Week 8

 We have had a crazy week! It went by so fast that I'm not even sure how it's already p day again!
Oh and btw I wasn't transferred haha I forgot to let you all know that I'd be staying in this at for at least six more weeks, but who knows after that!

So! This on one of the days this week we were out in the far ends of our ward boundaries, and there are really big houses in that area and they're super spread out and it was dark when we headed out there. We couldn't find a house we welcoming so we decided to head to a different less active members home. We got to the house and literally everything was pitch black. We jumped out of the car and started heading towards the door, but we couldn't see anything because it didn't look like any lights we on inside either. As we got closer to the door we were walking into spiderwebs ands it was just super creepy!! And sister Richardson says, "ummmm...do you feel iffy?" She did not
have to say anything more! I turned myself right around and Started high tailing it back to the car!

One of these nights we were out working and we both decided that brownies sounded super great and that we should make some when we got home for the night, but funnily enough...we randomly decided to stop at a members home and they just happened to have brownies that they offers us! Haha looks like The Lord knew our needs ehhh. ;D haha

As service every week we go to a old woman's house with Parkinson's diseases and play games an color with her and stuff. And this time we ended up playing kanasta! It was super cool! As another service thing we do each week we go to an Alzheimer's unit and sing songs and stuff and this time when we walked in and they we watching the movie frozen!! I was so excited and had to contain myself from watching it with them!

Cool story for this week was when sister Richardson and I had been talking about things that she was worried about and it was so cool because after we discussed we just went about our day and focused on the work. But....we had a lunch appointment with a member in the ward and she unknowingly addressed all of her concerns and things! Its super cool how when you forget yourself and go to work, that The Lord answers your prayers when you least expect it and in ways that you'll
know are from him.

On one of the days this week we didn't have to feed ourselves once! We had three set meals! I think the members really like us....at our lunch appointment we actually were going over to the little boys
birthday party, but we ended up being busy and showing up late. When we first got to the door, all of the children's parents gave us weird looks as we came up to the door because I'm sure they thought we were just out trying to convert them, but luckily the member said, "no no it's ok! They're from my church," I think it was a blessing that we ended up showing up that because then we got to meet all the parents and start planting some gospel seeds! Then we got some cake from them, but we did not have any forks...so there we were just sitting on the curb in the sun eating cake with our fingers and licking them....and let's just say that we were getting some very odd looks as people were driving past. Our Next meal was literally right after that and we weren't hungry at all! So in my mind I was thinking "well...I hope they feed us salad...or some type of light meal....and if they have dessert I really hope it's something like ice cream or something else that's light..." And when we got to the members home...lo and behold we were eating salad for dinner and as dessert we had these
healthy smoothly things! I was so happy!

Funny story...at one point this week we were sprinting down the street trying to talk to every person we saw and so we saw a random guy that was was all the way down the street....so we started running after him! (The whole mission is essentially one huge awkward moment, so you kind of just have to roll with it) but anywho, we started talking to this guy and he invite us straight over to his house to give a lesson in a couple days and we asked what his last name was and we realized that he had the same last name as a woman that we felt like we needed to see. So we asked if he was related to her....and turns out, this guy was her son! MIRACLE!

Everything's been super great down here! It really is a roller coaster of emotion, which is very odd, but its so cool being here! Im not sure how females are able to change without going on a mission!! Im not sure what I would have done if I hadn't come on one! I think itd be super cool if eventually kemi went on one, but who knows what she'll decide!

 
So cool story...I gave my talk yesterday, and I had actually had one talk written completely out, but then I didn't have to speak for probably a month, so I felt like it wasn't right anymore and that I needed to change it. So I did. And yesterday when I gave it, I several people walk up to me and tell me how great it was and several nonmembers walked up and told me that that was what they needed to hear and we even had a member call us today in order to tell us how great it was that we were serving in the ward and how when I had started speaking yesterday the whole congregation got hushed and the spirit was really strong. It was a cool experience. Although funny thing is...I don't feel like I deserve the credit for it. I wrote what I felt prompted to write, and whenever the spirit is involved it doesn't matter what words are spoken, it just matters that the spirit testified what each person needed to hear. Im just super grateful that the spirit was able to testify to so many people in different ways. On a mission you learn so so soooo much. Its crazy! I haven't even written about all of the things that ive learned, but its an enormous amount.

Anywho...I really hope that this email makes some sort of sense.....but love you all! Have a grand week! :)

 

Eating cake with our fingers

Mary Rose in a different ward. We've been asked her to pray about serving a mission.. she's 15 right now, but we felt like we needed to ask her!

 

Week 7

Hey everyone! This week has been such a whirlwind! We were driving to visit something the other day and we saw two huge plastic flamingos outside some random houses yard...so we decided to stop by and take a picture!

Something funny happened the other day. We were walking out the door and it was starting to get dark, right as we stepped outside the door was starting to swing shut and sister Richardson yells,
"WAAAAAIIIIITTTT, I forgot the *DOOR SLAMS* .......keys". So as you might've guessed we were locked out of our apartment. The office was closed and we had no idea what to do! So we decided to start walking towards our ward boundaries and go visit people or something. Well, to
put it simply....we had a grand Praying in the woods moment, I'm pretty sure Joseph smith was laughing at us as we did so. Then we randomly knocked on a house that was filled with old women having a bible study, who let us in and eventually sent us off with some cake.
We then decided that we should figure out some way to get back into our apartment. We considered climbing in some windows or picking locks, but then realized that might not be the best solution. So we sat outside, ate cake and called someone to come open it for us.

At our zone meeting, one of the sisters in my district waved me over as soon as I got there. I walked over and the first thing out of her mouth was, "soooo, I've volunteered us for something!" So Long story short....I believe that was the faster musical number put together in the history of ever!

We had companion exchanges this week also! I was the companion that got to stay in the area, and sister Richardson headed off somewhere else for 24 hours. The first appointment that was set was to a woman we had met the other day. W got in there and we found out that the main reason that she had invited us back was because she was concerned for our salvation! As you can imagine I was quite shocked to hear this.

 While out running this week, I unintentionally tested the gravity and ended up flat on my back, with pieces of gravel stuck in my hands. not my proudest moment I'd have to say! And what made it even better was that I didn't pick out the smaller chunks of gravel until several hours later and by that point I had to run my hands under hot water And pull the skin off with tweezers. Luckily it wasn't too bad!

While headed to a different city for our stake conference we were sitting at a stop light and a car full of elders just happened to come up right at the same time and we're sitting behind us. Sister
Richardson and I the. Saw something come sprinting up to our car and pushed our side mirrors in and pulled up our windshield whispers so that they weren't touching the windows this whole time we sat there in shock watching, especially when realized that the elder that had played the prank on us was also the elder that was driving. Not sure how he managed to accomplish that at  a stop light!

This week we had a return and report meeting. Basically all of the trainees and trainers all come and have a meeting with president Riggs, then the trainers are out in one room and the trainees in the
other and we are asked to pretty much spill the beans on anything we need to tell our companion, but have felt to shy to say it or just haven't felt comfortable saying it. Then they would take all the
suggestions that everyone had and tell them to the other room as a general statement to them. As I was sitting in the room and people were tossing about things that they wants the president to tell their
trainer I just sat there in shock. I realized that every single thing that was irking them was something that sister Richardson and I had already communicated about! I didn't have anything to say so I just
sat there and thought about how grateful I was that sister Richardson and I had great communication!

In the other room, I found out that the same thing was happening with the trainers, they would all sit there and have president tell us things that they felt we needed to address and I found out that sister
Richardson hadn't had anything to add and that she had had the same reaction to it as I had! It made us both so grateful that we are able to talk things out and fix things where necessary! My companion is great!

Well anywho, that's been some of what's happened this week! Love you all! :)

 

 

 

Week 6

Heres my weekly report! :D

 

First of all, you should all go and find some sour patch kids gum at Walmart. It is grand, and tastes exactly like sour patch kids.

 

Miracle #1One of the nights this week we had to eat 2 dinners since we had one at a members home, then our investigators Jay and Joceyln invited us over for dinner. It was....interesting trying to eat that much ha ha but our experience with our investigators went super well! We had a great lesson with them and then at the end Jay asked his 6 year old son, "well Brayden, should we invite the sisters over for dinner again, or should we just go to church with them?" my brain went "apwiu3y98awyt!?P@R!!!!!?!?" we hadn't even been talking about church, he just brought it up himself!

 

Miracle #2Another of our investigators, Mary Jane, is progressing so so sooo much! She hadn't ever had the word of wisdom taught to her, but as soon as we talked about it she told us all the things that she was going to give up right then! Mary Jane is a pretty quiet person and we thought that we were going to have to dig around a bit to find out what she needed help with since we already suspected a couple things, but she just came outright and said exactly what she needed to do! She prayed in front of us, which was a huge step for her! Then she came to church again!!

 

I think I met the cutest little boy this week named Harrison. He was 2 years old and you would think he was 3 or 4 by how big he was and he talked nonstop, and he had dandelion hair, and a bubbly personality and Im pretty sure we should hook him up with Avabug in the future;)

 

We officially got our iPad minis!...and on the way to our meeting to get them we accidentally left some elders back at their apartment for 20 minutes and had to drive all the way to pick them back up. It was pretty funny.

 

My companion and I set a goal this week. We recognized that so many people nowadays are so focused on "Oh when I get to college I can start doing all these things." or "oh when I get married, then Ill be happy". or "oh when I go on a mission, then get home, ill finally be ready to start living my life". So we noticed that as soon as we get to certain steps in our lives, we always push back having our 'Happily Ever After' or whatever. So we decided that instead of living in the future, and being focused on how good or bad our future would be, we would make every moment count. We made a sign that says, "live your fairy tale now...Don't wish your moments away by living in the future". SO super interesting to think about. We decided to try to take pictures every day and in the morning we would tell each other one thing that we were excited for that day. Then at night we would say 5 things that we loved about the day! Its been pretty fun!

 

We've had several awkward tracting moments this week. One person opened the door said, "nope! not interested!" then slammed the door, then we heard her say, "MORMONS!". Then in that same neighborhood we knocked on a door...stood there for a few seconds....and some very tall teenager walked up to the door, stare out the top window at us, then proceeded to leave and we weren't sure if he was coming back, so we stood there for a few minutes in hopes that he was just getting his parents, which ended up not being the case.

 

Miracle #3 In the same neighborhood as the previous paragraph, we found a woman by the name of Theresa who was super receptive to our message! We taught her on her door step and set up another appointment and you could see the light of Christ in her eyes! She has been prepared a long time for this.

 

Random Insight: During companion study, sister Richardson and I were discussing how the people during Joseph smiths time were probably super comforted when they read about Nephi in the book of Mormon. Nephi and his family also had to leave their possessions and their homeland and journey for a really long time. I'm sure they had children and people die as well on their long journey, but yet in the scriptures Nephi only has thanks for all of the struggles.

 

Another awkward moment while tracting this week: We were tracting in little townhouse things, so the doors were pretty close together, but We knocked on one house...and they didn't answer...so we went to the next house and as soon as we knocked, the OTHER door opened, so we started to walk back to that house...but then the current house we were at opened their door also! Sister Richardson and I both panicked and she says, " uhhhhhhh....you take that one!! Ill take this one!". So we went our separate ways and as soon as I got in front of the door my mind went completely blank and my brain goes, "....wait....my companion just ditched me....." then I ended up saying some really random things. Not exactly the ideal situation;)

 

Miracle #4! Sis Richardson and I were walking along the street and we were super tempted to not say anything since we were headed somewhere, but then we realized that we'd made a goal to talk to everyone...So we went back and talked to him and now he's our new investigator! The circumstances of our meeting were super cool though, because we ended up switching up our schedule and if we hadn't done that, and if we hadn't missed our turn, then we wouldn't have been outside at the same moment that he was walking home. CRAZY! It's super cool how much effort the Lord puts into each persons lives, and so many people don't recognize that!

 

Another awkward tracting moment was when we saw 2 teenage boys walking down the street, and we were headed somewhere, so we debated if we should actually go talk to them, then our brains got the best of us and we started chasing them down the street! Then we stopped because we realized that they were a little too far down the street and we would've had to run to catch them.

 

We also met a Russian Jew named Blair. If the word "mancave" was in the dictionary and it had a picture, then Blair's garage would've been the ultimate picture of exactly what a mancave was. It had weights all over the walls, a huge flat screen TV, a disco ball, a gun rack, a motorcycle and all kinds of other things. It was quite the adventurous place.

 

Also...I'm getting pretty swell at using chopsticks...but anywho, that's only a portion of the cool things that've happened this week! we saw so many miracles! It was great! Love you all!:)

Week 5

Hey everyone!! I don't have too much time to email today, we had to move our email time to today due to the snow. Everything was closed down so now i have less time since we have appointments right after I finish.

 

My week has been great! I've had several crazy things happen. So last Monday after our long day we came home and our alarm started beeping. It wasn't the regular fire alarm sound though. It was 3 quick short beeps every five minutes or so. Our alarm is a smoke alarm and a carbon monoxide alarm, so we wondered if it was detecting carbon monoxide or something. So we called our president and he asked us if we could sleep anywhere else that night. SO we ended up grabbing a few items for the night and movie over to another sisters apartment for the night, where we camped out on their floor! it was a fun experience haha

 

While out tracting this week I thought a house was burning. We were walking by and I saw smoke pouring out of the house and I walked up closer and I realized that the enormous outpouring smelled like laundry....so it was pretty funny.

 

If possible you should look up a restaurant called Ghengis Grill. Its super good.

 

We also went to sing in an Alzheimer unit and we were running out of songs to sing, so we started singing girls camp songs. We decided that one of them would be "boomchicka boom" and One of the black ladies that worked there decided to lead it off, and on the second time through she said that we would be singing it sexy style. So she proceeded to start clapping as if her life depended on it and was attempted to roll her shoulders in a seductive manner and another black woman joined in! it was super hilarious to watch and all the old people just sat there quietly observing.

 

We were going to check out a referral that we had gotten from another district and we had gone several times to the house. Every single time we went to go try to meet Kristina, there was a half asleep black man that would answer the door. And they had this creeper dog that would pop up out of no where and sit in the window and stare at us. We've now attempted to see Kristina 4 or 5 times and I'm starting to doubt her existence!

 

One of the days in this week was super duper windy and slightly snowy and we had finished with an appointment early so we decided to go see someone, but as we were driving towards the house, the GPS we were using started taking us down random roads and then it would lose the signal, so we were a little worried since Virginia has no grid system and I'm pretty sure when someone created the roads they just sprayed silly string on the ground and decided that those would be turned into roads. So we were getting sketched out trying to find our way back, and the GPS randomly started working again...but...instead of leading us to our apartment, it led us to this creepy barricaded building with flashing lights and stuff. Finally after half an hour we were able to find our way back home and by this point we didn't have time to go see the person we were planning on. But I think the Lord was watching out for us. On our way home, we drove down the street that we would've turned on to get to the persons house, and there was a huge tree on the road and tons of police man surrounding it. If we would've gone to the persons house, we would've been turning down the street right around the time that the tree collapsed. Crazy how much the Lord watches out for missionaries!

 

We tracted into a Hindu family the other day and we were trying to teach them and they kept throwing in random things about their religion and wouldn't let us get a word in. At one point the daughter asked us what our belief was about heaven and hell, so we started teaching the end of the plan of salvation. As we finished, the daughter sat there for a second and then said, " well! Looks like we'd be in the 2nd kingdom dad!" and she said it with a huge smile and started laughing, so we all just started laughing because we couldn't believe what she said (but Hindus believe that all religions are correct so they try to find out where they would fit in with other religions and such, its super interesting) .

 

We had another snow storm this week. And we weren't allowed to drive. Our apartment is out of our ward boundaries. So that night we decided that we were going to hike to our boundaries and then start scrapping off random peoples cars for them. As we were doing this, we didn't realize how loud we were going to be, so we kept seeing people peeking out of their windows at us. One house we were stopped at had a man that was already scrapping off his cars, so we offered to help and the man says, "oh, since you don't have school tomorrow are you just scraping peoples cars off??" its super funny, people always think we're high schoolers all the time haha

 

This week has been super great!!! :) We are getting close to transfers already!! I cant believe how quickly they came up! Anywho, love you all!!!

:)