2/16/15

Hello this week was pretty good I believe :)

We were able to visit sister Bryant in the hospital a few time this week and she seems in good spirits. I am happy for the decision she made to move to assisted living. I just feel better that she will be taken care of and that she could make new friends and in her words "share the gospel with everyone she meets" haha :) she was discharged from the hospital on Thursday and she is planning on moving on the 28th. The place she is moving to is near where we live so we could still go visit her and share messages with every one who wants them. 

One of our investigators is having a hard week this week. Her name is Alice and we met her once and she seemed pretty interested in our message. Whenever we tried to go visit her this week though she was never home and she never committed to the times that we have set up to go see her.  Super bummer. :( I hope we will get to talk to her again some day and go over some of the concerns she has. 

On Tuesday we had district meeting and I learned a lot. They discussed a lot about baptismal calendars and how to prepare our investigators for their baptism. Some things they brought up we're good to know like cleaning out the font before the baptism. I wouldn't have thought bout doing that until they told us what happens if you don't haha :) I am so glad they told us. 

Also on Tuesday we were ble to go to the library and have Mormon.org time and that was neat. I watched some Mormon messages and picked out what I was going to teach for family home evening. I decided to give my talk on "the importance of sharing our gifts with others". If you go to lds.org and search "the extraordinary gift" you could watch this beautiful message about a blind person who plays the piano exceptionally well! 

I have learned while on my mission that it is not okay to compare yourselves to other people who do things better then you. Each and every person has their strengths (in southern terms screnghths) and their weaknesses and it is best to utilize what Heavenly Father has given us in a way that will bless and enhance the lives of people around us. We are not good at everything and that is okay. In no way does Heavenly Father want us to dwell on how bad we did that or how much we failed at something. Instead, he wants us to thrive on the things we do well and try again if we mess up. That is why he provided a savior. If we mess up or completely do a wrong thing, we have the opportunity to repent and do better. Christ and Heavenly Father are waiting for us with outstretched arms waiting for us to come unto them and tell them of our concerns. They will help. If you read Ether 12:27 it states that "he will make weak things become strong" and if you feel like you are inadequate at something and am not professional at everything, Heavenly Father will help and make those things stronger. How amazing!!!! He can help all of us with things that we want to do better at and will help us remember how important and essential we are to him and his plan for us :) super cool

On Wednesday we had a good team up. We went to go see Amanda and we are back on track for baptism. It turns out that the friend she went to church with was her sister and her sister is a member of the church! So yeah we were worried about nothing. Haha :) we had no clue she was a member until that day. How funny. 

We also had another lesson with Michelle and she is doing so well! She unfortunately has been fighting off some sicknesses and I pray that she will get better soon.  She really wants to come to church with us! 

Also on Wednesday me and sister Merriam traveled to Florence to go sleep over at sister Haslams and sister Wests apartment. We had zone conference the next day and we decided to car pool with them. Before we went though we made this really yummy fruit dip that reminded me of the frosting on moms cupcakes!! Mmmmm :) it was so yummy. 

Zone conference was pretty amazing! President Hanks is the best and he gave us great insight about Christ and his Atonement and how we NEED him in our lives. I would go into detail but I don't know to. It was just really amazing and uplifting and wish that y'all were there to hear it. 

I even got to see my first companion at zone conference! Yay! I was so excited to see her and catch up. 

On Friday Sister Merriams family sent us a valentines box for "lock your hearts day". It was so cute :) they had a card in there and candy and it was so neat. Valentines day in Alabama is amazing! They go all out with decorations and balloons and cards and everything! Walmart was completely decked out with pink and red and they had balloons ALL oVER the place! Wow. It's so great and what a cool thing to reflect on Gods love for us. :) 

I don't remember which day this was but while we were tracting, we knocked on this one persons door and when we did the woman yelled from begind the door "who is it?" And we stated "the missionaries! " she then she proceeded to open her blinds to look at us and then she said  in a really loud voice "I don't know you!!! And then her phone rang and she closed the blinds again. That was the most interesting tracting experience I have had. Haha I just look back at it and ask myself, what just happened? Haha :) it was interesting. 

One last thing before I close up for the day. 

When we went to go teach Amanda on valentines day, her friends and all her kids were ther and so we had a movie party. We watched the restoration andThey LOVED it! You could tell that they were so interested in this movie and they even wanted a copy of the DVD at the end of it. Haha they expressed how they wanted to share the video with every one they knew :) it was way fun. 

We invited them all to be taught and they all accepted :) awesome!

Other then that I think that's all that really happened this week. Things are beginning to slow down a little bit. I hope y'all have a great week and enjoy the weather! We are in a freeze state right now so we can't go out on the streets at all until the ice clears up. Hopefully that will be soon because the mission president doesn't want us out there doing missionary work until it warms up. (Mainly because they don't do anything with the roads in Alabama when it snows and there are a lot of accidents. ) It will be interesting :) haha. 

I love y'all :) have a great week 

Sister Ralph 

2/9/15

This week was a little slower but nothing too bad happened So that is good! :)

Update on Amanda

So, this week me and Sister Merriam were debating if Amanda was really sincere about baptism and wondered if we needed to drop her or not. I thought that maybe we should but I felt as though we needed to give her another week and then we would decide. 

I am SO glad that we waited another week because we went to go see her on Wednesday and she is totally get her life in order! She is picking up her house and re doing it, she stopped taking drugs, she started going to school, and she is cutting back on smoking. What an improvement! I am so happy for her. We decided to push her baptismal date back to March 7th due to the fact that she hasn't attended church twice yet. :( We are still trying to figure out what we could do to help her strengthen her testimony about the church and so far so good. We re taught her the restoration and she is going to read and pray about it. So that's good. She is excited for her baptism and loves when her "New Sisters" come and visit to teach her because she loves the spirit that we bring into her home. (Or outside on her front porch: Southern Style ) :) 

I got my bike this week!!! The weather is warming up this week! It is not as cold and I am excited for that because bike riding will be much better. :) 

Michelle

Michelle is one of our new Investigators. :) The elders began to teach her but then passed her to us, so we only began to teach her this week. She is so steadfast and came to church with us last week. Yay! She was supposed to come to church yesterday as well but unfortunately she couldn't find a ride. She really wanted to go and felt bad that she couldn't but we reassured her that she tried her best and that we would help her find a ride next week. She was excited to know that we would help her out :)

Michelle expressed her love for us and love for the things she has learned and she has committed to baptism which will also be held on the 7th of March. I am so happy for her! I know that this step will bless her and help her with the struggles that she is currently facing. 

Christine

 

Christine is also one of our new investigators. It was so funny how we met her too. We were tracting some homes behind Walmart for about an hour and a half and we started to get hungry so before heading home we decided to knock on more house. We went up to the house, knocked on the door and something happened. No one answered... Man... So we knocked one more time just in case they didn't hear the first knock annndddd no one answered again. We were kind of sad but knew that we just had to get going. While we were walking back, a girl who was on the phone at the time, hung up, and called to us "Are you girls going to come over and talk to me about church!?" and we were like "Definitely!" and walked over towards her. She was so friendly. When we got over to her she told us to wait because she wanted to go grab her momma and her husband. haha she was so excited! She had told us that she was looking for a new church to attend and wanted to attend church with us! She was even doing all our hard work like getting our phone number, getting the church address, and asking us what to wear and when to come and everything. She is totally prepared! It is unusual to find someone who is greatly interested like she is. I believe we are going back to her home to teach her this week. I am excited! :)

 

First Store Contacting on my own!

After writing my letter last week, we had to go to the store to pick up some groceries and some pictures. Well, while Sister Merriam was getting pictures, an old elderly man came up to me and starting looking at my name tag and in my mind I was like "He is looking at my name tag! Here, let me dust it off for you. " haha. I got really nervous though in that situation because I had to talk to him about everything without the aid of Sister Merriam! Yikes! I was so happy that the spirit was guiding me and directing me because without it, I would have not known what to say. :) He took a Book of Mormon and a mormon.org card with our phone number on it, so that was great! :)

 

The Palace

 

There is this place called the Palace and it really is the cutest little Sand which and Ice Cream shop in the world. It is decorated like the 50's and the Harvey's Milkshake is to die for! It is on the top 10 foods to eat in Alabama and I believe it because it was so good!  Yum! If I ever visit Alabama after my mission, I am coming back to this place. :) mmmmmm

 

Pizza Party with Sister Bryant

I haven'y told y'all about Sister Bryant yet huh.

 

I have gotten so close to Sister Bryant this past 3 weeks. We go and visit her like 3 times a week because she is old, and can't come to church for health reasons. Her husband died and she lives on her own, so we go and visit her to give her company. I LOVE HER! She is my Alabamian Grand mother. I am so glad that she lives just a few apartments down from us because sometimes she will need us to come over for help.

 

The other night though, something was wrong. She called us and she was crying. :( nooo!!! So, we went to visit her and I guess she was just having a really hard day because she couldn't remember anything and she was frustrated because she couldn't remember the password to her email and aol account. She was saddened because her brain wasn't functioning like her old young self. So, while we were over there, we shared some scriptures to uplift her, and sung a couple of songs. (Totally inspired songs too for they were both her husbands favorite and he would sing them to her all the time. We had no clue!) We then proceeded to figure out the computer situation in which she told us that she had gone into kidney failure! :( what?! No! man...I was so heart broken. She continued to tell us that she had been in kidney failure for 4 years but refused to go in to get treated because her husband went through the same thing and hated the treatments. He died for the same reason. It wasn't until that day that they told her that she didn't have much longer to live. However, she did tell us that she was in good spirits because she was ready to go see her husband and she felt at peace with the songs we sang to her. I was happy that she told us that. She also wants to "Be a missionary like we are" and is excited to do that in heaven! haha she has a good sense of humor. I love her :) 

 

That night she demanded that we have a pizza party so she ordered pizza and we had a good night. :) Me and Sister Merriam had other plans that night but we both felt the Lord's approval to be with her at the time. It was like he was there the whole night singing songs, reading scriptures and eating pizza with us. haha :) It was a totally good experience.

 

Other than that

I don't have much else to say besides that one night we went to the palace to eat and they were closed :( aww. The good thing that came out of this though was that we were able to find this cute little case of books and written on the top was "Take one give one." So me and Sister Merriam decided to donate two Book of Mormons with our testimony written in it to the box. Hopefully someone was able to take them and read it :) 

 

Well, I am really having a good time in Alabama and came to the conclusion that y'all are going to have to pack up and move here because I never want to leave! :) It is so great! Y'all would have a blast here. 

 

Thanks again for all the letters! I have enjoyed reading them. :) Sorry this letter was a little shorter.

I hope it is a good week for everyone! The Lord loves all of you So very Dearly. Don't ever forget that! 

Southern Missionary In Training 

Sister Ralph

2/2/15

Hi family this week has been incredible! I do not know where to begin. I think I am just going to take it day by day again. haha :)

Tuesday: Exchanges

I was able to go on my first Exchange and I was exchanged all the way to Mississippi! What a fun experience. I was given a new Companion and her name is Sister Allred. She is such an amazing teacher and she has been to 18 baptisms while on her mission. Holy smokes, that's a lot! While on my exchange, we were able to teach two families. One family had three kids And we taught them the plan of salvation by using chalk and the kids got to draw it out on the side walk while we explained each step. They had a ton of fun. Afterwards, we gave Alauna (Who is turning 8) some cookies for her birthday. She totally wants to be baptized and I am so happy for her. 

The other family also had three kids and we taught them a little bit about repentance. We decided to have Jonah, Who was 8 and getting ready to be baptize, wear a backpack that was empty. We explained that he could probably hold the back pack on his shoulders for a while without getting tired because how light it was. However, as he sins the backpack gets heavier and heavier. (We used books to weigh the backpack down and to represent sin). Eventually, the guilt from sin gets so heavy and becomes too much of a burden that we could no longer hold ourselves up. Jonah was no longer able to hold himself up without falling down because of how heavy the back back was getting. Thankfully, through Jesus Christ and his Atonement, we can repent, and our guilt and sin is taken away. Which then we proceeded to take the books out and the backpack got lighter and lighter as he repented. 

It was so cute because the two other children wanted to try also, so we gave them a chance. I think it was a cute little object lesson for them.  They learned a lot. 

Other than those two lessons, nothing else really went on during exchanges. It was just relly cool to go to Mississippi and learn new things from Sister Allred. :)

Wednesday: New investigators!

On Wednesday we had the coolest experience as we met two people named Andy and Ashley. 

After dinner, we had about 30 minutes to tract and so we decided to knock on a few apartment doors around our own. The first door we knocked no one answered unforunately. But after that, the spirit told me "Knock the one next door!" I was like, Okay :) 

I am so thankful I did because we knocked and a really cute young girl Named Ashley answered and immediately let us come in before letting us introduce ourselves which was really not normal. Haha.

Anyway, we went in and she introduced us to her Husband named Andy and then we were able to introduce ourselves and tell them a little about the Book of Mormon.  They were totally interested! 

Andy and Ashley just got married in November and Andy's back story is just amazing. 

I guess he was a really big drug/alcohol addict when he was 18 and he got in trouble twice with the law as he was selling stuff illegally. I think after he was charged with 2 felonies he turned himself in and moved to Seattle where his mom lived. In Seattle he joined this church program that eventually made him sober and he believes that God gave him a second chance in life.

 Mainly because, after he changed his life, his two felonies were completely dropped and he has never turned to drugs or alcohol ever again. He believes that God heard how much he wanted to change and how sorry and guilty he was and because of this, God was able to forgive him and drop his two felonies. He was so grateful to Heavenly Father for everything and is way faithful to this day. Him and his wife go to church every week at a local Baptist Church and read the bible everyday. Super faithful people. 

The cool thing about this whole visit was when Andy told us "We let you guys come into our home because we felt like God sent y'all to us. There must be a message that he wants us to hear. If so, y'all are welcome to come over anytime and we will be willing to hear the things you share."

When me and Sister Merriam heard this our Jaws dropped and we were overcome with Joy. We have really high hopes for this couple and I seriously think they could get baptized and sealed in the temple. 

Thursday: The best day out of the week! 3 new investigators and a Miracle

On Thursday, we got to teach Amanda. If you go back a little, Amanda was the one that we extended a baptisimal invite to last week and she accepted! :) Well, we were able to go over again and have a porch lesson about the restoration. We focused mainly on teaching her about Joseph Smith and his Account of the Vision. We really wanted to emphasize what set our church apart from other churches and how our church is restored to full on this earth. I thought it was going great and everything especially when she let us know that she believed our church was true and told us she knew that because the spirit made it manifest unto her! Yay! I was so happy! :) SHE KNOWS THIS CHURCH IS TRUE! 

The only thing that we had to do next was set a baptism date (Feb 28th by the way) and have her come to church with us this week. When we asked her if she would come to church with us she said no.... and we were all like what? Why? 

She proceeded to tell us that she was fixin to go to the baptist church with her friend which then we continued to ask her "What about the true church? I thought you believed our church was true?"

She replied "I know y'alls church is true. I know it. But I also know that this other church is true. I think every church is true just as long as they worship Christ." 

So yeah... We went from yes! She knows our church is true! To man... Now she thinks all Churches are true. What are we going to do. 

I think we will talk more about the priesthood next time and pray that she will understand more about the Full restored church. 

After Amanda's lesson, we tracted around her neighborhood and found this old man in his 80's raking leaves. Seeing that he might have needed help, we offered to rake the leaves for him. He turned to us and politely rejected our invitation because he would rather us spread the word of Jesus around to his neighbors instead. haha :) what a funny man. He was so polite as well and he thanked us for the sacrifice we were making to share the message of Christ to everyone we could. However, after he was done talking, he wanted to say a prayer with us and wanted us to go to his two neighbors homes where they would accept our message. So, we said a prayer with him, gave him our number, and said goodbye to him and his well behaved dog.  

I am so thankful that he gave us those two referrals because they are now our investigators. 

One of them is Maryssa and she has a husband and two kids. She is totally up to having us come back to teach her and her kids about our church. She believes that it would be a great blessing for her family. 

 

The other family was just down the street. There names are April, Randal, Elijah, and baby Zoe who is going to be born in May. What a cute family! They are so humble and thank Heavenly Father for everything they have. We talked to them for about 30 minutes and even invited us to come back to teach them more about the Book of Mormon. Yay! :) I am excited. 

That night, a miracle happened. 

Me and Sister Merriam wanted to go visit a less active but for some reason the GPS took us to the wrong address. The house we arrived at was in this side neighborhood that was really creepy and scary. (It was also night time, cold, and really dark outside) We decided to pray to know if the neighborhood was safe to tract around in but the spirit told me, "You have to get out of here. It is not safe. Get out now. " We found ourselves really obedient in this moment despite the fact that I didn't even get out of the car to back out sister merriam. I was way to scared to do so. haha. 

We thanked Heavenly Father for the warning and after that the spirit told Sis. Merriam that we had to go to food land. We didn't even know where foodloand was! haha :) This was the crazy part. But she totally relied on the spirit. She felt like we needed to turn on this one street to knock at this one specific house. So, we parked the car, said a prayer, and started to get out. Perfect timing, too, because as we got out, a truck pulled up into the driveway of the house we were going to knock at. We went up to the two men who immediately told us not to worry about sharing them a message because they were atheists and they didn't believe their was a god. They also began to tell us how they grew up knowing their was a God however they never really experienced a feeling that God was actually there and how the earth was just built upon science and "The whole big bang theory". They were even saying that night that, "Until God shows himself to us and tells us that he is real I will not believe in him. However, if he does show himself to me and my brother, we will embrace it with all of our hearts and know that he lives."

That right there was a miracle. Me and Sister Merriam were able to testify to them that God literally directed us to them. We were completely blind in the direction that we were going and we just had this overwhelming feeling to go talk them. We were able to testify to them that God loves them. Especially because in that moment, I was physically trembling with the amount of love I had for them. I even had to stick my hands in my jacket pocket because of how much it was shaking. I KNEW, in that moment, that Heavenly Father was expressing to me how much Love he has for them and how much he cared for them. I do not think I have ever felt that much love in my life for a single person that I didn't even know. and I know that it was not just my love, it was his profound love that he has for each of his children here on earth. We were able to testify, with tears in our eyes, that God was looking out for them and that he planned for us to meet. 

 

The two men were speechless. They even accepted to read the Book of Mormon. What a MARVELOUS experience. I am overjoyed to know that they embraced that feeling that night. They now know that there is a God who would do anything for them.

 

I just think its crazy because the love I had for them was not mine. It was Heavenly Fathers. What a cool experience. 

 

The COOLEST thing though is that after we said goodbye to them, we got in our car and drove to the stop sign where to the right, we saw in big letters the grocery store "FOODLAND!"

SO AMAZING!!!! 

 

Sunday: Another miracle happened 

 

Me and Sister Merriam were driving to Family Home Evening this night but it was POURING!  When we started to drive, it was barely even sprinkling so we thought it would be okay and safe. But about a quarter of they way there, it starting to pour! It poured so much that we could not even see the road! We were seriously driving blind and the wind kept blowing us off the road. We were so scared and so I felt like I needed to pray. I prayed that we would be able to see the road, and that we would be able to get to the Nebekers safely. I prayed for protection and the ability for us to be okay. The miracle happened immediately after I said amen, for the rain just ceased. 

 

I didn't even pray for the rain to stop, but holy smokes the Lord is amazing and he heard our prayer! He stopped the rain and we were able to drive the rest of the 10 miles with safety. I cannot even express how scary that was and how thankful I am. The lord really does protect his children. 

I don't really have anything else to say. I mean I do, but if I were to do so I would take another 2 hours. But those were the highlights of my week. 

 

I hope y'all enjoyed it. 

 

I love everyone of you and hope life is great. And hopefully Bo hasn't forgotten me already. haha :) He better of not forgotten me.

I will talk to y'all next week and I am thankful for all your letters. They are great!!!!

Southern Missionary, (Still in Training)

Sister Ralph