Six more weeks!

September 21 - 29:

It must be fall in Mississippi because...it’s like 85 degrees instead of 95. Glory hallelujah.   I wore a sweater on Monday because I was celebrating fall.

On Monday night we had another lesson with some new members.  They know so much and do so much that we've starting asking what THEY want to know more about. It was on the 2nd coming!  It was a really deep lesson that kinda ended with "well we don't know but we'll know one day." They are so hard to teach because they're so great, but they're also really fun to teach. J 

Tuesday was our last day with the car for last week and we planned a whooooole big day in Raymond. 

Driving through Raymond!

We had a referral that requested a Bible and we were ready to take her a Bible dangit. She lives kinda far away so we planned out a whole day to hit every less active and former contact we could when we were out there (since we don't go there that often). But alas, no one was home. No one! Not even the referral we had an appointment with! At one point in the afternoon, we turned to each other and said "have we even talked to anyone else today?" The one person we really talked to was a guy we met tracting who was sitting in his garage making fishing weights. We talked to him for a looong time and he's probably going to be Southern Baptist until he dies (his own words) but he would benefit so much from the gospel. 

On Wednesday we had zone development meeting!  There are some new rules in the mission now.  We are now supposed to have 10 contacts a day. The definition of a "contact" is kinda fuzzy but I think it means talk to 10 additional people (like outside of tracting) about the church per day. This is really hard. We've been trying but it is haaaaard. Another new thing is the goal for November:  every companionship in the mission will get a baptism. It's going to be called No Fear November! Every companionship in the mission getting a baptism. There are 200 missionaries so 100 companionships. 100 BAPTISMS. Crazy. No fear November. 

Most of Thursday was spent biking around and tracting.  

After dinner we were trying to decide what to do next ‘cause all of our backup plans fell though and we both felt like we should tract. So we did. We had knocked on like 6 doors and no one was answering and I was wondering why we both felt like we should tract.  A couple walked past us on the sidewalk while we were waiting at a door so we didn't get a chance to talk to them. Well, a little later as we were walking to another door, they were walking BACK up the sidewalk! So I started some small talk about the weather (I can small talk ALL DAY) and turned it into a gospel discussion, of course. Turns out they had a LOT of questions about the church. A lot of misconceptions and a lot of questions. They were really curious about our beliefs and we were able to share a lot! They didn't really want to meet up again (they’re busy with school) but really appreciated it and took a card. We talked to them for like an hour! It was great because we both felt like we should tract and I knew to go to that specific street and then, because of the 10 contact a day thing, we made an effort to talk to them and it made a difference!! Woo!

Friday was the first delivery of the Bishop's storehouse here in Clinton and the missionaries were asked to help.  It took forever!!   The delivery truck was late and then we had to set it up and then do the "shopping."  Lots of manual labor but it involved wearing jeans so that's good. J

Saturday was our day of adventure!! It was the stake's day of service!   We got a ride to the MetroCenter mall for the kickoff.  (I kept calling it Metrocity mall like from Megamind.)  Our assignment was to go to the Jackson ZOO!!!! I was so excited.   We actually helped paint the animal hospital with the nurse.   She was so appreciative and it was really fun to talk with her. After we finished helping her, she gave us a tour of the zoo in her golf cart!! That was the best!! She knew the names and medical history of each animal. Then we helped other sister missionaries paint a few outside walls with paint that does not come off skin... learned that the hard way... 

After lunch, we helped with ANOTHER service project! We cut down branches off trees near the church. It was haaaaaaaaaaaard. But it was fun. J  It reminded me of doing yard work on Saturdays at home! 

Then we went home and died a little bit. Just a little bit though cause we're missionaries and we don't have time for that! So we went tracting. We were walking and saw a couple of people loading a desk into a truck. We thought "Well, we should go talk to them but they clearly are busy and don't seem to need help" but hey we went anyways! And they invited us right in!  We shared Helaman 5:12 and then got a return appt! And they’re interested! Blessings for getting out of your comfort zone!

Then we got a ride to the Women's conference at the church.  I loved Sister Reeves' talk!  Hers and President Uchtdorf's were my fav. I like how she seemed SO scared of what she was saying but she said it anyways!

On Sunday we biked our little hearts out! Honestly, at that point, I was just a little too tired to know what was going on. We got in our 7 hours of tracting and had to finish in a light rain. And then, when we had to bike home, it was POURING. POURING rain. I was pumping so hard I could have won the underwater Tour de France. It was actually kinda fun. Especially cause we were just going home for dinner. :) 

This morning we had interviews!   We were the only people who needed to be interviewed today so President and Sister Olson came to our apartment!  We were glad that we had cleaned that morning when they called and asked if they could do that! Interviews were good. 

Just one storage sign for this week:  "In every difficulty there lies an opportunity."   So wise.

Keep on keepin’ on. 

Love,

Sister Nash

Just me and the 10 commandments in front of the auto repair shop

Cotton fields!

September 29 - October 5:

Hello one and all! I hope y’all had a glorious General Conference weekend!!

We have been trying to change our tracting approach to make it more productive! It seems like everyone we've talked to while tracting just says "yes, I love what you're doing. Lots of people need Jesus. Have a good day." We’ve started talking more to people about how their faith has helped them change and what a difference it's made in their lives!  Which has been working AWESOME.  We were tracting down one street and NO ONE was home. We needed to tract and didn't know where else to go so we decided to tract houses on the OTHER side of the street that had cars on the driveway. We only talked to 3 people but it took an hour and a half! We had great conversations and got a return appointment with one of them! It really has been making a difference! Now we just need to get good at starting with prayers once we really get into talking.

On Wednesday we saw an investigator that we met cause we were going through old teaching records in our area book.   She wasn't on the teaching record, but her niece was.  When we went by asking for the niece, she said that her niece had moved, but that she would sit in on the lessons too and would love for us to come back!   So, points for the area book!  Except no points that she wasn't written in....

Thursday was EXCHANGES!  I went to Richland with one of the STLs and my companion stayed in Clinton with the other one.  I pretty much tracted all day but at least it wasn't hot! 

On Friday afternoon, a senior couple came to inspect our apartment and we passed with FLYING COLORS!

Saturday was CONFERENCE! We watched the first session with the new member couple and it was so great. I loved the Southern lady, Sister Marriott. ;)   I also really liked President Uchtdorf's talk about simplifying and Elder Lawrence's talk about the personalized answers of the Holy Ghost. We had challenged pretty much every member family in our dinner appointments for the past 3 weeks to have a question they wanted answered by conference! It was awesome to have my question answered while I sat and listened! 

Between sessions we had lunch and tracted and then watched the second session at the church! 

After conference we were just going to tract.  We pulled up to the neighborhood where we had tracted a few days before and parked and prayed.  We were about to get out but we didn't. We just sat there and I said "I'm not trying to get out of tracting, but I don't know if we should tract here." And my companion said that she felt the same. It was WEIRD cause it wasn't a bad area by any means and we had found someone just earlier this week on that very street. But we didn't feel right about it! So we left. We drove off to an area we had never been to before and we tracted there.  We felt much better about it!  We talked to 2 people for almost an hour but we didn't get very far with either of them and neither were very interested. WEIRD. I don't know why we needed to go somewhere else and nothing really came of it (that I know of).  I feel like that's a great metaphor for my mission:  I don't know why I did this and I don't know if anything came of it but hey! I did it! haha

Then we visited a referral who had requested a Bible because he didn't think that it would actually work. Surprise surprise to you!! We are here with a Bible AND the gospel for you! He was super happy that we actually showed up and asked us to come back another time, even though he is very happy with his church.   It was great!

On Sunday we watched the first session of conference at the church (SO GOOD) and then we ate lunch.  We were planning on watching the second session at the church and just tracting in between. Instead, a member invited us to watch with her and her friends so, after lunch, we only had like 15 minutes to tract!   But we went anyways!

We tracted the street across from our apartment complex and fully expected - based on the first 2 doors we knocked on – that no one would answer and then we'd skip on our merry way to conference. What actually happened was a lady invited us in!  She did mostly because of the cold (this weekend was COLD) but then proceeded to tell us that she's met Mormons before (her old neighbors were Mormons) and she's Orthodox Christian and believes we're wrong. So that was nice (not). We said that our message was about Jesus and she invited us to come in and sit down and tell her about Jesus. Well I was internally worried, not just because we had walked into a slightly hostile situation, but because our ride was going to pick us up in like 5 minutes for conference!   I didn't want to be late for conference! haha   Well we talked with her and discovered that we have some very basic doctrinal differences that she just cannot support. My feelings in these situations are always "well then why did you invite me in if you know you don't like me?" Almost entirely because we needed to go and partly because bashing is NEVER a good idea, we didn't actually answer any of her "questions" (she already knew the answers). We left her with a card and told her that if she did feel like she had questions she could check out mormon.org or give us a call but we weren't going to impose on her apparently very strong beliefs. Then we hi-tailed it to conference!

Guess what?  She called us this morning and said that she prayed about it last night and decided that she was too prideful and wants us to come back and teach her about our doctrine that she doesn't know. WHAT. She said that she knows our purpose is for her to be baptized (yes it is) and she has no intention of becoming Mormon but she'd like us to come back and talk more.   It was so cool! I love it when people actually call us from the TONS of pass-along cards we give out!

Anyways. The rest of Sunday. Conference was SO good!   I‘ve already started to ponderize!! I wrote Amos 3:7 real big and hung it in our living room. I figured I could start with the scriptures I'm supposed to memorize anyways! (To be clear, I do have this one memorized, thank you Brother Holland freshman year of seminary, but I haven't ponderized it.)

And that was the week! Whew. What a week. 

While tracting we met a preacher who had some great rhymes! I asked him to repeat them so I could write them down.

                 "I'm too blessed to be depressed,

                  I'm too anointed to be disappointed,

                  I'm receiving because I'm believing 

                  But, if I doubt, I'd have to do without!" 

He also had:

         "Hope is the ability to hear the music of the future and faith is the ability to dance to it today." 

So I'm thinking he listened to General Conference last April. haha

LOVE Y’ALL! 

Love,

Sister Nash

"Thou shalt not steal"

October 5 - 12:

UPDATE: Walmart bike locks only last 8 months.

I know this because mine broke this week. And I've been a missionary for over 8 months.  Luckily I bought another one today! Still from Walmart but I figure, if it only lasts me 8 or 9 months again, I'll be good.  ;) 

The past few weeks (this whole transfer basically) has been a little rough in terms of teaching.  As in, we had NO ONE to teach. That alllll changed this week!! Okay not entirely, but we got it rolling at least!

On Tuesday we had a lesson and we were going to watch the Restoration DVD but she didn't have a DVD player, so then we just talked about the Book of Mormon!  We asked her like 4 times if she would read and PRAY about it (cause she kept saying she knew that it wasn't the word of God even though she's never read it!) but she said no every time. So, when we were going to leave, we didn't make a return appointment.  She offered for us to come over so SHE could teach US what's in the Bible. Ummmmmmm… no.  All of this sounds like it was really hostile but she's actually really nice! Just not at all interested and a little bit worried for our souls. 

On Wednesday we had district meeting in Vicksburg and then – adly - gave the car to the elders! We tracted for a while in an apartment complex that had a couple of former investigators.  We met a lady named Brenetta who had just moved in and told us about her daughter who didn’t believie in God anymore. We talked for a looong time and taught the WHOLE restoration and I sure thought she liked it! Well, when we offered her a Book of Mormon, she flat out said NO. haha She was really nice though! It was kinda funny how she just shot us down!

I think all of our plans fell through on Thursday so we tracted a lot and tried to contact a lot of people out of the area book.  We were tracting in an apartment complex and met a woman sitting outside her apartment. We're going to bring her a Bible (hers got lost when she moved) and slowly get her interested in the church with our love. #score.

Friday was a glorious day. We weekly planned for a good while and then tried more people from the area book.  The people we were looking for weren't there, but the people who live there now invited us RIGHT in!  Oh that was great. We talked about prophets and that was the key that grabbed their attention! We taught the whole Restoration and he loved it (he's met with missionaries before) and said he would read the whole Book of Mormon before our next visit. WHOA.  My companion and I had made a goal EARLIER THAT SAME DAY to commit everyone we teach to baptism in the first lesson so guess what we did! Committed him to baptism. And he said "if it's true!" and then asked questions that lead perfectly into the plan of salvation. OH it was so great. After weeks and weeks and weeks of no one even wanting to listen! We suddenly got 3 new investigators in one afternoon. Oh it was so good! :) 

On Sunday, we were biking to where we were gonna tract and I noticed a buzzing. Then I noticed that I wasn't passing the buzzing sound so it was ON me. I thought there was a bee in my helmet! We finally stopped and I dropped my bike and threw off my helmet and it was still buzzing! So then my companion helped me look through my HAIR and it was still buzzing!! Finally we got it out of my shirt sleeve but not before it STUNG me a bunch!! It was TERRIBLE. TERRIBLE. Oh it was terrible. At least it only got me a couple of times instead of attacking a whole bunch. They swelled up but went down after a little while. Oh it was terrible. Well now I've finally been actually stung by my greatest fear. I wonder if that will help me conquer it at all. Probably not. 

No new church signs this week but, as we drove by the Relax Inn on the way to district meeting in Vicksburg, one of the Elders said, "That place looks really relaxing" and then told us he's been waiting like 2 transfers to say that. Nice.

Love,

Sister Nash

There may or may not be a squirrel in this picture. It's the ultimate I Spy.

We asked the homeowner if we could take a picture of his sign: 1) cause it was cute and 2) to hopefully talk to him longer but instead he was just like "yeah go ahead!" and shut the door.

 October 12 - 20:

ANOTHER transfer??

Another transfer has begun!! Time flies man. Time flies. 

As y'all well know, the first week of the transfer is weird!   President McDonough would always say that the last week of the transfer should be your best (mostly because you've been in the same area/with the same person for at least 5 weeks) and BOY this week was that true. 

On Tuesday we got up and put on PANTS! We had met an older lady that a member referred us to and we helped her clean up her yard!   We weeded for like 2 hours.  She said that the sisters used to come and help her in her yard but I don't think any have for like a year.  It was fun to not wear a skirt and do something different though.  J  I like weeding! Which is good because we're going back.  J

Then we went back, with a member, to the lady who wanted to teach us about the Bible.  That was something.   At the very end of the lesson, the member bore her testimony and it was the greatest thing. It was so great to sit there and listen to her and feel the Spirit of what she was saying and we felt SO humbled.  We had been trying to explain but she just stepped in and TESTIFIED. When she finished, the woman said "thank you for sharing your point of view" and we had a closing prayer and it was great. 

Then we went with the primary president on Tuesday visits!   On the 2nd Tuesday of each month, the ward council goes on visits to less-active members.   My testimony of member work SHOT up that afternoon!  It was just a very humbling day. It was so great. Members really are where the missionary work is! I can't and DON'T do nearly as much as members! I'm just the teacher!

On Wednesday we had zone meeting with the whole zone! I didn't realize the whole zone would be there and it was fun to see people!

That night, we had a cottage meeting!   I'd never been to one, but it's basically a get together with members and investigators to show "hey yeah maybe the missionaries are weird but we're normal!" It was great.  Afterwards we played a movie charades game and it was so funny.  There are movies out now that I've never heard of! 

Friday was another AWESOME member missionary work day!

Sadly, we had to drop one of our investigators who was not progressing.  Some day she will come to church and be baptized, but it is apparently not today.

Then we went back to see the couple we found on Friday, with the Ward Mission Leader.   It was the best thing that has ever happened to me.  The man had read almost ALL of the Book of Mormon but he had all these weird lineage questions.   The Ward Mission Leader pretty much straight up told him that all that doesn't matter. We just hard core TESTIFIED of the Book of Mormon and how you can't read it like a novel and, if you try to prove it wrong, you'll never know that it's true. He said that he HAD been reading it to prove it wrong and find inconsistencies but that he was going to START over and read it again the RIGHT way.  Then he literally said "Then I need to pray deeper about it, don't I?"  Oh my gosh.  It was amazing. It was so great.

On Saturday we tracted all day cause we had had a great week with lessons and so hadn't done any tracting yet. Haha  On Sunday we went to church (duh) and then tried to get all our tracting in but (sadly) did not.

Monday was our day of service! We were going to work in the lady’s yard again but she wasn't feeling well, so we put into action our sneak attack plan of RAKE N RUN!  All these yards make me want to rake leaves and so we borrowed rakes and sneak attacked raked yards. Twas great.  Also I filled my desire to rake for the rest of fall. 

We saw a really good church sign this week:   "What on earth are you doing for heaven's sake?"

So clever.

Love,

Sister Nash

Rake N Run!

October 20 - 26:

There is an old man snoring somewhere...

It's rained for the past like 2 days straight! I think it's because of that hurricane hitting Mexico. Someone said something yesterday like "oh y'all haven't heard of that hurricane..." and we were like "yeah we've heard all about that."  Praying for Mexico.

On Tuesday, we tracted a really nice area that we'd been working on for a while. We only had like 30 minutes and we hadn't had ANY success in that neighborhood before so we didn't have high expectations. Well that just goes to show! We met a college kid who had a lot of questions and knew kinda a lot about our church. We were able to testify to him what we believe of God and the Godhead and the role that our Savior has for us. It was great! And so totally unexpected. So great. 

On Wednesday we had district meeting in Vicksburg and then literally every single stinking one of our plans fell through! One by one...   We just got text or call after text or call.. "Sorry sisters can we reschedule another day?" "I'm not feeling well today" "my son's football team is in the playoffs" This is SALVATION PEOPLE! Also we didn't have the car so we biked a lot.

On Thursday we had a return appointment with the college student! He had a lot of deep questions about "who is Jesus?" Not that he doesn't know, it was like he wanted to know who we think Jesus is. So we decided that the best way to teach was to just teach him the Restoration! It started out great. We sat on his porch swing and just started in on the Restoration. Then he started having all these SUPER deep questions about hell and what Mormons believe and then told us that we weren't Christians.  I have never been so offended in all my life.  After telling him that my name tag SAYS Jesus Christ and testifying of the Restoration, he tells me that I am not even a Christian. He wasn't yelling or anything. He just sat there and said that of course Mormons aren't Christians. SO OFFENDED. We're gonna go back. haha  We were outta time and had to go and he was like "oh y’all want to come back?" YES.  You horrifically insulted me but you didn't scare me away! He needs help, the poor soul. Bless his heart. 

Friday was our day of adventure! We weekly planned and then went to the church to help with the bishop's storehouse. The first time that we helped with it here in Clinton, it took like 3 hours. YIKES! But then this Friday it only took like an hour and a half!   Our ride didn’t come... so then we were stuck at the church!   We called a ton of people and finally another member came and got us.  J

We didn't have anything else so we biked and tracted! MAN. It was productive. We met a whole bunch of people who were interested and we RAN out of Book of Mormons!!  It was SO great. 

On Saturday we helped a member family rake their leaves.  It was SO FUN.  I have discovered that I have a great love for raking leaves. Which is good cause there were a lot of leaves to be raked!

That afternoon, we walked around tracting for like 3 hours until our dinner appointment. WE RAN OUT OF BOOK OF MORMONS AGAIN. Like what the heck. Apparently we need to start carrying more! We were talking to one lady who told us that she didn't have a lot of time but I thought "we need to tell her about the Book of Mormon! I need to grab mine out of my bag and talk about it!" but then I was like "nah.. she needs to go and there are a bunch of people out in the street and its gonna be weird!" but then I was like "that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard! Why shouldn't I??" so then I told her about the Book of Mormon and she was like "Yeah I think I need to read that!!" It was awesome! And - #blessings - it only started raining like 10 minutes before our dinner appointment. 

Sunday was the primary program and I was SO EXCITED for it!  That evening, a member asked if we could go visiting teaching with her! Something involving our missionary purpose, a car and being out of the rain? YES.   We visited a few less-active members and, in between appointments, she dropped us off to finish our tracting! We met yet another person that we're going to go back to! haha It was a good day that involved minimal rain exposure :) 

I don't think we saw any new church signs, but this is something that I found in my personal study:  Romans 8:18 - "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."   Reading along in verse 28 helped too: "All things work together for good to them that love God." It'll be okay in the end!

Love,

Sister Nash

Tracting in the rain!

October 26 - November 2:

When it rains, it pours.

And this week it POURED! Poured out blessings, that is!!  It actually really rained a lot and there were lots of blessings too. Haha

Tuesday was a little wet... It rained ALL DAY. We didn't have the car and riding bikes in the rain just gets you even wetter. So we walked! We walked around all afternoon and got prettttttty much drenched.   We went to a member’s home to arrange visiting teaching with her and she wouldn't let us walk home.   And she chewed us out pretty good for not getting rain boots the day before, so we're buying boots today!  (We had looked at rain boots but they weren't cute and we didn't realize how much we'd really not care about the cute level!)

She told us to stay home and stay dry but we just changed our shoes and went out tracting!   We tracted into some people who invited us in and we're like "Look at this cute family that we're going to baptize!"  But, they are not interested and only wanted to bash.  This has happened to us far too much recently!

Wednesday was exactly NINE months since I entered the MTC in January! Weird right?  I thought that HALFWAY would feel different but I guess it's like a birthday. You don't really feel older on your actual birthday.. haha

On Wednesday we had the best lesson in the history of best lessons. We went back to the lady that I felt prompted to give a Book of Mormon to last week. And guess what! She's perfect. We taught the Restoration and she just kept saying things like "I'm so open to all of this!" and "I've been trying to find a church!" and "I can totally believe Joseph Smith is a prophet!" and "I'm sure that you get people who aren't open to all this and I'm so sorry!" We literally didn't know what to say she is so perfect. It was great.   IT WAS GREAT. She's gonna get baptized and it's going to be perfect. She couldn't come to church yesterday because she had work but she really wanted to!   After so many people not liking us, it was great to find and teach someone really really PREPARED. :D

On Friday, we had planned to go visiting teaching with a sister in the ward.  She had given us a list of people to call to set up appointments and literally every phone number was disconnected. So we just went anyways! At one point, she wanted to skip some school traffic so she went a back way I'd never been before.  I just sat in the back with my head out the window like a dog, looking at all the trees and thinking "I love Mississippi." It was a great feeling. There are so many trees. I love it here. I had a lot of those "I love Mississippi" moments this week :) 

We only had a little time to tract before our dinner appointment and it was kinda good. Clinton was really confusing about treat or treating.. It was supposed to be on Saturday but then some people went on Friday cause it was supposed to rain on Saturday. One teenager opened the door holding a bucket of candy and was really surprised to see us! haha  We also met another guy who had apparently met with missionaries before. We gathered this when he said (this is a direct quote) "I'm going to say something offensive but I don't think y’all are Christian."  (Because his saying we aren't Christians was something very Christian of him to do.  Not.)  I wish I had stopped him when he said, "I'm going to say something offensive" and said, "WELL if you know it's offensive, don't say it. We'll just go." But instead I said "Well sir, could we ask you a question?" And he said, "Question away!"   I could tell that he was expecting me to ask a deep soul searching question.  Instead I asked him if he knew if Clinton was supposed to Trick or Treat on Friday instead of Saturday.  He didn't know and we left.   I'm done trying to talk to people who don't want to listen. 

At our dinner appointment, we played the sacrifice game with them as the spiritual thought. It's my favorite game! You list 2 different things and the family has to decide together which one they'll sacrifice to keep the other. The options start with easy choices between things like phones or movies and then you keep moving to harder things. "Okay you chose to keep phones.  Now it's between phones and school!"  Then it gets to spiritual things.  During the last few rounds you throw in testimony to see if they'll keep it. To win the game, testimony has to win! It's soooo fun to see families argue with each other before they all agree. That sounds bad but it's true. It's cool to see them see the importance of testimonies.. "Well, I guess the scriptures don't mean much if I don't have a testimony.  Plus I can't read them because I already gave up school!" It's way fun.  J At the beginning, just the kids are all involved and then, by the end, the parents are (hopefully) guiding their children to the right answer! 

Saturday was Halloween AND my companion's birthday!!!!   I wanted it to be a good day for her SO bad cause birthdays are the best.   My birthday present to her was making her breakfast that morning :)

On Sunday, we played the sacrifice game with a large family and it got wild. Everyone hated it but they said that it made them think so goal accomplished!  J 

The only new church sign so far is: "Look to Jesus."   Which is to the point and full of goodness.

Love,

Sister Nash