September 30, 2013
Well here I am, at the beginning of a new week. Next
week on Thursday I will have officially been out for 3 whole
month. It’s crazy, I feel like it has
only been 1 month but nope, it’s 3.
Today (as all P-days are) was pretty dang good! We went to e-mail and when I got on I saw one
from Momma and one from Gabe. I figured
Daddy would get his to me while I was writing back. Everyone else in the room was yelling out how
many e-mails they had gotten but some of their parents hadn’t written
them. I was very happy with my
e-mails. As long as I get e-mails from
you guys I’m a-ok! It was funny, I was
e-mailing Gabe when it popped up on my screen that there were 3 more
e-mails… I knew one was from Daddy but
didn’t know about the other two. One was
from Lacey and the other was from my cute Chaia White. She is loving her mission by the sound of
things. I’m glad. I love that girl!
We e-mailed and hung out at the church the whole day. At the end of our P-day we went to WalMart
and got food. We haven’t been shopping
for like two weeks but we were still doing pretty good on stuff. Sister Carrigan and I bought masks! Ah! I
love the masquerade masks and WalMart has some cool ones. I now have two. I tried to find the Halloween cereal, the
Boo-Berry ones. Except I like the
strawberry. They are my favorite cereal
of all times and they only sell them once a year (which is probably a good
thing in all actuality). I couldn’t find
them. I looked all over. I’m hoping we can go to Publix (like
Alberstons) and see if they have any. I
hope so! I also have found a new love…
Stickers!!! I love them! So, if you find awesome stickers, send them
to me. I have been looking for stickers
that are cute and have lots of them in a packet. These puffy ones were only a dollar but I
want flat ones too. I didn’t really find
any that were cheap and fun… Editor’s note---there are stickers all over the
page. Lacey, when I saw these little
fish ones, all I could think was “buzz, buzz, buzz! Fishys in the sea!” It made me giggle and think of you. I did buy real stuff and food that was good
for you—I promise. Actually, I have
dropped a few pounds and I’m at the very lowest part of my fluctuation. So that is good. Ha, to everyone who said I would for sure gain
weight. I know Momma, you always said I
could do it. You’re awesome.
So we had dinner with the Bettes tonight. They are just hilarious! Sister Bettes invited her friend Marla
too. We went to Sister Bettes favorite
restaurant called Cinco’s. Marla grew up
Catholic but doesn’t practice it anymore.
Her husband is Jewish and he also doesn’t practice. Marla is so ready for the church! It is ridiculous! She has read a lot of stuff but no anti
stuff. Sister Bettes says the only
reason she hasn’t joined is because of her husband. I’m not sure if he is against the church or
what. We have just decided to pray that
his heart is softened. Dinner was fun
and meeting Marla was awesome!
The YSA (young single adults) had asked us to give them a church
tour for their FHE so that is where we headed after dinner. We had told them to bring non-member friends
but nope, no one did. I realized tonight
how rude it is to talk while someone else is talking! They have a lot of returned missionaries in
the YSA and there was a girl and a guy that were both RM’s that sat in the back
and talked the entire time of the tour. Other than that, it went well for the most part.
There you go. That
was my Monday!!!
October 1, 2013
My goodness. It’s
October! That means that Fall is
officially here. Actually I dunno why
that would mean Fall is here. It’s been
here for a while. Today was district
meeting day! I did a training on
breaking our chains. I think that I did
a much better job on this one than I did when I talked about hope. So lately the Spanish Elders have been
playing jokes on us and today they took markers and wrote on our car…”Thing
1” “Thing 2” “Monkey Power” and other
such silly stuff. Sister Carrigan was
not too happy with them. But I thought it was kinda funny.
Ok, fun and happy stuff!
We went to Marni’s today to help her clean. She is just so stinkin cute! After we got done cleaning, (Oh! Mom!
You know how you hate cleaning
the blinds? Well so does Marni. She found this attachment for the vacuum made
just for the blinds. It’s sweet! Just a thought) Marni asked if we were any
good with computers. She had gotten a
new printer but the scanner wasn’t working.
Sister Carrigan said she could so I helped the daughter, Josephine, with
her flashcards. I told her that I would
like to help. It was fun. Kinda like when Sydney was learning the
states. After that Josephine asked if I
would play ‘Sorry’ with her. They were
not done with the printer so I said sure.
I wish that I could have flashed back to Idaho and grabbed my almost 8
year old sister to play with us. Hannah,
I am talking about you!! I just
pretended you were there. Not the same,
but the best I could do with my imagination. Oh boy! I got
creamed! There was no hope for me. Then her brother Josh started playing with
us. It was fun to be with kids for a few
minutes! I wish that I had taken more
time to play with Sydney and Hannah. I
feel like I’ve lost my chance kinda…
They will be 9 and 13 when I get back.
It breaks my heart a little to see that I had to go on a mission to wake
up. I haven’t been the kind of big
sister that I should have been. I hate
that I can only say sorry for that through a letter. I can’t come and wrap them in my arms and
give them kisses and say I’m sorry. The
best I can do for now is to have Mom give them hugs and kisses for me. And by that I mean all of you cute kids Gabe
and Lacey too.
Sydney, Molly and Hannah on the day we left for the MTC
Ok, well, now that I have made myself get that out
there… After Marni’s we went tracting
until 7. I dunno what it was about
today. We tracted in the “prime” hours
but no one answered their doors! It is
annoying when that happens. At 7 we went
home to eat. No one had signed up for
today so we just had leftovers. I was ok
with that.
At 8 Sister Henderson had asked us to meet her at the church. She has moved out with her kids, which is
really good. She is also now out of our
area so we can’t go to visit her. She is
having a hard time and it is sad.
Ok, Daddy, I have a question. As a missionary I have seen more people ask
for money from the church than I have ever seen in my entire life. Lots of times it is things that they really,
truly, could live without. We get calls
all of the time from random people that heard that they could get help from the
church. So my question is, is this as
common there at home as it is here? I
mean, I know the church is immensely generous, I just figured people would do
everything they possibly could before asking the church for help… I know that I would! I dunno, I’m just curious.
October 2, 2013
Oh boy, oh boy. It
has been quite a day. So our first text
of the day is from Kelly. It was the
worst text ever. It said, “Hey
ladies. I can’t meet anymore. I’m really sorry.” Umm….what?
We called her and after the second ring it went to voice mail. She ignored our call. We texted the Collins Hill Elders and told
them what happened and told them to try
and figure out what was going on! I am
so sad. All day we have been trying to
figure out what is going on. The CH
Elders finally got back to us with what they know. She has now moved back
in with her parents. I think that must
have happened this weekend. She didn’t
show up at church. Her parents, I guess,
are pretty anti and she hasn’t told them that she has been investigating our
church. So basically, that is all we know and it stinks. She won’t respond to any of our texts or
calls right now so we are just in the dark with what is going on. I hate it!
After that whole mess our day was pretty good! We went over to talk with Sister Johnson
about the relief society and what we could help her out with. She is so cute and we had lots of fun. She gave us a whole list of names of people we
hadn’t even thought of, so that was good.
After that we went home for lunch. We were in a very crazy mood and we started playing “would you rather”. Sister Carrigan asked if I would rather be a fountain or a waterfall. Umm.. Waterfall of course! We figured we could make it gospel related… A fountain is never changing, it just recycles water over and over. But waterfalls are always changing, always getting new water. So, do we want to be stuck doing one thing or do we want to be constantly changing and moving and growing? Right! We want to be a waterfall. Ok, not the best but not too shabby. Haha!
We went over to Sister Galt’s after lunch. It was Sister Carrigan’s sister’s birthday
and she wanted to text her a picture. We
did that and then chatted with her.
Sister Galt is such an amazing lady!
She is just so kind and happy! I
just love her! She just makes it just a
little better when I get a bit sad that I can’t have my mom.
So I told you about how they are doing an emergency
preparedness thing for Gwinett County and asked us missionaries to go around
and talk to other churches, right? Well
Elder Thomas talked to one of the guys in charge and they are disappointed in
us for not getting more churches. We
have told them we are trying! Most
churches see our badge and ask why we are doing it? Why not the red cross? So it’s been hard . Sister Carrigan and I have gotten the most
churches for them. So because it was
1:30 and it is kind of pointless to tract at that time, we went to a bunch of
churches. Elder Thomas and Elder
Ontivaros made a bet with us (since for some reason it’s really only the 4 of us
getting churches information) that whoever gets the most churches before Sunday
morning before General Conference wins lunch on P-day. Pshh!
Done! We already have 6 churches
and we got those in one day! No problem. Ha!
Who said you can’t have fun with the Elders?
We did go tracting for 2 hours before dinner. We met quite a few nice people but nobody
that wanted to listen. I don’t
understand why some people are so nice and others are not? If you don’t want to talk to us, then don’t
answer the door! Easy peezy lemon
squeezy!
So we had gone to talk to Sister Johnson about the relief
society. We went back to have dinner
with them. They are such a fun
family! They act like themselves instead
of trying to be all stuffy and proper.
Those are not the families that are fun to eat with. It’s just the families who just act like
themselves, those are the fun ones! Our
family is like that I think. That is why
that cute Sister missionary in our ward says she will come back to see
y’all! She knows were the coolest family
in the world is at.
So Momma, hey um… The
post office isn’t helping you too much with your experiment. I got both of your letters today. The first one was post marked in Pocatello on
Sept 25 and then in Atlanta on Oct 1.
The second letter was postmarked in Salt Lake on Sept 28 and then in
Atlanta on Oct 1. Not too sure what
happened there… But, it was fun to get
both of your letters.
So I haven’t talked about Stephanie in a while. That is because we haven’t been able to meet
with her. We haven’t even been able to contact
her. So last Friday Sister Rhodes told
us Stephanie was planning on attending an all-night drinking party. That was all that we knew. Well the ZL’s were talking to Sister Rhodes
and she told them that Stephanie decided she shouldn't go, so she didn't! Yah!
The last time we talked to Stephanie she said she would give up
everything but she would never give up her coffee. Well she works at Starbucks and we found out
that she has been learning how to make all of the drinks and avoiding the ones
with coffee. Then Stephanie called us
and asked about a drink that McDonalds has.
Neither of us had the answer to her question. So that is where we are at with her. We still have a ton of issues to work on her
with but she is helping herself with some of those issues all on her own!
October 3, 2013
Oh boy has it been a roller coaster of a day. So we went over to Richard’s for our 11 o'clock
appointment. I don’t understand
him. We tell him every week that we will
see him the next week and he never believes us.
It usually takes us a while to start the lesson because he likes to
talk. We were talking about the Gospel
of Christ so we thought that we would start by asking Richard if he felt
something different when we were there, so that we could point out that it was
the Spirit he was feeling. So we asked
him and he just got so sad and went off.
He started saying that he knew that we needed to visit other people and
how sad he will be not to have us come anymore, but that he understands if we
can’t. He thought we were saying that we
would not be coming back. We were not
saying that at all. Then he said one of
the sweetest things ever. He looked at
us with tears in his eyes and said, “Someday, two young Mormon men are going to
be very lucky to marry you two.” I
almost lost it! We tried our hardest but
I don’t think he thinks we will come back.
We will be back next week though!
We got out of there just confused and quite depressed. I suggested that we pray. As I prayed I felt so much calmer and
happier. I knew Heavenly Father was
watching us and He is taking care of Richard.
After the prayer I was ready to hit the road! Sister Carrigan kind of hit a brick wall for
the rest of the day. We didn't get much
done because of that. It happens. For lunch we went
to the lake and just sat and watched the ducks. Some things just knock ya off your groove.
We went tracting but it didn't go too well. For dinner we went to the Paxtons. Sophie Paxton loves us! She is so stinking cute! Her brother Enoch taught her the cup song. He regrets it now! Haha. It made me think of Sydney with the cup song. Over and over and over. She asked us to play it with her. I tried to be as quiet as I could but man that game is loud! Especially on the table. Dinner was good…chicken pot pie again. They are a good family. Enoch is the cutest thing ever. He is almost 16 and is just so nice and sweet! Sophie is just hilarious. She will be a good little missionary someday. They have an 18 year old that is struggling right now. He doesn’t seem to be wanting to go on a mission anytime soon. I hope that he will realize what he has or could have with the Gospel. He has the greatest family ever! After dinner we met with the bishopric at the church. Bishop Galt had a list of less-actives and unknowns and then split us up into groups to go visit them. We had a list of women. We talked with two of the husbands. Both non-members. One of the other girls asked us to take her records out. That makes me sad. So that was my day. Fun right?
October 4, 2013
Oh boy. I feel like today was a wasted day. I feel pretty guilty. I suppose that Heavenly Father is looking
down at me and He is disappointed in me today.
We did weekly planning today. There are more things that we could do that
we are not doing. We are asked to tract
for 2 hours a day and we didn’t. We are
asked not to come home until 9 and we didn’t do that. I just really feel like even thought we did
good things, we didn’t do the better and best things.
So that is why I feel like it was a wasted day today. I feel like I wasted the Lord’s time and I
don’t like that feeling. I promised
myself that I wouldn’t feel like that again!
I really am trying to be exactly obedient. I guess that is what repentance is for… I have been doing that in my prayers. Tomorrow will be different. It is general conference and I’m so very
excited! I will miss waffles with y’all!
October 5, 2013
Oh. My goodness. I just LOVE general conference! It has been a grand day people!
We started off with trying to visit Stephanie… We had planned to meet with her at
10:30. We went over to her house and
waited for 15 minutes. We texted, and
called her, rang on the doorbell and knocked on the door. No one answered. So we decided to go visit churches! No way are we going to let Elder Thomas and
Elder Ontivarous beat us! Nope! Since general conference is at 12:00 here
instead of 10:00 (weird). We had a
little while. As of right now we have 8
churches and they have 4. We have
tomorrow morning before conference and then we will see who won. They are determined
to win, but, so are we!
Sister George Loves her Sweet Sister Carrigan!
Wasn’t general
conference amazing today?! The work is
progressing. I feel like every time we
meet as a group lately, in whatever meeting, they talk about member missionary
work, or just missionary work, or about how God is hastening His work! All of it is just super cool and I LOVE the
part that I am getting to play in it right now.
It’s so exciting! 80,000 plus
missionaries. One day I will be able to
tell my children that I was part of this final push. How awesome is that?! I loved Elder Dibe’s talk, “never look
back. Look at what we still have to do”,
how true. There is so much work to be
done and so little time to do it. We, as
a church have accomplished so much but there is still so much to do to prepare
the earth for the Second Coming! I love
that I get to be a missionary and be part of that preparation here in Georgia
and I can’t wait to be home and be part of the member missionary force!
I also just loved Elder Christofferson’s talk. I just kept thinking what an amazing example
I have to look at and to try to be when I am a mom. I also kept thinking about how the kind of
man I want to marry that I want to be just like my daddy. Even though I’m sure your just gonna roll
your eyes, Momma, and disagree, you really are one of the most amazing
examples I have in my life! I realize
this even more and more now that I am out here.
I hear about other moms and I see other moms in this ward and I just
think, “How lucky am I to have gotten a 2 in 1?! An awesome Momma and and awesome best
friend!” I’m lucky. Then I look at the dads in this ward and I
read your e-mails Daddy, and I just think, “I want someone who loves me as much
as my Daddy loves my Momma!” I really am
just lucky.
In the middle of the sessions we went tracting. We missed a phone call from Brother Wernli
but he left a voicemail. He had called
Richard to invite him to watch conference with his family. Richard declined but was flattered. After the first session they talked
again. Richard told Brother Wernli that
Sister Stephens’ talk really touched him.
Richard just watched conference at his house. He told Brother Wernli that he wanted to talk
to us about maybe getting baptized!!! Now he isn’t sure how this will fly with his family. But we have been trying and trying to explain
why we needs to get baptized into the church, and general conference worked a
miracle! Ok, Heavenly Father worked a
miracle through general conference. Now
we are just praying that his family’s hearts are softened. Heavenly Father worked that miracle, I KNOW
he can soften Richard’s family’s hearts.
So, that is my very happy happening.
Now we just need to pray!
After general conference we went over to the Watkins for
dinner. Brother Watkins couldn’t go but
Sister Watkins took us to Golden Corral.
Everyone loves that place. I stuck with the salad. We figured out that our scale is kinda broken.. So, I have actually gained about 7
pounds. Not good! Sister Carrigan is freaking out cause she has
gained 15 pounds. Ouch! I’m gonna get rid of those 7 pounds dang
it! I will NOT get up any higher!
October 6, 2013
Whoot! Whoot! Guess who beat the ZL’s and got the most
churches? Us! Guess who has to make us lunch tomorrow… The ZL’s.
We beat them by 5. That’s all we
did before general conference this morning.
We met some pretty awesome people.
We met a minister from Scotland.
He was so cute! One of his really
good friends is a member, he got to go to the temple open house when it got re-dedicated. He was so sweet! He will make an amazing Mormon someday! Heehee!
We also went to a church where the minister was super
nice. When we were leaving one of the
members who helped us handed me a book and said, “Will you read this?” I told him sure. He said, “Do you promise?” I said "Yes." It’s called “More than a Carpenter” and some guy wrote it about his
journey in finding Christ. I told the
guy that I would read it. Sister
Carrigan wanted to see it so she has it now.
I really don’t understand why people think we don’t believe in
Christ. His name is the biggest thing on
our tags besides our names. He was nice
though and just trying to do what he thought was best.
General conference is just 10 times better as a
missionary. I feel like I pay more
attention and I feel the Spirit stronger.
I love it! I really liked
President Eyring’s talk. I have been
reading my patriarchal blessing a ton lately and it talks a lot about church
callings. I just loved how he said to
accept and magnify EVERY calling you receive and that it will bring your family
blessings.
I also liked Elder Anderson’s talk about the
priesthood. I love watching the power of
the priesthood change people’s lives!
What an amazing gift Heavenly Father has given us. His power on the
earth. WOW! I liked how he talked about how even if there
is no man who holds the priesthood in a home, women and children can have the
blessings of the priesthood. What a great general conference and what a grand time to be
here on this earth! Ah! I just love it! And I just get goose-bumpy when I think about
it.
After conference we went tracting. We were going to go for about an hour and a
half until 7:30ish then grab the dinner that Sister Azizi had brought us and go
and and then turn in our numbers for the night.
I have made it my goal to know the families in our ward by name and I
have done a pretty good job if I do say so myself! I have also made it my goal to become Sister
Azizi’s friend and let her know that I love her. I think that I have accomplished this goal to
the best of my abilities! I give her
hugs, try to go out of my way to talk to her and tell her what a great job she
is doing. I really do love her and she does a great job with dinners and taking care of us. I hope she believes me!
Ok, now tracting. We
were doing pretty good. The street we
had chosen was just long enough that we could walk up one side and back down
the other and finish at about 8. Because
of the hurricane we were supposed to get a ton of rain today. We didn’t but we could see the rain clouds coming towards us. So we are walking up to
this one house and Sister Carrigan is walking in front of me, to get to the
door. I am looking to the side because 3
people were walking up the street and looking at us. So I say, “Hey. How are you?”
As they are responding Sister Carrigan suddenly turns around and slams
into me. I’m thinking, “What the
heck?!?” kind of annoyed and then I look at her. She is covered in spider webs. She just walked into this super big web and
had turned around to run away. I see her
and then look over her shoulder and see the owner of the house standing there
watching us through the door. I am
thinking how awkward this is. He comes
out and says sorry for what happened.
He was face-timing with someone so he went back inside and Sister Carrigan
starts crying. I am trying to comfort
her and I got all the spider webs off of her but she was done. We went back to the car at 7 and went home. I cooked dinner, she took a shower and we
ate.
I felt really bad. I tried so hard to be
understanding and I was sorry she was so flustered.
Well transfers are on the 16th. This week we will find out who is
training. That is a bit scary to think
about. We shall see! We are going on exchanges with the Sister
training leaders again on Friday so that should be fun!
Well, I love y’all!
Keep being amazing member missionaries!
Love, Molly
P.S. I hope the
Sunday morning waffles were good! I
tried not to think about that cause it just made me a bit too sad!
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