It's a First! Rode my Bike!!

April 28, 2014

Greetings Georgelings!!

Gotta love P-day!  It was a pretty relaxed day, so that was nice.  We had the library first, so we e-mailed in the morning, which is always my favorite.  Thanks for the e-mails!!  They always put a smile on my face!

So, can I say how much I LOVE Sister Watkins?  She is amazing and I’m SO glad that she is in tune with the Spirit.  In going with what she said about finding our family, we are sticking close to home.  Hopefully we will find our family.  After that we just chilled at the apartment.  It wrote the letters.  My hand hurt so bad!  I swear that I am going to come home with arthritis. 

We then went to the Dustins.  We had hamburgers.  Yumm!  Ashley Edge and her family were over too.  We taught the Restoration for family home evening.  I think that Ashley’s husband, Jason, felt the Spirit!  I really hope so.  The Dustins told us we are on tornado watch tonight.  I guess we shall see.

Oh. We also found out that we don’t get to go to the temple.  The mission had only 37 baptisms this month.  I wanted to cry.  I really thought we were going to make it!  I guess we will just have to try for next month.

April 29, 2014

Oh boy, District Meeting was a rough one today.  I was about to well . . . let’s just say that there is one missionary who makes me crazy.  Luckily I will NEVER have to be his companion because they keep elders with elders.  I feel so bad for his companion!!!  Anyhow, I had to give a training today and it was terrible.  My brain was not working.  So even though I had prepared, it looked like I had thrown it together last minute.  So that was no fun.

We went to Braggs.☺  I love that lady!!  I know I say that a lot, but I do!  She is amazing!  She is one of the most positive people I have ever met!  And I just like being in their home.  You can just feel the love.☺  We told her about our family that we want to find and have been praying for.  We told her about Sister Watkin’s e-mail and Sister Bragg said that it was a way that Heavenly Father is showing us that He is mindful of us and our desires.  I like that.☺  It’s a nice, happy thought!!

Sister George with Sister Bond 

We tried to go visit some less actives with no luck.  Then we tried to go with Sister Bond to see one of her ladies that she visit teaches.  I was in the back seat and got SUPER carsick.  Which is what happens every time I sit in someone’s back seat in Georgia, especially here in Hickory Flat.  The hills are terrible on one’s stomach!!  It was so bad that I just handed the keys to Sister Rowe and she drove to dinner, which was at the Rethkes.   They were sweet and gave me some medicine to calm my tummy.☺

After dinner we went tracting in the country behind our apartment to find our family!!  We didn’t find ‘em today, but we will!  I have faith! ☺

April 30, 2014

How the heck is it already the last day of April!?!?  Where’d it go?!

Elder Pena

So this morning the elder knocked on our door and gave us the extra microwave they had for our apartment.  Elder Peña is such an awesome elder.  He is really just a great guy.  He is diligent and happy.  He works hard.  It has been great serving with him in this ward.  He is really a good missionary!

After that, we went to Jenn’s.  I love her!!  It amazes me, some of the questions she comes up with!  She thinks of some hard core deep doctrine stuff!  All on her own.  We try cover the basics and answer what we know.  But to be honest sometimes I know I am not fully aware of the best way to answer.  It’s so fun to see her get excited when she connects the dots.☺

Then we went and saw Sister Vaughn.  Oh my!  Can that woman talk!!  She is a totally sweetheart.  There are a lot of lonely people in this world.  It makes me sad.  But I love her and I am so glad that we went there today.

This is Bill!!  We love him!  He is a good  man.

Then we went to Bill’s.☺  I love him!  He either call us Miss George and Miss Rowe, or his baby girls.☺  He is such a cutie!  His heart is slowly opening more and more.  I think everything intrigues him way more that he is letting on.  He was a lot more relaxed and loose than he usually is.  I just wish the man would get baptized before I left!  But I know he is coming to know how much we love and care about him.  What a blessing it is to be a missionary!  It truly is the greatest honor I have ever had.

We had dinner at the Pettits.  They are such a cute family!  They are having their 4^th baby in September along the same time as Sister Alley, so that will be fun!☺

Afterwards we went tracting.  We met a guy who told us his religion was heathenism.  So basically the way he explained it was that he can do whatever he wants as long as he has God in his heart.  Ummm. . . okay?!?  No.  Wrong.  Crazy man.  Then we went and visited the Youngs.  They are a cute family!  Brother Young actually works in Suwanee at the sports Academy, which is right down the road from my Suwanee apartment ☺ so that was a fun connection.

Then we went tracting a little more before we went home.  At the last house, Sister Rowe caught a frog and had it in her hand when I knocked.  The lady answers and I introduce us and shake her hand.  She goes to shake Sister Rowe’s hand and Sister Rowe says, “Oh!  Sorry!  I just caught a frog and it’s in my hand or I would shake yours.”  The lady looked at her like she was crazy and I busted up.  It was so funny!  I finished talking to the lady and after she shut the door, I just giggled and giggled!  Oh the adventures of tracting.☺

May 1, 2014

Happy May!  This is a good month.☺  I like May for a few reasons.  #1-It’s my birthday!!  #2-Spring has sprung! And #3-It’s just a happy month!

Gotta LOVE the helmets! Nice selfie Sisters!

It was a beautiful day today and so we rode our bikes!  It was the first time I’ve ridden my bike on the mission.  It was fun but I hate the Georgia hills. : /  They’re fun going down, but going up is another story.

We had lunch at the Bennett’s today.  Their family got baptized about 2 years ago.  Sister Bennett actually requested to have missionaries.  Basically they are just a golden family that every missionary dreams of!!  They are a super sweet family.  So that was fun.

Then we rode over to the Tye’s and talked with Sister Tye for a while.  She is doing better since her surgery and slowly coming off of her pain meds and everything.  She can’t bend at all or the rods in her back might snap, which is a pretty scary thought!  She should be mostly healed by Christmas.  So that’s a nice Christmas present!

Then we biked to Sister Makowski.  We visited with her on the porch.  Then we went to the Kings.  Sister Rowe was glad to have Sister King back, I was too, but they just like each other a lot.  Sister King met up with Sister Rowe’s mom.  So that was fun for them.  Sister King’s daughter, Anna, is home,  She leaves for her mission in July.  I like her, she is really cute!

After we visited with them for a bit we biked back to our car to go to dinner.  My thighs hurt!!  Those hills are killer!  But it was a fun time!

Dinner was with Sister Judd and Katie and Lilly.  It’s always a hoot when we are over there!  We taught Lilly the Restoration.  She was all over the place but she was listening.  Sister Judd loves those girls and it is a good thing that she does.  They are really blessed to have her in their lives.  They adore her too.  It is their happy place.

After dinner we tracted until it was time to go home.  We still haven’t found the family but we’re planting lots of seeds!!  We were having so much fun tracting and just laughing the whole time.☺  Which is a good thing cause it makes it go faster.  So that was our bike riding day.

May 2, 2014

Happy Friday!  I’m not really sure how we’re already back to Fiday again.  I feel like these past 2 weeks have been a blur!  But, here we are again, planning for nest week!  It’s nuts!

I keep trying to plan things for next Thursday evening cause I keep forgetting it’s my birthday next week.  Sister Rowe keeps making sure that I don’t schedule anything.  We are going over to the Dustin’s for dinner so that should be fun.☺  Weekly planning seemed to take forever today.  Mostly because we were calling and texting people, trying to schedule appointments and what not.  We followed up on a few people and then went to the Dustin’s to ask them where their friend Nedra lived in their neighborhood.  Last night they had the elders over for dinner.  I am sure that it was good for Elder Peña to be with them.  They are really good at giving us missionaries a boost when we need it most.

We figured out where Nedra lived, so we headed over to visit her.  She is super sweet!  She LOVES Elder Peña! ☺  Though who doesn’t!?!  She is super observant and she was talking about other elders that she has met in the past and she pinpointed almost everything about them.  It was funny  to hear her give her opinion on everything.  She was pretty much on the dot every time.  It makes me wonder what she will say about us.

After our visit with her, we went tracting.  Not much happened.  But we did have fun playing Book of Mormon baseball.☺

We didn’t have dinner so we ate at the Dustin’s.  Brother and Sister Dustin’s anniversary is tomorrow but they went out tonight instead.  They went fishing for their 18^th anniversary. ☺  Haha!  I love them!  So we had dinner with MaKayla Hutchinson (from our ward) and the kids.

This is the Dustin's fishing boat!  It's as close as we're gonna get!
To fishing fish!  We like the "fisher's of men" title much better!

Then we finished our night off tracting some more.  Sister Rowe had her camera in her pocket and recorded our door approaches!  It was a fun time.  And we got some pretty good contacts.  We also tracted into some potential families!!  We will follow up on them tomorrow.  We’re praying that they are who we’ve been looking for!!

May 3, 2014

We started out our morning by attempting to follow up on the families we found.  The first ones weren’t home. : /  Even though it was 10:30!  Bugger!  The second family, the mom was in the shower.  So we decided we would try again later with both of them!  We tracted for a while and because it’s Saturday, most people answered. ☺  Then we went home to eat lunch and change to do service for Sister Bragg.

When we got there she handed us some scrapers and we scraped the paint off her stairs.  It was pretty fun!  We sat and talked and scraped away!!  I won the biggest chunk of paint to come off, but Sister Bragg was in close second.☺  We told her what Sister Watkins had told us and I called Sister Watkins my “Suwanee Mom” so Sister Bragg asked what she is like to us.  We decided she is like the super fun aunt! ☺  Haha!

After we were done, we headed over to Sister Olah and Gloria’s.  When we got there, we helped finish cleaning out their garage for them.  It was fun!  And we washed Sister Olah’s car for her.  That gave me flashbacks of washing my car with Syd and Hannie.☺  It was fun, but not as fun as it is with my 2 little girls!!  And I decided that it was as close to swimming as I am ever gonna get while on my mission.  We had a good time.  It’s sometimes fun to switch up the day and do service instead of just tracting and whatnot!

Dinner was with the Delahunty’s.  And that fun.  Bother Delahunty is in Utah trying to find a job right now.  He is probably going to be gone for about a month.  It reminds me of when Daddy was going back and forth from Utah to Idaho.  No Bueno stuff!!!  Hopefully he can find a job soon!

We followed up on those families.  We think we might have found them, but their agency allowed them to say no.  We were quite sad.  But, we decided that we planted a seed and hopefully one day they will welcome the gospel with open arms. 

Sisters Rowe and George

Last we went to Max and Jenn’s.  We just really love them.  I think I am gaining a better understanding of what President Hinckley taught when he said that new members need 3 things.  “A friend in the Church to whom you can constantly turn, who will walk beside you, answer questions and understand your problems.  An assignment.  Activity is the genius of this Church.  It is the process by which we grow.   And to be constantly nourished by the good word of God. Come to sacrament meeting to partake of the sacrament, to renew the covenants you made at the time of your baptism.  Read from the scriptures every day.  Pray every morning and every evening, that you may stay close to the Lord.”  We read Mosiah 24 with them.  We talked about Alma and his people being persecuted by Amulon.  It was not easy for them but they continued on God’s path.  These two, Max and Jenn, are really good people.  I just love them.  I truly want them to have all of the blessings that the gospel has to offer.  We need them in our church and they need us!

May 4, 2014

The fire station’s marque says, “May the 4^th be with you.”  We took pictures by it! ☺ 

This morning before church, we went to a Methodist church.  I liked it better the last time I went there.  I was so confused during the sermon.  It didn’t make any sense.  And then they started doing communion.  That was interesting.  It’s a lot different from when we take the sacrament.  So that was our fun little morning adventure.

Church was good.  We taught gospel principle’s cause Sister Wyman is sick so that was a dandy ‘ole time!

After we went home and broke our fast real quick and Sister Slocum picked us up for dinner.  But it took her a little longer than she said.  We couldn’t leave causes she told us she was coming.  So we waited for her.  Dinner was good.  We had chicken potpie.  I love Brother Slocum!  He is a funny man!  When he found out that I would probably be leaving he asked if they could have us for dinner one more time.  Sadly all our dinners are booked.  It made me feel good that he wanted to have us over one last time.

By the time we got back home, it was time to go and turn in numbers.  Our numbers were terrible this week.  It was really disappointing.  Jenn called us back so that was good.  I just hope they know how very much we both love them. 

I am thankful that tomorrow is P-day.  This week is gonna be good!  I have a feeling!  Well I love y’all buckets!  I can’t wait to talk to ya on Sunday!!!  Whoot!  Exciting! ☺

♥

Molly