to sign some papers for the church, the receptionist was like "So you guys are the latter-day saints," he yells back to his boss, "Kathy your saints are here" and then he started smoking on his e-cigarette and kept calling us saints and what not, and it was weird, the end. So that was my first weird reaction to missionaries, but I am sure there will be plenty more to come. ... 

Friday we were privileged to go to a Relief Society fireside and Sister Burton, The Relief Society General President spoke to us.  Sunday our ward had Stake Conference and they were reorganizing the Stake Presidency, so we heard from two members of the Seventy. I am still adjusting to life as a missionary and I am still slightly terrified of talking to people, but I have gotten much better at it and I have even shared a few messages that didn't crash and burn. Sister Davidson is awesome and we get along fantastically, which is a big relief, and she always tells me how good I am doing, which makes me feel so much better. I can't wait until I can be a really good missionary, but I hear that doesn't happen until about 17 months out :)

 Meagan by a tree with spanish moss in their church parking lot.

 View of St. Jon's River

Another view of the St. John's River

Meagan Arrives in Florida

Meagan with President and Sister Craig.

Meagan has been assigned to the Flemming Island area with Sister Davidson. That's all we know at this point.  We are sure looking forward to that first email or letter.  She looks happy to be there.

Here is a link to some info about Flemming Island.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleming_Island,_Florida

Meagan headed for Jacksonville

Meagan left for Jacksonville this morning. Robyn Seivert, who works at the airport, gave Meagan a hug and let her use her phone to call us. She called at 4:30am to tell us she made it to the airport.

There were 51 missionaries headed for Atlanta and 24 of them were going on to Jacksonville with Meagan. 

It just so happens that ark's good friend from high school, Jennifer Schofield,w as traveling for business on the same flight.  Jennifer said that she saw the missionaries getting on the plane and remembered that Mark's daughter was leaving today.  She started to look for a Sister Williams name tag and there she was, sitting one row in front of Jennifer and on the other side of the eisle.  Jennifer snapped this picture and called Mark when they got to Atlanta to let him know Meagan had made it to Atlanta.

What a tender mercy that was for Mark, as he was somewhat worried about Meagan travelling.  We are grateful to Jennifer and especially to the lord for watching over our sweet Meagan.

We haven't heard from Meagan yet but we expect to soon.

MTC - 1st Week

So here is some basic info about my district.  There are three sets of sisters, and three sets of Elders.  Here are their names:
Elder Payne and Elder Curtis
Elder Munsen and Elder Freeman are going to Reno, Nevada
Elder Blanchard and Elder Larsen are going to Reno, Nevada
Sister Hall and Sister Spendlove
Sister Carr and Sister Hipbshman (the b and h are silent, pronounce it Hips-mun)
Sister Yates and Sister Williams
All of the sisters are going to Jacksonville.  It is crazy there are so many going to Jacksonville, there are at least two other districts here that have people going to Jacksonville.   Actually there are 36 missionaries arriving at the Jacksonville, Florida Mission on Sept. 3, 2013

Anyway I am basically always busy and I am up at 6:30 and go to bed at 10:30, except this morning we had a service project and so we were up at 5:30, but the alarm went off at 4:30 so we all woke up until we realized what time it was and then went back to bed, but it still felt the same when we woke up at 5:30. I am actually enjoying the MTC more than I thought I would. The Spirit is amazing here. Yesterday in class we got assignments to teach a new investigator named Wiremu (pronounced Whit-a-moo) today our teachers will act like this person and we will teach them. When we were trying to decide what to plan I thought of your sunbeams and how they really don't know much about the gospel, Wiremu does not believe in God and he does not even know who Jesus is, it is really crazy. But while planning the spirit really testified of how we need to understand him and also that he needs to understand everything we are saying to him. It is crazy here, I never thought that this would be happening, but here it is.

I am actually loving the MTC more than I thought I would.  They keep you really busy here, so there's not much time to be sad.

2nd Week in MTC

So this week has been great! We hardly have any time to do anything but what is in our schedule. We go to class, we go to eat, and then its back to class. Oh also our classroom is in the Matthew Cowley building and it reminded Sister Yates about Matthew Crawley so we now call it Downton Abbey  :) I thought you would appreciate it. We exercise everyday, and sometimes we even get to go to the gym and play hard core volleyball with the elders. We are also on the main MTC campus and that is fun! Hey tell Deb that this past Sunday I saw Michael Swink. We were both singing in the devotional choir and we met up during our break. I think he leaves on Monday and so he has only been speaking Hungarian and we had a cool conversation translated by his companion. Anyway there are six sisters to a room, and our outlets don't work so when we have time to get ready we have to do it in the bathroom.

So this Sunday we had a devotional and Elder Neal L. Anderson talked to us. He talked about Sacrifice and Love. It was exactly what I needed to hear! And then we had a crazy thunder and lightning storm after so we had to stay at the Marriott Center for about 20 min afterward. And we walked home in the pouring rain, I wish I had sister Hibpshman's picture of us soaking wet in our Sunday clothes. I have attached a few pictures, but I can't put subtitles on them so just know that the sister Yates (my companion is the one with just me and her). Also the Elders asked us to wear purple so that we all could match, we have some funny Elders. The picture with less people is of our district and the one with more is our zone.