Sept. 2, 2013
Hello family! Wow! I can't believe that it is September! 2 months have flown by! Sorry about the rushed ending on the last letter.... Maybe you didn't think it was rushed, that's good! Keep thinking that ☺ I felt rushed finishing it though. And then you got 2 letters! Whoops! My bad!☺ She sent her letter but forgot to put the last 2 pages in and so sent us a follow up envelop with the missing pages. Well here is another week, full of fun stuff. . . I hope!
It's transfer week. Elder Baker is headed home back to Washington and Elder Howell found out that he is training! He will be a good trainer! Both Sister Carrigan and I are staying here for another 6 weeks. ☺ GOOD!
Since it was P-Day and transfer week, we had a zone P-day. Everyone came. That meant that I got to see my cute Sis. Hooker!! YAY! That was a fun little thing to learn that Aunt Diana knows her! I can't believe how many people you have told me that read the blog! It makes me fell very loved.☺ Sis. Hooker says she actually lives really close to Aunt Diana and Uncle Dale! Fun! That will be good cause when we go see them I will get to see Sis. Hooker too! She had her first baptism this last weekend. I was so happy for her!! It was also her birthday on Friday, what a fun birthday present!!!
I got a letter from my Rachy Face! That was so fun! I'm so proud of her! She and Jake went and did sealings for their anniversary! It made me so happy that I almost cried.☺ She said that it was really awesome! I love that girl!
When I was e-mailing her back Sis. Carrigan needed to go to the bathroom. I left my computer open (silly me!☺) and when I came back the whole e-mail was blank. Oh Elder Thomas! That goob! He had made everything white so it looked like it had been erased. That took me about 2 seconds to figure out. I was reading through the letter again and suddenly in the middle of one of the paragraph's it said "Elder Thomas is a boss." That nerd!!! He thought he was pretty clever. Well, it kind of was . . . he is funny!
After P-day we had dinner at the Hendersons. They are fun. But we probably stayed a little too long and didn't get our 10 contacts for the day which means double for tomorrow. We don't have a dinner so we are working straight through so we can get our 20 contacts! It is just going to be a great week! ☺ I just know it!
September 3, 2013
It's Tuesday! It was our last District Meeting altogether. It was bittersweet. It will be fun to have new people but its said to see the others go.
We heard a really sad story today. An elder in our mission is in the hospital right now, he thinks he is 15 years old. The last thing he remembers is graduating from sophomore year. He was backing his comp out of a parking spot and his comp said he was there one minute (in the mirror) and gone the next. His comp stopped the car and the elder was on the ground. They had just finished pranking some other elders so his comp though he was kidding. Even though there is a no pranking rule. . . . So the comp didn't call 911 until 15 minutes later! I don't know what he was thinking! I can't imagine how badly he feels though! It's so sad. So, NO pranking! It's bad!
On a happier note, we went to Jimmy John's for lunch today! It made me miss working there a little bit. They weren't too bad. I was pretty impressed.☺ Though I am totally biased, I know, I know!
After lunch we went and visited Mary. She is such a sweetheart! We told her about mutual and YW. She was very interested in that for Arianna (her daughter.). We are thinking the best way to get to her is through Arianna. Hopefully we can get her to let Arianna come and get the YW to fellowship her. Mary is a widow and so it is just her and Arianna. The church would be so great for her! We are trying to find someone in our ward who would let us borrow a lawn mower for her yard. Hopefully we can figure that out!
There was a guy walking by us when we were leaving Mary's. He asked us what church we from and we told him. Then he told us that he liked that we go door to door, that there are only 3 religions who do that, us the JW's and the Baptists (his denomination). HA! Baptists do NOT go door to door. Nice try dude! Then as he was walking off he told us what we were doing was awesome but that we weren't going to heaven. Well gee thanks sir! Oh people! After the crazy Baptist man and Mary we went tracting.
We were finishing the street that we had been tracting on Sunday. We talked to this really sweet lady who told us she really needed her house pressured washed. So now we are on the lookout for a lawn mower and a pressure washer. Oh boy! To bad we aren't in Idaho! We have both of those things! Well we were walking down her driveway when we heard barking and snarling... We looked over and there were these 2 dogs coming straight for us. My first instinct was to book it, so I started walking a little faster. Suddenly I couldn't take one more step. It was like my feet were glued to the ground. I couldn't move. As soon as I froze Sister Carrigan started telling me not to move. I couldn't even if I had wanted to! When the dogs got to us they were snarling and circling us like waiting to pounce. There was one that we weren't really afraid of who just came up and started sniffing us. But one looked like it wanted to attack us. I was so scared! Their owner suddenly started yelling at them and they slowly backed off and walked away. We were both shaking when we started walking again. Like the kind of shaking that we just wanted to sit down for a minute because we both felt drained. Sister Carrigan told me that She heard STOP in her head. I told her that my feet just suddenly stopped working. I am so very glad that we are protected by the Lord. I know that if I had run like I wanted to that I would for sure have been attacked! Even though the Spirit had to be a little bit more forceful with me and glue my feet to the ground I'm glad for it. I hated it at the time because it was so scary but I'm glad for it now!
A few houses later we walked up to one house. They had a mat with the Tasmanian devil and it said to go away. We thought it was like a joke. There was a no soliciting sign but we have talked to lawyers and Elder Baker and Yates went to the court house last month and made sure we were good. They said we weren't soliciting and so we weren't breaking any laws. So we knocked on the door. This lady comes out and starts screaming at us and swearing. She said she would call the police and she could have us ticketed. . . which she can't. She was mean! It would be such a sad life to be that mean. I just feel pity for people like her. Plus, it's gonna stink in judgement day when they have to account for everything they have done. . . including screaming at us. Not gonna lie, I know it shouldn't but sometimes that makes me feel a little better. Especially after being screamed at.
We didn't have our 20 contacts after we finished that street so we left and went to another subdivision. We found a few potential investigators who told us to come back. Yay! WE finally got our 20 contacts after tracting for like 4 hours straight! It was about 8:30 so we went to go grab the elders from their dinner appointment and go get ice cream. Our last thing with Elder Baker. Sister Carrigan is really sad. We said goodbye after we had talked for a little bit. It was sad. I am excited to meet Elder Howell's greenie though! That will be a fun new adventure!
September 4, 2013
Today was interesting. This morning after working out we came home and showered and got ready. It was Sis. Carrigan's turn to shower first so she went in and then I went. After I got out and got dressed I walked into the living room. Sis. Carrigan was curled up on the couch. She had been crying.. She is really sad about Elder Baker leaving. I don't know what to do, it makes me sad to see her so sad and not know how to fix it. She woke up and we did 12 week and then ate lunch. By that time it was noon.
Yesterday we tracted into a guy who said to come back today around noon, so we did. He hadn't expected us to come back. When he answered his door he said he was on a conference call and to come back at 5. Well great. Trying to tract on Wednesday at noon doesn't work too well. We tried. no one was home! So we decide to try talking to more churches about the emergency preparedness thing. We didn't have any more flyers though. so we called Elder Howell and he said they had a lot. We got to meet his greenie! His name is Elder Rahman (like raman noodles), he is 19 and from California. He is really nice! As a trainer Elder Howell has to talk a lot more than he did with Elder Baker. It is interesting to see the different dynamics. He is actually way funny!
After we grabbed the papers we headed over to the church to make copies. Elder Thomas and the new ZL, Elder Ontivaros, were there so we talked to them for a little bit. The told us Sis. Rhodes was in the Family History Center. She was telling them about Stephanie, her niece who we taught last week. Did I tell you about her? She was SO frustrating! Every time she would feel the spirit she would make a joke or a rude comment. She was being really mean to Sis. Carrigan! I was getting so mad! You do not talk to my companion that way! Anyways she told Sis. Rhodes that she liked having us and was reading the Book of Mormon. We told the elders what happened when we taught her and they agreed that it was an annoying situation. We will keep seeing her but I'm not sure if I can keep my mouth shut if she is that mean to Sister Carrigan again!
We decided to tract a little before dinner. We wanted our 10 contacts for the day! There was a gated community that I have always wanted to go into. . .the gates were open!! Oh My Goodness!!! I have never seen so many gigantic houses in one place before. These houses were HUGE!! We were driving around and we noticed a car following us. We were both thinking it was security He followed us for a while! At one point though he turned his blinker left so we turned right.
We stopped and we were looking at our GPS when we realized we had 2 members living in this place!!! Serious?!? So we went and tracted over by them. Everyone we talked to was super nice. No one was interested but still, that's a big change to go from being yelled at to being treated nice! All the kids we talked to were inhumanly beautiful. It was weird! One lady was super nice and gave us water. Sadly we had to go to dinner, but now we know we can just call the members to let us in so we can tract there again.☺
We had dinner with the Nelsons. They were super nice and their kids were way cute! We had salad for dinner. It was great! It was so nice to have just a light easy meal! Everyone makes these big Sunday-like dinners every night and it gets a little old. . . .
After dinner we went to go see Jeff, the guy who told us to come back this morning. Even though he had told us 5 and we had written it down, we forgot! But we decided to go back anyways. It was about 7:30 so we knocked on his door and he answers and says, "It's way too late ladies!" and shuts the door. First of all, it was NOT late! Second, I really wish people would just tell us the truth and tell us not to come back!
So we went to go see some less actives. The last guy we went to see wasn't home But his 16 year old son was on the phone and told us he really did want to listen. We will go back to see him! Hopefully we can get the son to come back and his dad and siblings will follow!!
September 5, 2013
Ah man!! Today was awesome!! Today was one of those days that you look at and know without a doubt that this is 100% where you are supposed to be! So after personal and comp study we had to drive over to Cummings to grab some stuff from Elder Smith, our new district leader as well as drop off some papers that Elder Baker forgot to give him. We had planned to talk to Richard after that but he called and was so sad because he had to go do some things and he wasn't going to be home. He made sure we were coming next week thought! He is cute. I wish we could figure out how to show him the importance of being baptized by someone holding the priesthood! I think it's hard because his son baptized him and he loves his son and that's kind of like denying him or something. I dunno . . . did I tell you we are the first missionaries he has ever actually let into his house? Out of the like 5 sets he has talked to we are the first. That's progress!
There is government housing across the street that we decided to tract before an appointment we had with a member. The second door we knocked on the lady let us into her house (that's big!) and pretty much started talking to us like we were old friends! It was awesome! Her name is Barbara and she is so cute! When we told her who we were and what we do she pretty much started crying and telling us we had been sent to her from God ( Yes we were!☺) She hasn't been to church in about a year and sees the world and what it's becoming and how people act and it's hard for her to see God. We asked her how she would feel to know that there is a living prophet on the earth today. She said she would love it but there are so many false people how would she know. We told her about the Book of Mormon and the Holy Ghost testifying. She took it all in. She feels the difference and now we just have to show her the gospel would be so awesome for her! We stayed there for an hour but then we had to leave for our other appointment. She wanted us to come back though! She is available from 2-5 everyday so we said how about tomorrow?!? She said that would be great! Sweet!
When we were praying, her neighbor (who didn't answer when we had knocked on her door)/friend walked in. After we had finished praying she was asking us a bunch of questions like, "aren't you the ones with the other bible?" Kinda but not really. We explained it to her. We aren't sure but Debbie (the neighbor) could either be a problem when teaching Barbara or super helpful. . . . Guess we will just have to see!
We left and went to Bro. Hiers. The lesson was on tithing today and that's kind of a problem. Right now he is trying to go through the temple but he can't because he isn't a full tithe payer. He is really poor but he understands the blessings that will come with paying tithing, he just doesn't. He says he is paying it in other ways. It is frustrating! We were pretty blunt with him. I think it was hard for him to hear but at the same time it was good.
When we were finished we went back to the government housing since we had only knocked on 2 doors. There was a guy digging around in his car. We went up and started talking to him. His name is Hakim, and he is just looking for the truth. Great! We have that! We gave him a Book of Mormon, invited him to read and pray about it and invited him to church. He was awesome! He wants to come to church but right now he has a job that requires him to work Sundays. He is looking for a new one so that he won't have to work Sundays. We are praying that he finds one! He said he really wants to come to church and that he will try so we need to look for him on Sunday.
Barbara was outside and saw us so she started talking to us again. She has a fig tree outside her door and she asked if we had ever had one. We said no, so she picked one. It was pretty good! I like figs.☺
We left Barbara and knocked on the rest of the doors. there was one door that had a bowl next to it. I looked down and in the bowl were maggots! It was disgusting! You couldn't even see the bottom of the bowl! Ewwww! By the time we had finished tracting it was time for dinner.
We ate at the Moons. The are awesome! They have a 2 year old daughter and a baby boy on the way. Kaleigha is the cutest little girl! She has long curly hair and is so polite and sweet! She kept calling us missionary. No matter who she was talking to our name was missionary. During the thought she sat next to me. She kept looking at my tag so I asked if she wanted to wear it. When I put it on her she was so excited! It was so cute! I want to be a cute family like them someday! After dinner we went over to the Suwanee Town Center and tried to talk to people. Some people did NOT want to talk! We had fun though! After that we went home.
I got mail today!! Thanks Syd! A letter is coming your way.☺ I also got a letter from my cute visiting teaching comp from last year, Sarah. She is so cute! It was fun to get a random letter from someone I haven't talked to in a while!
6 Sept. 2013
Oh boy! A week of opposites! Yesterday was great, today was sorta crummy. Weekly planning was fine. We have a lot of potential investigators that we are trying to make investigators, so we had a lot of people to plan for. It was a nice change to actually plan for real people as opposed to people we just hoped to have. It took a lot longer to plan too!
We had planned to go visit Barbara (the lady we met yesterday) at 3. She called us and cancelled. We were sad but we figured it was ok, we had planned to take Sister Galt with us to Brenda's house (the lady who cannot for the life of her figure out that the Book of Mormon is not another version of the Bible). We got there a little early and were sitting in the car planning and waiting for Sister Galt when Brenda walked out of her house and started up the street towards us, with her neighbor. She saw us so we waved and got out of the car. We asked if it was okay to visit her right now. She was very short with us and told us to wait in the car. Ummmm. . . .okay? So we got back in the car and talked. Well Brenda and her neighbor went back in front of their houses and talked for like 10 minutes. Finally we got out and told her we could come back. She said, "No. You can come in but I'm NOT turning off my TV! If you are preaching God's work then a TV wouldn't stop you." If I didn't tell you the last time we went over, Sister Carrigan asked if she would turn the TV off. We texted Sister Galt real quick and told her we were sorry and it would be bad if she came. Brenda didn't listen at all. Then she got mad cause I wasn't talking. It was a mess. We left as soon as we could!
We called Sister Watkins and asked if we could visit. At this point we just needed someone to give us hugs! Sister Watkins is awesome! She treats us like adults but also like we are her own kids.☺ Our dinner had cancelled on us so she fed us dinner too. Then we went to the Hendersons.
September 7, 2013
So last night Sister Henderson asked if we could come help her clean her house. Sister Carrigan said yes. Before that we tried to visit Tony (the guy with the pitbull we ran into while tracting a few weeks ago). He wasn't home so we stopped by Sister Howison's house. She is cute! She has 2 sons, one 8 and one 18 months. She is divorced and just got back int church a little while ago. We talked to her and then went to the Hendersons.
Barbara had made an appointment with us so we left at 3 o'clock. The lesson with Barbara went well! We told her about the Restoration and she was pretty accepting of it. We asked if she would come to church. She said she would try but she wouldn't make any promises. We hope she will come!
We ran home to change for dinner and then headed to the Billeters. There 11 year old, Anna, is exactly like Sydney! Oh my heck! She will be 12 in Oct. She is tall and skinny, She love mustaches and neon colors. She is loud and funny. I felt like I was at home! It was fun.☺ Don't worry Syd! You will forever be mine! It was just fun to be with someone like you.☺
After dinner we went tracting. Nothing really came out of it. We met a few nice people but no one was interested.
Sister Carrigan had told Sister Henderson that we would come back so that is where we ended our day. Not the greatest day. A little better than yesterday though!
September 8, 2013
We went to visit some churches for the emergency preparedness thing. It's weird. Most people we have talked to haven't been too happy about it. Plus they haven't been that nice to us . . . . Whatever.
Cherese promised to come to church today but she didn't. : ( I was SO sad!! I want her to come so badly!! I hate knowing how much happier she would be and could be if she would just let the gospel into her life! Ugh! I hate how sad I am that she didn't come! Moses didn't come either. He won't let us in to talk to him. When we call or text, he will answer us but he won't give us a set time to come see him and he will avoid the question when we ask. We aren't giving up but it is getting really frustrating!
So we had dinner cancelled on us - they rescheduled to Sunday since we didn't have a dinner for then. The only problem was that they ate at 3:30. It was so good though! We had fun and the food was yummy.
The rest of the day was not so good.
I'm sorry that I have focused on a lot of negative this week! I shouldn't do that! I promise I will be better this next week! I will have happier things to say! I love you all and I hope your week is fabulous!
♥
Molly
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