August 5, 2013
Hello, Hello family dearest!
P-day was really fun today! E-mails were awesome! Thank you, thank you! I love getting e-mails from all of you. Gabey, a little more than 3 sentences please!
No one signed up for dinner tonight so we were on our own. The elders eat out a lot! Every Tuesday for district meeting they go out and eat. When we don't get dessert they go and get some. I'm trying to not spend a lot and eat healthier things. No wonder the average weight gain here is 30 lbs! It's a little ridiculous.
Anyways, the Elders had found this Asian market with a Korean food court and they wanted to go there. I thought it was kind of expensive. You get a lot of food for your money though so I guess it evened out. They do have sushi there . . . like for pretty dang cheap too! It was really good. We were the only white people there. It was a weird feeling to be the minority. I guess you know the food is good if the majority are Asian!
August 6, 2013
Today has been fabulous!! We had zone meeting today and so I got to see Sister Hooker!!! Yay! I love that girl a whole ton! She is one of my very favorite missionaries! Zone meeting was really awesome. I guess the whole zone has pretty much been in a slump. . . with teaching and baptizing. We were promised that if we met the 4 standards given then we would see results. The standards are, 1) baptize and confirm, (As Molly's mom it seems quite logical that with this standard you would see results!!!), 2) 70 contacts a week (10 a day), 3) five lessons to investigators with members present (LIMP) 4) church attendance/baptismal date.
So Sister Carrigan and I have decided to focus on number 2 - the 70 contacts a week and then after we meet that goal we will go onto LIMP's. If we don't get 10 contacts on one day then we have to get more the next! We have been promised this will bring results and so we know that if we obey we will find people to teach! After zone meeting today we went out to eat. . . surprise, surprise. We went to Panda Express (yum!) and I only ate 1/2 of mine. I will save if for tomorrow.☺ We had to take our car to Pep Boys, which is kinda far away, because the church has an account with them. It took 3 whole hours! Luckily with Sister Carrigan 3 hour just flies by.
We checked the mail before dinner and boy am I glad we did that!!!! I GOT MY PACKAGE!!! Thank-you, thank-you Mommy! I loved it and it made a good day an amazing and fabulous day! Thank you for the CD's they are perfect and very appropriate. THANK YOU FOR THE TOFFEE!!! AHHH! You were right when you said "Think of Christmas in July" in the e-mail. You sneaky mom!☺ I LOVE all of the pictures! Thank you! They make me happy, happy, happy! I already have them up on the wall above my desk so I can look at them lots and lots! I love all of them! One of my favorites is Gabe kissing me on the cheek!☺ Thanks for the 18 month calendar! How did you find it?!?!? I love that it will bring me home to you! Yay! It will be full of happy memories by the time I'm done with it. Thank you! I love it all!
August 7, 2013
Oh boy, oh boy! Today was a crazy roller coaster of craziness! We woke up and it was raining all over the place. There was a few thundering and lightnings but it wasn't a huge thunderstorm like you hear hit the South. Darn it! I'm still waiting for one of those! We had planned on tracting pretty much all day today which didn't seem like very much fun because of the rain. But, we promised to work our hardest so tracting it was! I got to wear my raincoat! I was excited about that.
We went and contacted one of the referrals we had gotten from one of the families in the ward. He was nice and very polite. He isn't really interested at all but he said we could come back. Then we went and visited one of the YSA inactives. They really should have missionaries for the YSA ward here. They have about 300 adults who should be coming but only 20 are active. Yes, there are some away at school but not THAT many! She was really cute. She had a baby at like 14 years old though and she kept him. She is like my age and she knows having the church in her life is a good thing but she isn't going to church. I think she feels like she doesn't really fit in with the YSAer's cause she has an 8 year old son but she also doesn't feel like she fits in with the family ward because she is so young. It's a hard situation. I dunno, we are going to keep working on her and see what we can do.
After visiting those two we went and did my most very favorite thing ever! Yup! Tracting! We went to a neighborhood that we are pretty sure hasn't been tracted in a while. The first door we went to we got it shut in our faces. No one answered quite a few of the doors. We got one lady who told us we had been led astray and one day we would find the truth. Welcome to the Bible Belt Sister George.☺ One house we went to an older guy answered the door. I'm not sure I have ever seen someone so frazzled! There was a baby running around and 2 dogs barking. He asked if we could come back later at 5 and then shut the door. In the next neighborhood we met Mary. She was older and nice. She invited us to sit with her on her porch and talk. She didn't really bash too much but she also didn't really listen either. We talked about religion and the world. She was surprised when we asked if there was any service we could help her with. It think it impressed her. She said maybe on Saturday she would need help with her house. We shall see!
We went to dinner at the Peterson's. They both grew up in I.F. He (Bro. Peterson) kinda looks like Zach Peterson. I asked if there were lots of Petersons he was related to in I.F. but he said no. Dang it! It would have been cool to have another one of those random connections! Oh well! After dinner we figured, okay we will go back to that house that the frazzled man lived in. Oh my I am so glad we did!!! His daughter answered the door and actually stepped outside to talk to us. That NEVER happens! Usually they open it a crack and talk to us through the crack. So to have that happen with Mary and then this girl was crazy! Her name is Cherese. She is 26 years old, has a daughter (probably about 1), is divorced and has had a pretty rough life. She used to be a model (she is REALLY pretty) and she got into drugs and went to jail for a while because she stole from her in-laws, hence, the divorce. She has been clean for a year though and has started going back to church. She grew up in Southern Georgia as a Baptist. Her parents go to a huge church in Gainsville and she hates it. She says she feels like it is a fashion show every Sunday and that she is judged because of her past. She also hates how big it is. We told her about our church and what goes on there. She really took everything in and was super accepting. It was AWESOME! She really loved that we call each other "Brother and Sister" and that we call it a ward family. She even told us that she is going to share what we told her with her friend! She is coming to church with us next week - - okay, well she is planning on it right now. We are going to try and get in an appointment before and talk to her some more. She seems to have been prepared for the gospel and I have already prayed for her lots and lots!
I lied. We went to dinner AFTER we went back to Cherese. So I dunno if it is just cause we are missionaries and they feel like they have to or if it is just what they do here, but it is a rare occasion where dessert is not served after dinner. I don't really mind not having dessert but I guess if you have been here longer than 2 weeks your body gets used to getting a sweet after dinner. Well there was no dessert after dinner so we went to this place called Brewsters. They have ice cream and it is actually really good. I just got a little scoop cause I wasn't all that hungry but it was yummy!
August 8, 2013
Well, today has officially been the most exhausting day on my mission so far. Mostly mentally, a little bit physically, and some emotionally thrown in there too. After comp study and personal study and all that jazz we went tracting. On Thursdays we have a standing appointment to go see Brother Heirs. He has been in the church for about 3 years now but he LOVES having the missionaries over to go through the lessons again. He says it's tradition. He is just a funny guy.☺
The appointment is always at 2 so we had a little time before so we decided to go tracting around to the other apartments by him. A few people talked with us but for the most part no one answered their doors. Darn peep holes! ☺ We met a lady, Annette, who had moved here just a week ago from California. She said the reason she left was because God told her to. She said she didn't know anyone and we told her that church was a great place to do that at. We gave her the address and hope she wants to come! We forgot to get her number but she has ours!
After Annette we decided to do one more set of apartments before we went over to Brother Heirs. We met a Hispanic man who didn't really know English. He did keep telling us he could feel God's love and that he loved us. It made me giggle (after we left of course!). He was sweet. WE gave his info to the Spanish elders to check and see if what we understood was correct.
The last door we knocked on? We shouldn't have! The lady yells through the door "Who is it?" A lot of people do that and if they hear us say it's the missionaries they won't answer. She did actually answer. It was my turn to talk (we switch off) and so I told her what church we were from and talked about how after Christ and that apostles died the truth was lost but then Joseph Smith resorted that truth and now we have the Book of Mormon to go hand in hand with the Bible. That was pretty much the last thing I was able to say. She went off! Not in a mean way really, but for sure in an animated and very loud way! She kept telling us that Christ was the only one we should worship and not this Mormon. This lady's name was Udi, she was from Nigeria and I guess she REALLY didn't understand when I was explaining. She talked and talked and talked. I tried to bear my testimony so we could just get out of there but she kept interrupting me! As she was talking thunder and lightning started and it started POURING! SHE WAS MAKING ME MISS MY FIRST GEORGIA THUNDER STORM! Finally Sister Carrigan interrupted Udi and told her we were really late for an appointment and we had to go. Actually we had said that like 2 other times before but she just kepy talking! She asked for our number so she could call us and tell us more about the truth (as I write this just imagine me rolling my eyes!). So we had to give it to her. But we did finally get out of there. We were on her doorstep for a good half hour.
We ran to our car getting soaked on the way. When we got to Brother Heirs he was ready and waiting with towels. Oh! I forgot to tell you, his roommate is Brother Nevin who has been a member for about a year. They are both sweethearts. Brother Heirs has Parkinson's Disease and it's hard because he is a computer engineer or something SUPER smart (they both are really smart) but he really can't work all that much. He gets help from the Michael J Fox Foundation and is one of the happiest people ever. Brother Nevin is way nice and sweet and really smart too. His brain goes about a mile a minute. He just got a job after being out of work for a long while, so that's good. Anyways we went to their apartment and discussed prophets.
Brother Nevin has been part of a bunch of churches so he asks a lot of questions. Brother Nevin was wondering things like, how a new prophet is chosen, do we believe in prophetess', what the order of the church is (prophet, apostles, 70's, stake president, etc.) things like that. Not really hard questions, but after Udi they were hard enough that my brain was having issues. I had a little bit of a hard time focusing. But it's always fun to go over there. Even though neither of them have a lot of money they are so willing to share and give everything they have! They always make sure that we have something to drink when we go over. Brother Nevin gave us some frozen chicken when we left. It was so nice!
After we went to go visit some people and put away the chicken before dinner. Dinner was at the Johnson's. They are such an awesome family! Their oldest son is in Twin Falls on his mission. I guess if you are from Georgia, Idaho could be a cool mission.☺ They had steak tacos. They were so yummy! I guess they are like our fajitas. They had green things for me. Green lemonade, in a green cup, green plate, a spinach tortilla. It was funny. That's the first time any of the families have done that.
We went tracting in the apartments across the street from ours after dinner. The last door we knocked on a man answered the door. We started talking to him and found out that he and his wife were JW's. Great. Just what we needed (again, my eyes are rolling!). They asked a ton of questions! They were pretty nice. The husband was a little easier to talk to than his wife. He asked us a little about how missions work. His wife kept tell us, "Well, we knock on doors our whole life." They got stuck on how God and Christ have a body of flesh and blood. This is where my whoops moment comes in! :{ So they started talking about the Holy Ghost and asked if we believe that he was a body or something like that. Well, I said he doesn't have a body now but will someday. Sooo. . . that's not in the scriptures anywhere that I know of. It would make sense though! The Holy Ghost can only dwell with us without a body but after the 2nd Coming we will know and won't need that when we are Gods and Goddesses! Right?!? Okay, well anyway I probably shouldn't have said that. They had a field day with that one. Oh well. Basically it was a long and bash-filled day. I felt kind of helpless and felt like nothing I said would make a difference.
Sister Carrigan got really frustrated and cried when we got home. I felt bad! She kept telling me that she wasn't a good missionary and she shouldn't be training. I kept telling her that wasn't true. They wouldn't have listened to us even if we were the best scriptorians in the world. It was a pretty rough day. I know that everything will be okay though and this is just making us stronger missionaries. No, I wouldn't have chosen to have 2 hardcore bashings today but I dunno! Maybe it was what we really needed. Maybe It was Heavenly Father's way of telling us the Book of Mormon is most important but it is good to know the Bible also. I'm for sure going to be studying the Bible a little harder.
August 9, 2013
Friday is weekly planning. We are supposed to figure out the entire week that is coming up. It sometimes takes a lot longer than I would like. I know it is productive to get it all figured out but sometimes when it takes a long time I don't feel like it is productive and that- - NOT being productive - - is not a fun feeling.
We didn't have a dinner appointment today. Sister Carrigan says she can't cook, so it was up to me. Luckily I remember a few recipes that I used a lot at school. We had "perfect chicken" and used the chicken that Brothers Heirs and Nevin gave us. We had a fun dinner.
August 10, 2013
Happy 1 month mark! I can't believe that it has been a whole month since you dropped me off at the MTC! Time goes by crazy fast! I feel like I have been here for one day but I also feel like I have been here for forever. My brain can't decide so it chooses to feel both. Though it makes things quite confusing!
Today was fun! We started out having breakfast with Brother Heirs and Brother Nevin. They have been trying to get us to come over and eat for a long time. We had waffles. Well, you know how I LOVE waffles!! They weren't your waffles Daddy! I love those the best. But they were waffles and Brother Heirs and Brother Nevin are so funny. They really are willing to share whatever they have with us!
After breakfast we went over to clean Sister Billeter's cousin's rental house. She called, well actually texted, us late last night asking if there was any way we could come help. They had driven from Mississippi with their 2 little boys. The house was FILTHY. The renters before them had pretty much trashed the place. The AC was broken so it was about 100° plus humidity in there and they had no water. They ended up sleeping at the Billeters for the night, which was good. Sister Billeter is just so stinkin' sweet!
The family who owns the house is also in our ward, the Garfields. They are crazy tall! Bro. Garfield is like 6' 9" and Sis. Garfield is like 6' 2". It's insane! Their kids are pretty tall for their age too. Shocker!☺ So anyhow they had a budget and they were going to have someone come and deep clean the house but then they discovered a cockroach infestation. YUCK! So instead, they got the house sprayed. Guess who became the deep cleaning crew. . . US?!? No way! Yup. We did. It was okay though because a) Sister Billeter is one of the cutest ladies ever and b) get ready to be crazy jealous Ninny! (For those who don't know that is what Molly calls her sister Sydney) they had 2 puppies! One was only 6 weeks old and her name was Bella, the other was named Cloee. They were so cute! We cleaned and they followed us around and played with our feet. The Garfield kids left the door open and Cloee got out. We looked all over for her but we couldn't find her. Almost before we finished cleaning it started raining. HARD! Like the kind of rain where you are our for 10 seconds and you are wet from head to toe.
I got some awesome letters today! Yay! Bean (a nickname she uses on her sister Lacey), your talk was amazing! You are a great writer! You make me giggle. I LOVED your talk! Yay for Keisha being the YW president! She will do a fabulous job! I'm glad that Ninny will get Sister Matthews as her leader and Lacey will have fun with Wendie. Plus, I'm sure Lace will get treats occasionally - - Sister Radford is a great cook.
Thanks for the fast! I think it helped us find Cherese! I will keep Liza in my prayers. Scott will be an awesome bishop. Kate will be a fabulous missionary and they will be blessed like crazy! I'm glad we have an awesome mail person who will return Hannah's letter. Little tender mercies! We do that every night. We call them our "Gorgin Moments" because we combined our names. I should probably write them down though too. We just tell each other before we go to bed. It for sure makes you pay closer attention.
I am glad that you googled me.☺ It is fun that you can see where I go to church. We actually have church at the same time because of the time difference. Ours starts at 11:00 but we are there at 9:45 for PEC so you were close in imagining me walking to the church. I love our building! It is really pretty and I love all the trees around it!
We went over to the Henderson's for dinner. Guess what she made?!? Your chicken broccoli rice dish! It was fun to have a taste from home. Guess what else she made?!? Moab brownies! AHH! Oh I love that cake! We put more frosting on than she did. I love the frosting! Yummy!
August 11, 2013
Yay for Sundays! I like Sundays. I like church and it also means tomorrow is P-day. Yay for P-day! This morning we baked banana bread. Oh! It was yummy! Nothin' like hot banana bread for breakfast! It wasn't as good as yours though! I don't think anything ever will be.
Church was fun. I know I have said it lots but I like my ward! We tracted a bit after church and then had dinner at the Picketts. They are awesome! Bro. Pickett is our ward Mission leader and he is the best! He tries to make sure we have everything we need and he is trying so hard to find us people to teach! Sister Pickett works for Chick-fil-A and she gave us a bunch of free sandwich cards. The Elders have a dinner tomorrow but we don't. Maybe we will just have to use our free sub cards for dinner! She also gave us the left over fruit. They are an awesome family! Their kids are SUPER respectful with all the "yes sirs' and "yes ma'ams" it was a fun dinner.
To end the night were the clouds! Oh! Georgia clouds are some of the prettiest ever! The sunsets are amazing! I will miss all these trees when I come home! The trees back dropping the sky, dang! It's so beautiful!
Well, I love you all and I hope you have a fantabulous week!
♥
Molly
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