3/9/15

ZAYLEE IS BORN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY! CONGRATS AMANDA AND CODY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I AM SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I HAVE A NEW NEICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SAY WHAT???????????????????????? I LOVE HER ALREADY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D :D

3/2/15

Wow.... This week has been a real kicker.... It has not been a bad week, however, it has been way stressful and the work has slowed down dramatically.

 

Monday and Tuesday

On Monday and Tuesday Sister Merriam was sick with a fever :( I felt so bad for her. During these two days, she slept non stop and to keep myself busy and going I read a lot from preach my gospel, the scriptures, and listened to a few talks. Even though i was not able to go out and do missionary work, I was able to learn more about the gospel and how to be a better teacher. I have really found the importance of the spirit and also using scriptures to help with conversion. I also did a few crafts and cleaned the apartment. :) 

 

Wednesday

 

Wednesday we had a extremely Awesome team up with a member of the congregation. It went so well especially when we went to go teach Ami. Her and Ami got along extremely well and I feel as though they could become best friends someday! Ami is doing so well. She is fixin to stop smoking and she is almost there! She has decreased the amount of cigarettes she smokes from a whole pack a day to only 3 a day. She really understands the importance of treating our bodies like a temple and even expressed how excited she is to go through the temple someday. She is adorable and was ecstatic when we showed her a video of President Monson. We showed her the "Dare to Stand Alone" Mormon Message and at the end of it she stated "I am proud to be a Mormon!" haha :) I love her so much. We unfortunately have to push her baptism date back another week because she was not able to come to church for some reason. I do not know where she has been but she has not been at her house this whole weekend. The note we put on her door on Friday is still there and has not been removed. Hopefully she is okay and well! We will try contacting her this week :) 

Also on Wednesday, we went to go see Frank and we were able to address some of his concerns about coming back to church. He has a lot of pressure and weight on his shoulders from the many different responsibilities that he has. We were able to help him and he seemed better and relaxed at the end of it. Sister Adams (Our Team up) once again saved the day and was really able to connect with him and the things he was going through in his life. 

 

ALSO on Wednesday it snowed! We ended up getting 8 inches of snow and we had the best time. Do y'all remember when it rained in Gilbert to the extent that school was cancelled? Well, snow here is like when it rains in Gilbert. Everyone goes crazy! It is all over the news, people stay off the streets, shops and stores close down, and schools are cancelled. haha :) Everything in Alabama just completely shuts down. It is pretty awesome. 

Sister Merriam and I (Is that better grammar dad? haha :) ) played in the snow, made snow angels, and took pictures. I had a blast! However, because it was snowing so much we had to stay inside for the rest of the night and could not do any missionary work. Bummer. So what we decided to do was to clean the WHOLE apartment and to de clutter everything. We also went through the area book (A book that has records of potential investigators, investigators, and former investigators) and called a bunch of people. It ended up not being too successful for everyone ignored our call, but no effort is wasted right? :)

Thursday

 

It was still snowy on Thursday so we did our weekly planning which took a while. Since we were in no rush to get that done, we were able to really focus our attention on what our investigators exactly needed, catch up on our progress, and figure out what to do for our area. This week has been so slow. With the sickness that went around, and being stuck in our apartment, we addressed what we needed to do to make next week better. I have been so drained and unfocused due to the lack of missionary work! haha. :) This next week though, we are going hard! Especially because we are both staying in this area and are not getting transferred! Yes!

Friday

 

Update on Micha: Micha is doing well especially the fact that she is way committed to reading the Book of Mormon and is reading a chapter each day. She is supposed to be baptized this week on Saturday but it is going to be postponed for a later time. She is not doing anything wrong, we just feel like she needs a little more time and she agreed to this as well. She is going to plan on setting a date in April and will let us know when soon.

Saturday

Saturday was a really tough day. All the people we went to go see were not answering their doors, no body wanted us to teach them, and it seemed as though all our efforts were not working. All our backup plans fell through as well. We seriously used an immense amount of brainpower this day as we were trying to figure out who to see next, what to do next, or what other place to tract. The one day we have to go out and do work ended up being really sad. Man.. Oh well, haha :) The good thing about this day was that we went over to a members house for dinner and we got the best pep talk ever and the food was really yummy. It made our day! :) 

 

Other than taking it easy, playing in the snow, and checking up on Ami and Micha, nothin else has happened. Even though this week has not been too eventful, we were blessed to have time to relax. The Lord knows that missionaries sometimes need a break and the snow was a great stress reliever and a blessing in disguise! :) I know this gospel to be true and I am definitely blessed to have the opportunity to serve Heavenly Father and his precious children. I am learning and growing so much in doing so. It's the best!

I hope y'all have a great week and stay warm! :)

Thanks for all of your letters, pictures, and videos! 

Tori 

2/23/15

This week started off pretty well. I had to go to Tupelo Mississippi again for another exchange and it was a blast! Instead of exchanging with Sister Alred like I did last time, I exchanged with Sister Gibbs. We get a long so well and it is so crazy because she has only been out for 6 months and is already a STL (Sister Training Leader). That is crazy to think about. Good for her :) she really is a great missionary!

 

While in Tupelo we were able to  teach a few people. 

 

This one person we went to go see was a recent convert to the church and we needed to go teach her the new member lessons. We did so and I learned a lot from Sister Gibbs. The way she teaches and brings the spirit into the home is inspiring. I feel like it was good for me to be taught from her and spend time getting to know other areas of the mission. 

She also stated something about how they needed to get me a cello while I am serving that way I could play in sacrament and other meetings. I got so excited about that! haha! I miss playing as much as I used too.

Wednesday

 

I had quite an interesting day on Wednesday

 

The day Started like usual, just me and Sister Merriam getting ready and having studies. In the middle of my training, there was a knock on our door and we were interested who it was because we usually don't expect anyone to come visit. We went to go answer the door and found out that our Team up had come 30 minutes early on accident. haha. We still had 30 minutes left of training so we finished that up and then went to go work. We originally wanted to go see Rachel (Another investigator) but it turned out that she was not there so we went to go see Ami instead. However, Ami was not home either. Man... I am So glad for plan C.

 

Hey... This reminds me of a quote "When plan A doesn't succeed, don't worry because you still have 25 other letters of the alphabet to go." I don't know why I just thought about that but it is so true. Something that I have learned while being out on a mission is that it is good to have back up plans and not get discouraged when things don't work out. The Lord has a perfect time for everything and it is important to trust that he will bring things to our path at the exact moment we need it. The same thing sort of applies to prayer. When your prayers don't seem like they are being answered right away, it could be the fact that the Lord is preparing us to receive the answer at the most absolute and perfect timing. It is always good to have faith and hope that he will answer our prayers.

 

Also something else I learned is Faith and Hope. I always knew that faith and hope go together but I never really knew why. After studying and researching about it I came to the realization that Faith is to BELIEVE that God will answers prayers and hope is having CONFIDENCE that he will answer. So, hope is way great to have along side of faith. 

 

So after Ami didn't work out, we decided to go see a man (Frank) who has been inactive for a while and touch basis on him and see how he is doing. This man makes denters and it is way cool to go visit him because he is usually in his shop which is filed with cool tools and teeth and stuff like that. Kind of interesting. :) When we went to go visit him we went to go knock on his shop door. Only, a man (probably a customer), answered saying "Oh it's the mormons!" and we went in and were able to talk to this man. 

 

I don't know why this week has been different but for some reason we have been placed in situations where many people want to argue with us about religion. This man clearly wanted to argue with us. This is a sticky situation. As missionaries, we want to expand upon what people already believe, but there also is a line that we need to draw whenever someone wants to prove they are right. We don't want to prove that we are right. Nor do we want to argue about religion. Instead we just want to take what a person believes and help them expand their faith in Christ. Whenever we are faced with a situation where it is likely to turn into bash between two beliefs, we have to back away from that situation as best as we can. Easier said than done I will say. 

 

We taught this man the restoration very simply but you could tell he wasn't interested and that his heart was hardened. Man... Hopefully we will have better luck this week when we go to check up on Frank again. 

We had fun this night as we went to Activity Days. The activity days teacher, who lives just a few apartments down from us, wanted us to come share a message with her girls about missionary work. What a fun night! The girls made heart shaped soap for a late Valentines craft and then we talked about how they were each a child of God and how he loves them. Then we talked about how their friends were also children of God and that we could help them realize that through missionary work. It turned out great and the girls loved it! :) So fun.

 

Also on Wednesday, we were able to go over to Alyssa and Randy to check up on them. They were home! yay! They had the best reaction to the restoration ever! :) This family is Golden. They have great faith and they are always really engaged learners. When we got done talking the husband, Randy, just looked up at us and said "That's AWESOME!" haha the way he said it was amazing and wow! What a great lesson.

 

We then went to go teach Brea at Walmart. She is a sweety pie let me tell ya. She really wants to learn but since she is so busy we have been teaching her at Walmart while she is working. She even expressed how she wants us to come teach her at the hospital while she is on her lunch break! How exciting! I LOVE her! 

Thursday:

 

Thursday was weird too. We usually have district meetings on Tuesday but it was switched to today. At district meeting, me and Sister Merriam along with the other two sisters decided to wear matching clothes for fun. It was a blast! :) Things ended up working out because two of the sisters (Sister Merriam and Sister West) had the same skirts so we borrowed them and we were able to match. 

 

While weekly planning this day, we got a text from the elders that they were in our area and they needed to know if they needed to go see anyone in particular. We suggested that they should go see Ashton and Annie (The cute newly weds that we met a couple weeks ago). They were able to do so and they said the lesson went great! They loved learning about the message we had to share with them. I am excited to go over there and teach them more. 

Friday: Elder Farrell's Birthday

 

Friday was Elder Farrells birthday so me and Sister Merriam made him Dump Cake (Pretty much Apple Cobbler) and made him a card. I love birthdays and holidays while on a mission. They are so fun and always interesting! :)

Also on Friday it snowed and iced! Thankfully we were given permission to do missionary work and weren't snowed in because we went to go see Ami and had an amazing lesson about the Word of Wisdom. She even took all of her cigarettes and tobacco and threw them away! YAY! I was so happy for her. She is going to do great and we have a plan written out for her for when she is tempted to light a cigarette. She is awesome! She wants us to come visit with her every day until her baptism just to check up on her and to make sure she completely prepared for this next step in her life. 

Saturday

 

We met Marissa on Saturday (while playing the color game) at Walmart and we are going to start teaching her and her family. :)  I have great hopes for her. She is really cute and bubbly and we got a long with her real well.  

We had a really good lesson with Micha as well to help her prepare for her baptism. We watched the Restoration video with her and she expressed how inspired she was to be baptized coming up pretty soon. We read a little bit of the Book of Mormon with her and she stated that she knows without a doubt that it's true. Yay!  

 

Sunday

Sunday was such a Sad but Good day all at once. 

 

Three of our investigators who committed to come to church ended up not coming. So sad. I really really hope they come next week :( Also, Sister Merriam caught a fever so we stayed in the apartment all day and rested. While she was resting and getting better, I made a lot of cute crafts and studied a lot. So even though we weren't able to go out and work, I still had a productive Sunday. :)

 

And that brings up back to today! :) We are going to take it easy today so that Sister Merriam could continue getting better. Thank goodness it is P-Day so that we could relax a little.

I hope y'all had a great week. I am glad that y'all are healthy and enjoying the birthday Celebrations! :) Transfer calls are on Saturday so we will see which one of us (Me or Sister Merriam) get to stay in the area or gets to go. Who knows, maybe we will both stay for another 6 weeks! I don't think I will leave this area quite yet and i don't want to either. I have grown to love Russelville AL and never ever want to leave haha! :)

 

Can you believe it? I have been out in the field for 6 weeks? Where has time went? haha :) 

I love you all dearly! Have a great week and thanks for all of your prayers! I am strengthened by them  :) 

~Tori