Happy Thanksgiving Y'all!! Here in Wilson the ward they really know how to do a good Thanksgiving dinner AND lunch. We got fed twice! It was wonderful food and great company. We were so grateful that the members invited us over to have Thanksgiving with them and their families. Also we chased a chicken and had fun washing Sarah's car. On another day of the week we went to do service at the Bennett's home. We cut back probably five azalea bushes and ripped out more thrones and briers than I can count!! I only got one bad scratch. It was so fun to spend some time ripping things apart. Sister Kerr and I joked that all day we spend our time building peoples testimonies, their faith, their trust, their obedience, every once in a while it's good to just tear something down!! And then they fed us so that was great :)
We have seen many blessing from sacrifice this holiday week. For example on black Friday when we would have been shopping with our families back home, we were out talking to everyone and getting up at 6:30 in the morning to study and exercise. But from that sacrifice we found Taneshia. She is gold and we love her! As well this week we found four new investigators and three strong potentials! The gospel is good!! When we show our Heavenly Father that we are willing to give up what we want for what He wants, we find that in the end it was what we wanted all along.
Also we got a Christmas tree!!! One of the members is letting us barrow her small tree so we can have Christmas too!! This ward really is just to sweet to us. They love us and care for us so much. So during this holiday season as you are spending your time with your families remember those who have left theirs. That could be missionaries, those in the military, or even neighbors who are away from their families. Love them and serve them. I love all y'all lots and hope you have a blessed week!!
This past week was a blast! We had so much fun getting into the Christmas spirit and sharing the new #lighttheworld video with everyone. If you haven't seen it you should go look it up on mormon.org. It is so good, its all about ways that we can serve, just like the Savior did, this Christmas. I love it.
We are teaching some amazing part member families right now. Their kids are just so full of faith and the desire to learn and be baptized!! They are such great examples to their parents. Children just have so much joy and love for the gospel. Also tis the season to be jolly and drink LOTS of hot chocolate!! It is the best drink for the season! December has officially started and it was still in the 70s outside!! We walked to many of our appointments this week. It felt so great to get some extra exercise and save some miles. Plus the wonderful members keep giving us treats and we just happen to keep eating them! Haha who knew when you give a missionary a brownie they will eat it :) and then take another. We have also decorated for Christmas this week. It was fun to really get excited for the holidays. We even have a little nativity to help us remember the true meaning of Christmas. Just again the members here are so wonderful as they have been serving us by feeding us and helping us by coming to lessons, filling our tires with air, and letting us barrow instruments (sister Kerr plays the viola), these are just a few of the acts of service they do that really brighten our day. I hope you all have a very merry Christmas season as you remember the birth of our savior Jesus Christ. I love you!
This week has been grand! We now have eight baptismal dates set, we shall see just how many go though. But we did have two interviews yesterday for the Bailey kids! They are getting baptized on my birthday :) it is so exciting. They, as well as four of our other baptismal date, are a part member family that we have been working with. They are all youth that were less active so they never got baptized but now their families are coming back to church! It just makes me so happy.
Last Monday a member took us Christmas shopping, so now our house is pretty decked out for the holiday. I went on exchange to Goldsboro on Tuesday and had lots of fun teaching with Sisters Nelson and Walkter. They are great. Plus I got to help deep clean their apartment, I love cleaning so that was fun. I did their kitchen. I can just imagine my dad reading this and saying to himself "sense when do you like cleaning??" haha. The ward Christmas party was a blast. They did a night in Bethlehem, it turned out wonderful. They had story telling and soap carving and period foods. The ward did a great job. On Thursday we had an amazing opportunity to help set up for the ward nativity. This is an open house for the community that is held at the church. There were over 340 different nativities that had been lent from ward members as well as members of the community. There was also a room just full of pictures of Christ. It was beautiful! Sister Kerr and I had been having a bad day until we felt the spirit of this even. I loved it. Then Friday the nativity was open to the public. Sister Kerr played the viola with some others for a live musical number both Friday and Saturday. She is amazing. Then Sunday we had such an amazing sacrament meeting about the resurrection and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The spirit in that chapel was so strong. I cant even explain it. I just love this Christmas season and the spirit that it brings. I love you all and wish you a very Merry Christmas!!
Tis the season to do service!! The missionaries love service, we were so grateful to Sister Whaley for providing us with some service on Tuesday. She invited us to make cookies for her to pass out for the 25 days of Christmas initiative. She explained that she was doing service everyday even if it didn't fit the theme for that specific day. But hey we loved it. We got to make cookies in a warm house with a Sister we love and then pass them out, and then she fed us dinner :) It was a great night.
The weather here has been crazy! It got really cold on Friday and then warmer on Saturday and then up in the 70's on Sunday!! Not it is cold and rainy again... but that is just so crazy!!!
We are so excited for Christmas to come! Some nights we count the Christmas lights that we see. There are a few homes that have really gone all out with their lights... its really cool.
This weeks spiritual experience started off pretty rough. We had a headquarter referral for a man who ordered a bible. Well we went to deliver the bible to him and it started great, he welcomed us in (we had a member with us) and started telling us about himself. We testified of the Book of Mormon and he asked questions. After about three minutes of this his mood changed drastically. He became more demanding and loud. He started asking us multiple questions and not giving us the chance to answer them. We did our best to stay calm and testify of truths that we have come to know through our own prayer and study. Well that was not good enough for him. He was asking questions that he didn't really want the answers to. It ended with him yelling at us to go tell the people who taught us that they were wrong and that we all needed to pray again! It escalated pretty quickly.... we felt so bad for the member we had brought with us. But we agreed that we had both handled it very well. The interesting part was that anytime we spoke the spirit was there, at least to us. But when he was speaking the spirit was gone. In contrast to the first man we had another headquarter referral who we went to deliver a bible to. This man was probably about the same age and had many of the same questions, but unlike the first man, he was willing to listen. We had a great lesson on the Book of Mormon and we set up another time to come back. In our past mission conference Elder Bennett talked a lot about finding the elect and being able to distinguish between them and everyone else. It really made sense after these two experiences that happened in the same day just hours apart. But we would have never known if we had never opened our mouths to talk to them. After having our first experience we could have giving up for the day and not really talked to the second man, if that was the case we would not be teaching him now. So never give up even when you have a rough experience, Heavenly Father will lead us to those who are ready to hear what we have to say.
Well as always I love you all and wish you a very merry Christmas!
We have seen many blessing from sacrifice this holiday week. For example on black Friday when we would have been shopping with our families back home, we were out talking to everyone and getting up at 6:30 in the morning to study and exercise. But from that sacrifice we found Taneshia. She is gold and we love her! As well this week we found four new investigators and three strong potentials! The gospel is good!! When we show our Heavenly Father that we are willing to give up what we want for what He wants, we find that in the end it was what we wanted all along.
Also we got a Christmas tree!!! One of the members is letting us barrow her small tree so we can have Christmas too!! This ward really is just to sweet to us. They love us and care for us so much. So during this holiday season as you are spending your time with your families remember those who have left theirs. That could be missionaries, those in the military, or even neighbors who are away from their families. Love them and serve them. I love all y'all lots and hope you have a blessed week!!
This past week was a blast! We had so much fun getting into the Christmas spirit and sharing the new #lighttheworld video with everyone. If you haven't seen it you should go look it up on mormon.org. It is so good, its all about ways that we can serve, just like the Savior did, this Christmas. I love it.
We are teaching some amazing part member families right now. Their kids are just so full of faith and the desire to learn and be baptized!! They are such great examples to their parents. Children just have so much joy and love for the gospel. Also tis the season to be jolly and drink LOTS of hot chocolate!! It is the best drink for the season! December has officially started and it was still in the 70s outside!! We walked to many of our appointments this week. It felt so great to get some extra exercise and save some miles. Plus the wonderful members keep giving us treats and we just happen to keep eating them! Haha who knew when you give a missionary a brownie they will eat it :) and then take another. We have also decorated for Christmas this week. It was fun to really get excited for the holidays. We even have a little nativity to help us remember the true meaning of Christmas. Just again the members here are so wonderful as they have been serving us by feeding us and helping us by coming to lessons, filling our tires with air, and letting us barrow instruments (sister Kerr plays the viola), these are just a few of the acts of service they do that really brighten our day. I hope you all have a very merry Christmas season as you remember the birth of our savior Jesus Christ. I love you!
This week has been grand! We now have eight baptismal dates set, we shall see just how many go though. But we did have two interviews yesterday for the Bailey kids! They are getting baptized on my birthday :) it is so exciting. They, as well as four of our other baptismal date, are a part member family that we have been working with. They are all youth that were less active so they never got baptized but now their families are coming back to church! It just makes me so happy.
Last Monday a member took us Christmas shopping, so now our house is pretty decked out for the holiday. I went on exchange to Goldsboro on Tuesday and had lots of fun teaching with Sisters Nelson and Walkter. They are great. Plus I got to help deep clean their apartment, I love cleaning so that was fun. I did their kitchen. I can just imagine my dad reading this and saying to himself "sense when do you like cleaning??" haha. The ward Christmas party was a blast. They did a night in Bethlehem, it turned out wonderful. They had story telling and soap carving and period foods. The ward did a great job. On Thursday we had an amazing opportunity to help set up for the ward nativity. This is an open house for the community that is held at the church. There were over 340 different nativities that had been lent from ward members as well as members of the community. There was also a room just full of pictures of Christ. It was beautiful! Sister Kerr and I had been having a bad day until we felt the spirit of this even. I loved it. Then Friday the nativity was open to the public. Sister Kerr played the viola with some others for a live musical number both Friday and Saturday. She is amazing. Then Sunday we had such an amazing sacrament meeting about the resurrection and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The spirit in that chapel was so strong. I cant even explain it. I just love this Christmas season and the spirit that it brings. I love you all and wish you a very Merry Christmas!!
Tis the season to do service!! The missionaries love service, we were so grateful to Sister Whaley for providing us with some service on Tuesday. She invited us to make cookies for her to pass out for the 25 days of Christmas initiative. She explained that she was doing service everyday even if it didn't fit the theme for that specific day. But hey we loved it. We got to make cookies in a warm house with a Sister we love and then pass them out, and then she fed us dinner :) It was a great night.
The weather here has been crazy! It got really cold on Friday and then warmer on Saturday and then up in the 70's on Sunday!! Not it is cold and rainy again... but that is just so crazy!!!
We are so excited for Christmas to come! Some nights we count the Christmas lights that we see. There are a few homes that have really gone all out with their lights... its really cool.
This weeks spiritual experience started off pretty rough. We had a headquarter referral for a man who ordered a bible. Well we went to deliver the bible to him and it started great, he welcomed us in (we had a member with us) and started telling us about himself. We testified of the Book of Mormon and he asked questions. After about three minutes of this his mood changed drastically. He became more demanding and loud. He started asking us multiple questions and not giving us the chance to answer them. We did our best to stay calm and testify of truths that we have come to know through our own prayer and study. Well that was not good enough for him. He was asking questions that he didn't really want the answers to. It ended with him yelling at us to go tell the people who taught us that they were wrong and that we all needed to pray again! It escalated pretty quickly.... we felt so bad for the member we had brought with us. But we agreed that we had both handled it very well. The interesting part was that anytime we spoke the spirit was there, at least to us. But when he was speaking the spirit was gone. In contrast to the first man we had another headquarter referral who we went to deliver a bible to. This man was probably about the same age and had many of the same questions, but unlike the first man, he was willing to listen. We had a great lesson on the Book of Mormon and we set up another time to come back. In our past mission conference Elder Bennett talked a lot about finding the elect and being able to distinguish between them and everyone else. It really made sense after these two experiences that happened in the same day just hours apart. But we would have never known if we had never opened our mouths to talk to them. After having our first experience we could have giving up for the day and not really talked to the second man, if that was the case we would not be teaching him now. So never give up even when you have a rough experience, Heavenly Father will lead us to those who are ready to hear what we have to say.
Well as always I love you all and wish you a very merry Christmas!