Week of June 20 –
27 (in Hattiesburg, Mississippi): It's
summer y’all.
Hey
y’all!
This
week sure was an exciting one! I'm glad that we have these handy dandy little
planners because otherwise I would have no hope of remembering what I do every
day. haha
Monday
we had our normal pday festivities (email/shop etc) and then we went to the
Hattiesburg building and met up with a bunch of other missionaries! When it was time to end pday, I drove back to
Richton with one of the Sandhill sisters and the other Sandhill sister went to
Oak Grove with my companion! I love
Richton. I feel like I really connected with it that one day I biked all of it
(it's teeeeny) in the pouring rain. Also
it's so small and I've been there on like 4 exchanges so I know almost
everyone. It's so fun. haha
Tuesday
I did NOT have to bike all around Richton but we did see a whole bunch of
people :) They had 2 baptisms! That was way cool to witness! EVERY field is white ready to harvest. EVERY
area.
Tuesday
night, we switched back so my comp and I made it back to Oak Grove in time for
a dinner appointment and a Relief Society activity! The activity was fishing at a member's lake
(the south.) and one of our investigators had been looking forward to it for
WEEKS. We went to be there for her but
it turned out to be kinda pointless because she is a VERY serious fisherwoman. She had 3 poles in the water and checked them
periodically and would tell us that we were scaring the fish if we talked too
loud. Soooo it wasn't super social for
her but she had so much fun!!
Wednesday was busy! I had a spider bite on my leg that got infected, so the mission nurse told me to go to the doctor. I saw the doctor for like .4 seconds and he gave me prescriptions for an antibiotic ointment and some pills. So that's been fun. From there, we had a full day of appointments!
We
had a great lesson with our investigator who went to the RS the night before!
She couldn't hear the spiritual thought at the activity so she got it from the sister
who gave it and we read it together. It was a story about Christ multiplying
the loaves and fishes (appropriate for a fishing activity) and how He can help
us make more of ourselves. I don't know how but somehow it turned into a
"when are you going to get baptized?" lesson. She's working on it!
She still wants to get baptized. She just needs to commit. She can do it! That
was a fun lesson :)
Then
we went to our dinner appointment with an older couple. When we were talking beforehand about what to
share with them, we came up with repentance. But then we were like, "how
do you teach repentance to an active member older couple without it being a
smack in the face?" so we shared the story in Matthew of "what lack I
yet?" and talked about how repentance is really just change! We all need
to change things to be better. The sister
was wiping away tears and said, "That was just what we needed to
hear." I don't know why but I'm glad that we had the Spirit to give them
just what they needed to hear! Literally feel like an instrument. I didn't make
the music. I was just the channel for it. That was cool.
Thursday
was zone conference! Woo! President taught at first. He shared a video about
missionary work and the Atonement (from a talk by Elder Holland) and it was
amazing. Then the zone leaders taught how to set number goals and then we
taught on how to set personal goals! After lunch, we were going to teach on how
to be confident that the Spirit can lead you to know what to do and say. We
were planning on having like 30 minutes but then right before, the zone leaders
were like "Y’all can have like an hour for that" and we were like
"WHAT" but it turned out okay :)
Also,
a tradition we have is that all the missionaries bear their testimonies at
their last zone conference. AND IT WAS MY TURN. Everyone starts their testimonies with
"I never thought it'd be my turn." I refrained from saying that
because everyone else does but I never did think it'd be my turn! I remember
realizing a while ago that my testimony has gotten a lot simpler on my mission.
I know all the same things to be true and I've learned a lot more things but I
can't really say them eloquently. I just know them. I know that God hears my
prayers. I know that Christ is my Savior. I can't think of how else to say it!
It just is true.
Friday
we went to the bishop's storehouse! It's really fun to go and help but
sometimes there are too missionaries there to be too helpful so we had an
intense weekly planning session instead and it was awesome! We went out trying former investigators and
had some weird experiences… We met one lady who said that the guy we were
looking for moved and so we asked her if she was religious and she started
crying and said "I've turned to God" and then shut the door. I feel
like we should have said something else but we both just kinda stared at her
not knowing what to do. Then we went to another door and asked for the name.
The guy just looked at us. He asked us why we wanted to know. So we told him
we're missionaries and he said something confusing about him not being
interested and I asked if he was the guy we were looking for and he said that
"That information is irrelevant to you" and shut the door. What?? It was a random afternoon.
Saturday
we were determined to tract! We tracted for an HOUR at NOON and then
realized that was probably not a great idea. We took it a little slower that
afternoon.. haha That night we were
going to tract again so off we went! We knocked on 3 doors and no one answered.
Then, on the 4th, I said the most boring, generic, stupid door approach EVER:
"Hi! We're missionaries from our
church and we're sharing a message about Jesus Christ." I think that's
literally word for word what I said. haha and her response? "Come
in!" Sometimes I worry about how
crazy it is to be a missionary because it is literally our goal to get invited
into a stranger's home. Well we talked to her for like an hour! She grew up
Southern Baptist but lost interest in church because of how they treated her
and her family. She talked a lot about
how she sees her purpose on earth is to be a good person. She said that it
makes a lot more sense to her to be a good person and help others JUST to help
others instead of hoping to get an eternal reward. I swear. It's the atheists
that I've met on my mission who are more Christian than a lot of the
Christians. I could probably count on ONE hand how many people I've met on my
mission who DIDN'T grow up going to a Christian church. The ones who left their
church left because they saw something WRONG with it! The true church is
restored, y’all!!! She sent us off with
cucumbers from her garden and a Christian rock CD. I'm so excited to listen to
that when I get home.
On
Sunday, church was especially good :) We
spent the afternoon tracting and decided to knock on the shady side of the
street. :) We met a lady who is Hare
Krishna! It was cool to talk to her about what she believes. She is one of the
few people I've met in the South who didn't grow up Christian. It was a fun conversation.
CHURCH
SIGNS (I went all the way out to Richton so I got some good ones):
"righteousness
exalts a nation"
"when
we walk with God, people will notice"
"Happy
Fathers day"
"God
is greater than the problem we have"
"come
share the love of Christ"
"the
steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord and he delighteth in His ways"
"praise
the Savior. Tell others what a privilege"
"look
to God for your strength and as a shield"
"we
should love others the way Jesus loves"
I
LOVE Y’ALL
stay
cool
Love,
Sister
Nash
 |
| God is love #theSouth |
Week of June 27 –
July 4 (in Hattiesburg, Mississippi)
This is from Sarah’s former companion:
On the 4th of July, we were invited to go to the
Bishop’s family reunion in Columbia! It
was so cool because like everyone on the ward is related to them! The Bishop’s
parents and 4 or 5 of his siblings are in the ward! And his wife’s parents and 4 or 5 of her siblings
are in the ward too! So we went to this
reunion and it was so fun! We watched
fireworks and helped with some family games and all kinds of fun things! :)
Also last Monday, we went fishing! It was so much fun! :)
So big news: Transfers came up and Sister Nash left
me! :( It made me so sad!
I am currently reading the Book of
Mormon and highlighting every time it mentions Christ and also highlighting
whenever he speaks! Let me tell you, it
is so cool to see how much The Book of Mormon prophets talked of Christ! It is
really a testimony builder to see how much they loved their Savior even before
he came to the Earth! There is no doubt in my mind that those men were inspired
to write the things they did! I just want to leave my testimony that I know
that the Book of Mormon is true! I know it is still necessary that we have/read
from the Bible! I also know that if we want to know if this is true we can read
from the Book of Mormon and pray about it, and I know Heavenly Father will
answer! He has answered me and I know he will answer you too! So I encourage
you that if you haven't done this to do it! I can promise it will make your
life happier and you will feel more at peace!
Week of July 5 –
11 (in Shreveport, Louisiana): SHRRRRRRRREPOR!
That's
how you pronounce Shreveport. You don't say the T at the end. You just say it
exactly like the little firefly says it in The
Princess and the Frog! Except don't watch it without me because I've been
wanting to watch it for literally 17 months now.
I'm
not even actually in Shreveport! I live in the town next to it, Bossier City! I
have heard so much about this neck of the mission. So many people I've known
have served here! There are 4 sets of missionaries in the Bossier ward! That's
crazy. I am in a trio and it's funny
because I was STL to BOTH of my companions in Hattiesburg! We have a car FULL-TIME and we live in a nice apartment
complex, so it's good here.
One
of my companions and I actually rode the transfer van the whole way here on
Tuesday without knowing that we would be companions! She will go home one week
after I do, which is the actual transfer day.
(My other companion just celebrated her 1/2 way day - 9months - this
past week!) Once we got here on Tuesday, we
didn't do much of anything but eat dinner and email, then shop and go to bed.
Wednesday we
went through the area book and had district meeting. We have a huge district!
There are 4 sets of missionaries in the Bossier ward and 2 sets in the Brownlee
ward. I know about 1/2 of them. The other 1/2 I've never heard of because I'm
almost done with my mission. Haha
Wednesday we
had our first lesson trio teaching! None of us had ever been in a trio before,
so we realized how cool it is to be in a trio because there are THREE people to
testify instead of just 2. So we decided that we'd just each testify about
every point of every lesson (and we'd keep it SHORT haha) and it's been working
AWESOME. Even since our first lesson, we haven't had any awkward lessons
together. Even with 3 of us! It's funny because we keep saying stuff like
"why do people think trios are so hard??" we have fun.
We
met a recent convert who was only baptized a few weeks ago. Now, we're teaching his little brother who
wants to be baptized! That night,
we had correlation. We went to the church early to meet all the people at
Mutual!
Thursday we
spent all morning at a place called the Renesting Inc or something. It's a nonprofit that takes donations of
household things and uses them to help furnish houses/apartments of people who
are transitioning from homeless to a home. It's really cool! It's like working
in the thrift store at Oak Grove. We go through donations and sort and
organize. It's really cool because we got a tour and it made me excited to work
with nonprofits, even though I don't really want to do much with this specific
type of nonprofit. It was still cool.
Also, their receptionist doesn't come in until later in the day, so I was
trained how to answer the phone! We went in and they asked "does anyone
have any phone experience?" and I was taken back to my Vegas PBS days and
my 4H days.. so I'm the phone answerer for like an hour. They have a little
binder with answers to common questions. :)
That
night we went to Haughton! It's the little town outside of our area. We went
and had dinner with a hilarious military family (part of our area includes the
Barksdale AFB!) where the kids played scripture charades and acted out Nephi
killing Laban! That was funny :) Then we
saw a less active sister that the sisters have been seeing for a while. We were talking about Enos and prayer and she
said, "This is kinda off topic but I want to share with y’all what I read
in my scriptures the other day!" So she got her Book of Mormon and read
the Psalm of Nephi to us. She told us how she was talking about the last lesson
she'd had (on forgiveness) and the Psalm of Nephi was a perfect answer for her.
Then it turned into an amazing discussion on the power of the scriptures. It
was soo cool. It was awesome to see her apply a lesson that I wasn't even here
for! :)
That
night we had a lesson with twin sisters who live together. We answered their questions about the
Restoration and fought off their 5 GIANT labs. I don't like big dogs very much!
Thursday was
my companion's halfway day so we celebrated by getting 1/2 price shakes at
Sonic! Except our other companion has more willpower than both of us combined
and she didn't get one.
Friday we
weekly planned! We also went to the
library and started MyPlan. (Note:
MyPlan is an “online course for missionaries… to help them create a plan
for how they will continue to follow Christ” after their missions.) It was
cool. Week 1 was just about how goals
are important and we had to write down like 6 things we've learned from our
mission (3 spiritual truths we've learned and 3 Christlike attributes we've
developed). I finished the whole week 1
things (there were videos to watch and stuff) in a like an hour but we got
kicked off the computers before my comp could finish so we had to go
back on Saturday. I did not realize that we print out our answers at the
end and take them to our final interview with President. I think that's why she
was taking so long.. haha
Saturday we
did a lot of service :) We helped clean
the church and then we helped a lady who had back surgery clean her house.
Things get done a lot faster when you have 3 people working together! We each took one room and were DONE in an
hour!
Saturday night
we tracted! The only down side to being
in a trio is that there are physically a lot more people on the stranger's
doorstep. We haven't had a lot of member-present lessons this week because then
it'd be FOUR people showing up on a door step. People just don't have that many
chairs for all of us. Haha We met a lady
who let us RIGHT in and we taught the whole Restoration and she told us that
she has been wondering why there are so many churches and which one is right.
#WORTHIT makes my job worth it.
Sunday was
church! It was really good! I didn't know hardly anyone at all but I really
learned a lot from the lessons. After
church we visited a lot of members, including a less active sister. We talked about the tree of life. We read 1
Nephi 8 and said that there's a lot of symbolism to the vision but we didn't
say what any of it was and left her with 1 Nephi 11 to read so she could figure
out on her own what it all means. I felt
sneaky but it was fun. We had dinner with members on the military base (had to
get clearance! that was exciting) and then visited with members who live in our
apartment complex.
Today,
we're going to the church to play volleyball with the elders. The only thing I
know going on this week is zone training meeting on Wednesday! The zone
leaders and STLs will teach what they learned at MLC and I don't even have to
do anything but show up and learn! That's exciting :) I know interviews are this
transfer but I don't know when. It's kinda fun to not know what's going on..
haha
There
are not NEARLY as many church signs here :(
"a
life rooted in God stands firm"
"a
call to repentance 2 Chronicles 7:14"
"Jesus
is Lord"
"every
patriotic heart should beat red white and blue"
"to
enjoy the future, accept God's forgiveness for the past"
"quit
existing, start living"
Love,
Sister Nash
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