Awesome Days

August 12, 2013

Oh looky!  It’s Monday!

Ya know, Mondays never really used to be one of my favorite days but now it is!  My very most favorite part is getting on-line and reading e-mails!  I love those things!!  What is even better?  Having my Mommy on line while I am on line!  Oh Dang!  That was so much fun!  Sorry Lace, the chatting made me run out of time to write you back.  I LOVE your e-mails.  You are a dang good writer.  One day you will be on the best sellers list, I just know it.  Boy, oh boy I sure love y’all.  After e-mails we went to Target and then headed over to WalGreens to get my prescription.  Tell Benj thanks a bunch.  He is awesome.  So can I just tell you that insurance is awesome.  I only had to pay $10 for a $75 medication.  It is crazy how expensive stuff like that is.  We had a crazy awesome thunderstorm today!  It rained a little bit but mostly there was just lots and lots of thunder.  It was awesome.  There have been a lot of rainstorms and thunderstorms this year I have been told.  I have also been told that next summer is when I will really see a hot yucky Georgia summer.  I hope not!  Things can stay cool.  I am way okay with that!

After the awesome thunder that happened while we were writing hand written letters, we went to Chick-fil-A for dinner and used the cards that Sis. Pickett gave us cause we didn't have a dinner appointment.  The Elders did though.  Lucky ducks!  They don’t have one tomorrow and we do.  We are going to the Galts.  Sister Galt doesn't like the new rule too much either so she made the Elders food for tomorrow and asked if we would come pick it up.  We went tracting for a while after dinner and ended up in an Asian neighborhood.  None of them ever want to talk to us.  We met a British Asian atheist.  That was interesting.  He said he had heard things about us so we asked what.  He said “Well, you practice polygamy in Utah!”  We said no and he said “Yes you do!”  It was so funny cause then Sis. Carrigan said “Well I’m actually from Utah and I can assure you we don’t.  You might be thinking of the FLDS church.  They are not a part of our church.  That shut him up!  We giggled about that when we left.  After tracting we went over to the Galts to get the Elder’s food.  I LOVE Sis. Galt!  She is so awesome!  When she found out that Benj was in Cummings and wanted to come say hi, Sis. Galt was like “Dang! I wish you had told me!  We would have had him come over for dinner and surprise you!”  So, next time, if there is a next time, Sis. Galt will be all over that.  She is so funny.  I like her lots.

August 13, 2013

Today, we had district meeting.  I really like our district.  My favorite missionaries in our district are the ones that I work with.  Lucky me!  So E. Thomas, one of our ZL’s was in our meeting.  I told you about him.  His mom worked on the new temple video set.  Sis. Carrigan and I have had a lot of meanies and bashers lately and we have told E. Baker about them.  He decided we should split into groups and role play those kinds of people.  We split with the other two Sisters in our district.  Sis. Carrigan and I got to be the difficult people first.  Sis. Alvery asked us a question that we both thought was really good.  She asked if we believed in the Bible.  We said yes and then she asked us how we knew it was true.  We said we just knew.  We had prayed about it.  Then she said  “If you were living in Bible times how would you have known they were really prophets?”  That got us thinking.  We both would really like to use that question on someone that we talk to one day!

After district meeting we went to this place called Zaxby’s for lunch.  They are all over here.  Their chicken is REALLY good.  Yay for fried chicken.  We had fun and it was good bonding.  

After lunch we tracted.  A lot.  With not much harvesting success but boy did we plant those seeds!  We are good little planters.  We were talking about it and Sis. Carrigan said, “Yeah but we need to water too!”  I said we are watering but we have to go row by row.   Then we decided that we are like little kids who have watched a plant grow (let’s say a pumpkin).  It’s been watered and now we can see the pumpkin.  It’s still green but we keep asking our dad if we can pick it and He keeps telling us not yet.  One day we will be able to pick that pumpkin but not yet!  There you go!  That is our lovely analogy. 

After tracting we went to the Galt’s for dinner.  Sis. Galt made taco soup and corn bread.  Yummy!  It was fun to just sit and talk with them.  They are an awesome family! 

A former Sister missionary who served in Suwanee two years ago asked about all of the investigators that they had back then.  There were a lot of fires in Suwanee and they had tons of investigators.  She was asking us about all of these people, lots of whom we have visited and not with any success.  Basically with all her questions we left feeling like horrible missionaries.  It was not a very fun ending.  We had to sit and talk and remind ourselves that we can’t compare ourselves to other missionaries.  Especially not missionaries who were here two years ago with a completely different Suwanee!

August 14, 2013

Today was an awesome day!  Ah!  It was so great.  What was so great today you ask?  Well, I will surely tell you.  I got to see all my MTC district today!!  Oh!  It was so much fun!  It was so much fun to see them and see how they are doing. 

The rest of the meeting was good too.  I learned how to door approach a little better and what we need to ask.  They split up the trainers and the greenies for a bit.  Afterwards Sis. Carrigan and I were talking and she told me that the first little part of the trainers meeting was venting.  She said that she is listening to everyone and she didn’t have any complaints.   That made me happy.  I have none about her either.  I’m being spoiled, having such a great first companion!  The meeting took up pretty much our whole day.  When we got back it basically was time for dinner.  We dropped off the stuff we didn’t need and went over to the Paxtons.  She was the one who sent you guys the e-mail of me on my first day here.

They are a really good missionary family.  Bro. Paxton has given quite a few Books of Mormon to his coworkers.  Their daughter Sophie, who LOVES us, is always asking her friends to church.  Sis. Paxton is always trying to talk to people.  They have two other sons besides their missionary son who have a bunch of non-member friends and are always talking to them.  When we gave our dinner lesson Sis. Carrigan and I finally found our groove!  It was awesome!  Since we are no longer with the Elders for dinner we are doing our lessons a little different and it’s awesome.  We spent an extra half hour at their house just talking about who they are and could share the gospel with! 

Want to know the awesome ending to my night?  Well, that is when we check our mail usually and guess what I pulled out?  A big, thick envelope addressed to me from Syd!  Nice collage!  I love it.  You make me laugh so hard.  My Sydney collage is now hanging above my desk with all my other pictures.  It totally ties everything together.  Thanks for helping end my awesome day on an awesome note Sydney!

August 15, 2013

Ah!  Today, personal study was awesome!  So, since we have had a lot of bashers I have just been thinking about how the Bible and the Book of Mormon go together.  I was reading 2 Nephi 17 and Isaiah is talking about the latter-days and about Joseph Smith.  Well it said at the chapter heading to compare with Isaiah 29 so I flipped there and it talks about the same thing!  Well, I mean I knew that it would.  I just wanted to see how clear it was.  Plus I thought it was neat that he pretty much told the story about when Joseph brought some of the translations in to that historian guy to be authenticated (is that the word I am looking for?)  Anyways, it was just cool.

After we did personal and comp. study we did 12 week.  I don’t know if I have told you what that is.   It is just the training program.  We were watching a video for it on unique and different ways to get members to invite their friends…  In the video they threw a party and asked members to invite their friends.  They ended up having 75 non-members there.  They did a church tour and a few of those people were baptized.  Sis. Carrigan and I got really excited and we really want to do something like that for next month.  We talked to the Elders about and they think it is a good idea.  Now we just need to get the ward on board (Ha! That rhymes.)  E. Baker says in the past they haven’t been open to ideas like that but that we should try.  We came up with the theme—All around the World—and have food from different places, have some sort of entertainment and have church tours for non-members.  Now we are hoping on Sunday.  When we bring it up that people will be open to it…  Cross your fingers.

Today while tracting we met the most interesting man.  We knocked on his door and started talking.  He told us he already has a Book of Mormon and that he believes it.  He thinks everyone should read it.  BUT he doesn’t see why he has to change churches.  His son is a Pastor and he goes to that church.  Oh boy.  He says he has had lots of missionaries talk to him but that being LDS just doesn’t seem too important.  I asked him if he had been baptized by the proper authority?  His son baptized him and he believes that yes, his son has been called of God and holds the proper authority.  Well awesome.  We are going to bring a member with us next week and see what we can do.  I hope we can make him see.  It’s awesome that he already believes in Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon!  Now we just have to work on church.  We shall see what we can do!  Hopefully we can show him what other missionaries haven’t been able to so far….

We didn’t have a dinner appointment again so after tracting we went home, ate, and went tracting again.  It is kind of funny how people will go WAY out of their way to avoid us.  Sometimes it is annoying and sometimes it is funny.  We knocked on a door and the lady was doing a crossword puzzle.  We talked to her and then she says “Oh, well I’m really busy right now and have to go.”  She was doing a CROSSWORD PUZZLE!!  She was not busy.  It was kind of funny though but really dumb.  Oh the joys of being a missionary. 

August 16, 2013

Haha!  Weekly planning day, how it makes us act so dumb!  I do not know how!  We really do get very silly!  We get our planning done in the allotted time though. 

So next week we have zone conference and the ZL’s texted everyone and told them.  Well about 3 minutes later we get a call,  we look at it and we both groan.  It was the ZL’s.  Let’s back up real quick first.  Last week Sis. Carrigan and I were playing/singing that Sisters in Zion/Army of Helaman missionary medley that John sent to me.  Elder Thomas came in and watched and listened to us.  He sang with us too.  He’s a really good singer.  Ok now, back to the story.  So we answered and E. Thomas says “ I know you both groaned when you saw that it was us!”  Haha.  We were caught!  He asked if we would get together a group to sing that song.  So, Sis. Carrigan and I have become in charge of that. 

After we finished weekly planning we went tracting.  Somehow we have been finding all of the Asian neighborhoods.  They will answer the door, talk, then see who we are and say they can’t speak English.  BULL!  It’s funny but annoying.  The last house we got to Sis. Carrigan decided to do what we call a Harvest Blessing.  Basically we just ask if we can say a prayer with them on their doorstep.  This really tall black guy answered.  His name is Moses  Sis. Carrigan told him what we were doing and told him about the prayer, she then asked if there was anything specific he would like us to pray for?  He thought about it for an minute and then said, “For me to have a better future.”  Sis. Carrigan said the prayer and it was awesome!  Then after she talked about Joseph Smith and how he wanted a better future too and how this gospel can help Moses get a better future.  She was on a roll!  She asked him to come to church and gave him a Book of Mormon.  He said he didn't have a car and we told him we would get him a ride.  He said OK!  We are super excited!  Now we have to get Cherese to church.  We tried to get a hold of her yesterday but she didn't answer.  Tomorrow we are just going to show up at her door and hope that she is there!  We already have a ward member that we talked to who is fellowshipping her.  Now we are just praying that she hasn't been anti-ed!

After we talked to Moses we got back in to our car to go eat.  We didn't have a DA and the Elders didn't either.  They called us as we were heading home and asked if we had eaten?  We said no and they told us they had chicken curry for us.  They are so awesome!  It was really good.  Ok, so after we had eaten they both started getting silly and like smiling at each other and stuff.  Then E. Baker went and got his jar of pickled pig’s feet.  So he bought this jar like two weeks ago and he has been trying to get us to taste them.  At first we thought that the chicken curry was actually pig’s feet curry.  It wasn't.  He had called one of our ward members and asked how you eat them.  Raw.  You eat them raw.  They took a video of all of us trying it.  I almost threw up.  I hadn't been feeling too great before then and that just about threw me over the edge.  Sis. Carrigan almost threw up and so did E. Howell.  E. Baker had tried it first and said they didn't taste so bad.  He was lying.  He knew we wouldn't try it if he said it wasn't good.  The punk!  But, there you go.  I have now had pickled pig’s feet and I will never have it again!!

When dinner was over Sis. Carrigan and I went over to the church.  We got called today and asked to give the lesson in R.S. on Sunday.  Good Heavens.  Everyone wants us to do stuff!  It’s on the priesthood and how women can have it in their lives.  It’s gonna be good.  We think it is a good way to show how we teach and help the women to want us to come teach their friends.  We are awesome!  I mean, who wouldn’t want us to come teach them!  We just need members to give us a chance.

August 17, 2013

Oh my goodness!  Today was just super awesome!  So Saturdays are our service days and we finally had a day where we didn't have to help anyone move.  What???  I know… Crazy.  So after personal study we got to finally go service tracting.  We had some ward members on our list so we started there.  First we went to Sister Fulwood’s.  I did forget to mention that it was raining today.  A lot!  But we figured there is always something that needs to be done.  Ok, so we pulled up to Sis. Fulwood’s house and start walking to the door.  Suddenly I hear, “Hey!  What are you guys doing?”  We looked up at one of the windows and there was Sis. Davidson.  Neither she nor Sis. Fullwood are married.  Sister Davidson rents from Sister Fulwood.  Sister Davidson joined the church probably about three years ago and Sister Fullwood joined like eight years ago.  Well, Sister Davidson likes people to call ahead.  I guess.  She met us on the porch and chastised us a little bit for not calling.  Last week at church Sister Fullwood had told us to come over anytime.  Her mom is visiting and is a Methodist.  She is the sweetest thing ever.  She actually believes in a lot of things that her church doesn't teach.  Like the three separate members of the Godhead.  Anyways, Sister Fulwood invited us in and we talked for a good hour about the gospel.  Dusty, Sister Fullwood’s mom, wasn't sure about Joseph Smith.  I got to use my Isaiah chapter from the Bible!  She was super open to most of what we talked about.  It was SO fun.  I wish more people would be willing to let us in and talk like that.  Then they took us to Golden Corral for lunch where we continued our discussion.  After that we went over to Sister Smith’s house.  She let us sweep her floor, even thou she said if Brother Smith knew he would be like, “You let them do what?!?”  She is so cute.

We got a call from the ZL’s.  They told us they ran into Cherese.  She came up to them and started talking to them about us.  We got way excited.  We haven’t been able to contact her and it’s been super frustrating.  Hopefully we will see her tomorrow.

Oh, guess who is for sure coming?!  Moses!  We called to make sure and he said he would be there.  Sweet.  We are so excited.

We had dinner at the Rhodes tonight.  They are so funny.  They both served together on their mission.  They were telling us all these stories and they had some super crazy things that happened.  After dinner Sister Rhodes heard my and Sister Carrigan’s  back popping and so she made us sit down and she massaged our shoulders.  It felt so good.  I have had so many stinkin' knots lately and it has been bad.  I was really thankful for it.  That was my awesome day!

August 18, 2013

Talk about hectic.  Today was insane.  So we taught today in R.S. and we had to send the Elders to get Moses because we had to wait at the church in case Cherese showed up.  So we were waiting and waiting and then Sister Azizi texted us and asked if we could come grab the dinner binder because she wasn't coming.  We drove over, grabbed the binder, and hurried back.  We made it before Moses got there and we didn't see Cherese anywhere.  Two minutes before church started the Elders, Brother Pickett, and Moses came in!  We were so happy.  We were still looking for Cherese.

I was praying with all my heart that she would show up.  She never did.  In PMG there is a quote by Elder Holland and it says, (this is not exact)  “When your investigators don’t keep their commitments, be devastated.”  I was.  Even though I was SO happy Moses was there.  I was SO sad Cherese wasn’t.

After sacrament, we asked him what he thought.  He said it was a good service.  Then we asked him if he wanted to go to another class?  (gospel principles)  Oh, geez!  We have a few um… very strongly opinionated converts… and so Gospel Principles was just a little crazy.  Sister Carrigan and I were just shaking our heads.  Sister Fullwood and Sister Galt were trying really hard to get back on the subject of honesty.  Basically it was kind of a train wreck.  After GP we passed him off to Brother Pickett for priesthood.  We knew what we were teaching about (the priesthood) and we just figured their lesson would be the same so we were happy about that.

Our lesson was awesome.  We showed the Mormon message, “Blessings of the Priesthood” and talked about how we as women can have the priesthood with us.  We must have impressed them because when we got our dinner binder back we were all filled up for the month.  Poor Elders.  They have no chance competing with us for dinners.  Kidding!  They had lots of days filled up.  And it’s not a contest—even though secretly it actually is.  So R.S. was great, and afterwards we ran to find Moses.  He was with the Elders and when we asked how priesthood was his eyes got really big.  Uh oh!  We asked Elder Baker and guess what their lesson was on?  Pornography..  Yup, out of ALL of the many weeks to talk about that when we don’t have investigators they chose the one day we do.  Sister Carrigan and I felt so bad.  UGG.  After we got Moses home Sister Carrigan and I went to go practice for zone conference.  So there was a ton of mis-communication and now it is me and Sister Macedone singing with Sister Carrigan playing.  We are singing Come Thou Font.  Sister Macedone is an AMAZING singer so this will be interesting.

We had dinner with the Willsons tonight.  It was so fun.  They invited the Gertsons over also and we hadn’t really met either one of their families before.  Sister Gertson is loud and fun.  Kind of like Jenny, loud in an awesome, fabulous way.  Basically it was one of the funniest, loudest dinners ever!  Great though.

Today was one of the fastest days I have ever had.  It was also one of the craziest.  I loved every minute though. 

Well, I love you all.  I hope I have been able to make you giggle and laugh! 

Love,

Molly