Transfers: Staying 9/26/2016

Yet another transfer has come and gone! Sister Steadman is leaving me behind to lead the area. Nervous to see who my new companion is, but know that whatever happens will be for the best. 

This week has been fun! We went to dinner twice with Ray and Gloria Skillestad, my favorite people on like the whole planet! The two times they have taken us out before, I have just happened to order a hamburger. Keep in mind this is like 4 weeks apart so it isn't anything too strange. Well Gloria took note of it and made a point to make fun of me for it when we went to El Rancho. She handed me the menu and said, "Sorry hun. You're gonna have a hard time finding a burger on there." Stinker

Then when we got talking about the future, and getting married, she said "God help the man that marries that one! 'honey what's for dinner?' 'hamburgers' And tomorrow?' 'Hamburgers'"

And "Do you cook? Or at least try...? That one probably always makes hamburgers." 

It didn't help my case that I had those delicious hamburgers in the freezer at the apartment. 

Then when we went to dinner at their house, with some of their friends, they all made fun of me for my love of hamburgers. Gloria and Cyndi were even planning a Thanksgiving dinner I could come to that only consisted of hamburgers. This is what I put up with y'all. 

Other than hamburgers/Gloria and Ray, this week has been pretty usual. We have been working hard and trying to find some awesome people to teach. As I watched the General Women's Broadcast on Saturday, President Uchtdorf's message really stuck out to me. 

Keep knocking. Even until the fourth floor, last door. 

I know he didn't mean it literally, but hey, it applies to me quite literally. Keep knocking. You never know what or who will be behind those doors. 

In other news, Sister Jones who was serving in Biloxi has gone home. She was one of the missionaries in the accident last month. Not a serious accident, they just got rear ended. Everyone was fine. Or somewhat fine. Sister Jones came out with whiplash that has continued to give her problems. She has been on a ton of medication, including muscle relaxers, pain meds, nausea meds, just about everything you can think of. Finally the mission doctor, the one over all the South missions, decided she needed to go home to recuperate and heal. She hopes to come back out when she is healed, but it probably won't be for a while. 

Well, sorry for the short email this week. Sister Steadman needs to pack! 

LOVE YOU!!! 

A Real Southern Week 9/12/2016

Yoo hoo! Hey family!

Big summer blow out!

This week has been great! From food to weather, it has been a truly Southern week!

One of the dinner appointments this week, with the Haneys, made my life! They are a cute family, grandma (aka"snookie") grandpa, great grandma (aka
granny") and Maggie (their granddaughter). Maggie has mental disabilities so when her mom and sister moved to Arizona, she wasn't comfortable changing scenery, so she stayed with her grandparents. 

For dinner we had... drumroll please... Grits casserole and sweet potato muffins! So good! The casserole had eggs, cheese, and grits in it, and it was AMAZING! I am in LOVE with grits!

The sweet potato muffins are just to die for!

As we ate, we watched the birds and rabbits eating the food that Maggie had put out for them. We saw blue jays, cardinals, baby birds, wild rabbits, and one squirrel. It was so fun to see! 

Also, and this is mostly for Mom, I only had 2 hamburgers this week. Don't worry. There were only 2. And one bison burger...   

Fun experience from the week: seeing the very large and in charge men at the gas station where we had stopped to eat the lunches we had packed. They pulled up in a large black pick up. Got out, bullet proof vests, guns, badges and all. Then they opened the back door and uncuffed a very tired looking young woman from the back seat. They walked inside, got some Coke and cigarettes, and came out. The girl was then handcuffed to the table, and they enjoyed the things they had bought, the two men looking around and surveying the premise. Then they got back into the truck, the woman once again handcuffed to the back seat, and took off back the way they had come. 

I'm thinking it was one of two situations. FBI agents with a infomant OR a hostage with two fake agents. I don't know which. Probably the latter.

 

Another cool experience: Meeting Sisters Reeves, Cordon, and Marriott and Elder Bluth at the Women in Christ Conference the stake put on. It was awesome!! 

The whole conference was so inspiring, all 8 hours of it! There was a welcome session where Pat St. Angelo (minister for another faith), Lynn Langley (founder of Sue's Home, a half way house for women) and Michelle Turner ( a foster mother and homemaker)

Lynn Langley talked about her "life passage" in 1 Peter 4:10-11. She then talked about Peter walking on water in Matthew 14. She narrated the conversation she had with the Holy Ghost or God. It goes something like this: 

Did Peter walk on water because he knew how to Lynn? No sir.

Did Peter walk on water because he had the ability Lynn? No sir. 

How did Peter walk on water Lynn? Through faith and trust sir. 

It was such a good talk! 

Michelle Turner's talk was my favorite of that session! She told about how she and her husband became foster parents 4 years ago and the 43 children that have come through their home since. She said this, "We don't serve for the outcome. We serve because that is what God called us to do." and "The Lord stretches you so you can serve better, according to His will." 

As she was talking, I was reminded of a part of my patriarchal blessing that I had read just 2 days before, because I was prompted to do so. I thought of the part of my blessing where it says "I bless you with the ability to create a home full of love and the Spirit where your children will feel safe from the wickednesses of the world... you will have a tremendous impact on your children as well as many other children." 

And I had a thought that maybe I could be a foster parent. Maybe that is something that God has planned for me. And it seems right. I will have to give it more thought and prayer, but for now, it sounds like something I want to do. 

"Your job isn't to be the saviour of the world. It is to love the world the way the Saviour loves you."

Sister Cordon talked about our gifts and how we must plant seeds in order to get the plants or blessings. She showed a video by Elder Bednar called "A particle of Faith" It was so good! Her talk was so inspiring and wonderful!

Sister Marriott, in her cute Southern accent and charm, talked about the value of us as women. She read from JSH 1:51 about the Hill Cumorah and changed it to read something like this "Convenient to the city of Gulfport, stands a woman of considerable worth. Inside this woman, beneath a facade that the world sees, is a core of spirituality of immeasurable worth"

It was cool to hear her talk about how much worth and strength we have. She told us of china cups that, though seemingly fragile and frail, but turned upside down, can support a car. She likened it to our appearance and inner strength. 

She also talked about how to truly pray:

1) find a place where you won't be interuppted

2) kneel down (making you body act reverent, makes you feel reverent)

3) pray out loud

4) envision Heavenly Father in front of you, smiling. Then talk to Him

5) Ask His permission to have a personal testimony meeting with Him

6) testify out loud as to everything you know concerning Him

7) Be open to the Holy Ghost's inspiration

8) (this one is my favorite) pour out the whole sorry mess that is inside of you

9) Learn and grow and connect deeper with your loving Heavenly Father as you feel His approval

We then heard a wonderful song "Still, my soul be still."

Then Sister Reeves spoke about fulfilling our potential, the one God sees, not the one the world sees. She said, "We hope you realize the constant and incredible power of your consistent faithful example. Please continue strong and faithful." and "We consistently tried " and "Keep on going. Keep on doing it."

Such a wonderful conference! 

Also it has been raining a lot this week. The storms coming off the coast of Africa are hitting us hard. I will send videos as proof.

I am missing the temple and the wonderful spirit that is in it, but I am excited for General Conference coming up soon! Not really related, but that is how I am feeling so... deal with it.

LOVE YOU!!! 

*waving emoji* 9/6/2016

(SEVEN MONTHS DOWN!!)

 Hi fam and friends!

I am in a really good mood right now! 

I am jamming out to gospel music- Joey+Rory to be specific. Love them. Thanks Mom for making me aware of them! 

I just had a hamburger- which I have been craving for like 3 weeks now. Finally bought some at Walmart and cooked it on the stove. Not the same as Dad's grilled ones, but close enough to make me happy. 

I got an email from someone I have been wanting to talk to for like ever. 

I am wearing my adorable and bright "Coast Life" shirt. So wonderful and soft.

It is raining, so for the time being it is half a degree cooler than it could be. 

I got hair dye and will be dying my hair tonight- Espresso by Schwarzkopf

And on top of it all, I am a missionary serving my Saviour and His children

Here is the week, in play by play format!

NUMBERS!!

Baptized/Confirmed : 0 

With a Bap.Date: 1

In Sacrament: 1 (Desirae with her 9 day old Liam. CUTEST kid ever!)

Member Present Lessons: 2

Other Lessons: 6 (yes you saw that right! 6 lessons! The Lord is finally rewarding our hard work)

Progressing Invest.: 3 (also a miracle! My 80 something boyfriend Ray is among them)

New Investigators: 0 (it's fine. I will take the other miracles as enough for now! )

LA/RC lessons: 6

Books Lent: 1

A miraculously wonderful week! 

Monday: Met with Allen Johnson. He was set with a baptismal date for 9/24 and we committed him to pray about it. When we met with him, he said he didn't feel like it would work. He is in a wheelchair and gets bed sores from sitting so much. He has one that is pretty bad, and he doesn't think it will be healed in time. We bore testimony that if he trusted in God, He would make a way for it to work, whether it was fully healed or not. Allen didn't agree. He wants to continue meeting, but doesn't want to commit to a date. I bore testimony of the truth of this message, and asked him to read the introduction to The Book of Mormon and pray about it. He said he would. 

We then headed to the Thomas home to do scripture study. Poor Shunta had just finished working for 9 hours straight at her home health job taking care of a 92 year old woman. She is so exhausted from it all the time. The woman has dementia and is stuck in a time when blacks were inferior, and makes comments reflecting this view. It is sad to see Shunta so tired and beaten down from a day of such comments and mistreatment. Her husband "can't" work (I think it is more like WON'T) so Shunta has to everything to support her family and her husband's gambling. It is frustrating to go over and see him in the bedroom sitting watching TV and her crying on the couch from exhaustion and a sense of lack of control over how to manage her responsibilities as a mother and as the sole provider. It makes my heart hurt every time we go over there. 

Tuesday: Service at "The Barking Basement" thrift shop. Miss Gail has been having some trouble with her higher ups. Someone reported that she was verbally abusive to her volunteers (aka Us) She isn't. She is very loving and kind, she just jokes around. De ja vu to what happened with me in May...  She put in her 2 week notice and Thursday was supposed to be her last day, so she was just helping to help. She didn't have to be there. 

Anyways, half way through the day, an hour into us volunteering, the 2 superiors walked in. And took over the place. They kicked us out of the back room and closed the door. Five minutes later Gail walked out in tears to say goodbye to us. They had fired/ kicked her out, two days before she was supposed to actually leave. The two people, a very posh and uppity woman and a large and in charge man, then came out to boss us around. We hugged Gail and took off. Since we didn't have to be there, we left. And won't be going back. They have since lost most of their business. 

Dinner at Bishop William's house. Then off to visit the Schrepps. Trystawn just got his mission call to Logan, UT! Speaking Spanish! He enters the Mexico MTC October 25th. I am excited for him! He is already working on learning Spanish! He will make a wonderfully enthusiastic missionary!

Wednesday: Plan our lesson for District Meeting. It was about Family History. Our original plan didn't end up working as the videos we were going to show wouldn't play. So we read and discussed a talk from Elder Bednar, "Missionary, Family History, Temple Work"

Then to visit with Allen Johnson. Still no desire to commit to a date. Talked about the Introduction and Testimonies in the front of the Book of Mormon. The Spirit was really strong. Hopefully he felt it and will have a change of heart. He can't meet with us for a couple of weeks since he has to stay laying down and off the sore while they treat it. That means he can't get in his chair and go outside to meet with us. 

TRACTING! Or as Brother Nueffer, the Second Counselor in the Bishopric calls it, mindless knocking. Then dinner and off to ward correlation. Wonderful talk about our investigators. 

Also discovered a talent I do NOT have. Jumping up from kneeling. I tried to jump up from a kneeling position and ended up getting maybe a cm of air and landing back down before dying of laughter. Sister Steadman and I couldn't stop laughing for a good 5 minutes. 

Thursday: Visited Sister Thelma Thomas with Sister Doyle. Tried one of our potential investigators, Christie. No luck, but we will keep trying. Lunch of a delicious sandwich made from Dave's Killer bread, smoked ham, and smoked gouda. BTW I found delicious gouda. It is from Walmart and it the best stuff ever. We had it on pulled pork sandwiches years ago. I forgot about until I tasted it and I was transported back to eating homemade pulled pork sandwiches with gouda and coleslaw on it. 

Back to the day! We went to teach Terry about gospel principles. Fun and awkward as always. Then to across Washington to try some people. Saw Chris Wilson's roommate when we tried to visit him. Then headed to tract. Ended up falling on my bike when I turned and Sister Steadman, who was in front of me, did not. Resulted in my tire hitting her tire and me face planting it. Pictures to follow. Met Jim tracting. He saw our pathetic sweaty faces and took pity and gave us a cold Diet Coke. When sat down and talked about God/Life/College/The Universe. Wonderful conversation. When I asked if he had ever met with missionaries he rolled his eyes and said, "Yes and I've read your book too" I followed up with "What did you think?" 

Another eyeroll and "I thought 'you've gotta be kidding'" 

Needless to say, he isn't interested, but hey, he gave us a cold drink and let us take a break anyway so at least he doesn't have a completely cold and hard heart.  

Then to Larry. A very intellectual man who agreed to read the Book of Mormon from cover to cover, but doesn't want to convert. We answered the questions he had and got into a discussion about God and Quantum mechanics. Yep. Heloves the deep stuff like that. He is a very smart man and has a testimony of the principles like God and the greatness of His creations. He said something that made me laugh, "One day when I become a .... nevermind." A Mormon Larry?! Is that what you just about said?! One day when you become a Mormon?! 

Funny guy! We got into how the Holy Ghost bears record of the truth and brings things to our remembrance. He said he would have to think about that since he never thought about the Holy Ghost being a real person. 

Dinner and then blessed sleep.

Friday: Weekly Planning! Wonderful hours spent planning for our investigators and how we can be better as we work with them. Then dinner at Applebee's with Gloria and Ray! Ray made fun of me because I got a hamburger, which I just so happened to get the last time they took us out to dinner. Whoops. What can I say! I love them! I got to talk with their friend Cyndie's granddaughters Maggie and Katie. They had a lot of movies and songs they wanted to me to look up when I get home. We had a wonderful talk about that kind of stuff and then a little about the whys and whats of serving a mission. I gave them my email and told them to keep in touch! Wonderful girls!

Saturday: AIing/getting the church's name out there while at the Ocean Springs art walk! With Ray!! Lots of walking and talking to people! Then lunch with them along with a talk about temples, fasting, church, testimonies, and the Word of Wisdom. Such a wonderful discussion!

Then to the Cox's to help lift Sister Cox's spirits in the midst of the craziness that is her household. They have a BEAUTIFUL dog named Tear. Tear is depressed and won't eat. So he is starving to death. You can see each of his ribs, his hips and hold his waist between your pointer and thumb. So sad. I had to fight back tears as I looked at him and rubbed his head gently. I feed my salami and crackers to him and grabbed some more salami. He gobbled it up like no tomorrow. I'm thinking there might be more at play than just sadness. I think there is a power struggle going on between Tear and the other male. Both want to be alpha and I think Tear is losing. 

 A wonderful visit with Brother Wilson (Abe Lincoln) and his daughter Jamie. They are the funniest dad/daughter duo. They fight like an old married couple even though it is really 80 yr old dad vs 54 year old daughter. Hahah! 

Sunday: 1 hour of church since the men are all in L'issiana helping clean up after flooding. Desirae was there with her new baby! She asked if I wanted to hold him as I was rubbing his cute little feet and drooling over his cuteness. I had to physically restrain my arms from going up to grab him and said very reluctantly, "No, I can't." That is one of the hardest rules to deal with! No holding babies! 

Then visit to Megin and Kayla. Megin stared the Book of Mormon and said she was stuck on page one since she had to read it in the little time she had before school. We fixed that real fast! I read her the last two verses on the page and got her to page 2! 

Headed to the Morongs. Dallas, their 8 month old, is a FLIRT! He tries to get me to hold him everytime we go over there. Then gets offended when I don't pick him up and proceeds to give me the cold shoulder. Sister Morong decided that it didn't count as breaking the rule if he sat between Sister Steadman and I. It was fine with me! He played with my nametag and ate some banana puffs and laughed. 

They volunteered to take us out to dinner this week to Mugshots, the best hamburger joint in the world!! So excited!!!

Monday: Visit with Terry. Got rained upon on the way there. More like dumped on. We were soaked by the time we got there! Then we were told to stay in for the afternoon so we made brownies and cookies to take Shunta Thomas. We went to the Ladiner's for dinner, pulled pork sandwiches and potato salad. Pretty sure she read my mind when she made that. I teared up a little when she said we were having pulled pork sandwiches. 

Dropped the cookies and brownies off to Shunta and told her how much we love her!

It has been a good week!! One of the members told me this this week, "You seem like you have been out for like a year! You seem so mature and poised! You are a really good person!" 

It was good to hear! 

I love being a missionary and can't wait to see what this week has to bring!

Love y'all! 

P.S. Why hasn't Ry emailed me back?! I sent him a letter and an email. and all there has been is radio silence from him! What the heck!? 

Tell him to reply to me!!