Sarah Missionary Letter from Vicksburg: Approximately #12

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

This week was really stressful! We were pretty confident the whole time that my companion Sister Walker was going to leave, but we couldn't know for sure until President calls...or doesn't so we couldn't plan ahead and we didn't have any time to come to terms with it! AHH SO MUCH CRAZINESS! I am a little emotionally drained from crying (I am really going to miss Sister Walker, even though she is a little stinker) and trying to figure out what to do when she is gone (SHE USED ALMOST ALL OF OUR MILES! And we still have to drive even though she is gone! Thank you for sending in my driving record because now I am driving! 

But we had a lot of amazing lessons this week! Sister Walker decided she was going to put everything on the table! So our lessons got really intense! Seriously. It was like we were the sister missionary form of Elder Holland!! We were teaching this couple about how much Heavenly Father loves us and the spirit was SO STRONG and we felt prompted to commit them to baptism. They told us, " Yeah, but we have already been baptized." We didn't know what to say because we hadn't taught them the restoration yet... BUT GUESS WHAT!!?? They said, "Yeah, okay, I think it would be nice to be baptized again!" BAH BAM! THE HOLY SPIRIT STRIKES AGAIN!!

We are finally teaching this lady we tracted into! We have been visiting, cleaning for, and leaving spiritual messages with her for the past 3 months and guess what! We gave her a Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, and she is into the Book of Mormon! She has almost read the whole thing! We went to visit her on Thursday, and the Spirit was working through my Macbeth genes! Because I started to cry...but I had no idea why...When she asked me what was wrong I just started talking. I think it was the strongest moment where I felt the Gift of Tongues, (okay I think Gospel principles calls it something else...but I do not have my GP book with me) so far in my whole mission. Sister Walker told me afterwards (I promise you I can barely remember anything I said to her) that I told her that the Gospel was my most precious possession (I am paraphrasing) and I told her how much we love her and because we love her that we want to share the gospel with her! And I asked her if we could teach her the lesson! Kind of crazy! But we are teaching her “the Restoration” to her this Thursday! And cleaning her house!

I think being a Sister Missionary is 45% teaching 10% travel 15%finding 30% cleaning. The only service we have ever been asked to do is cleaning.

One of our new investigators with a baptismal date is 18! Which has been really fun! Teenagers are the best investigators, because you know right away if they do not get something or are no longer interested and because they are young they have open minds and soft hearts, BUT they are old enough to understand the principles we teach them! SO go find the elders some teenagers to teach!

Elder Capron is the new district leader (he is very sweet but he has a very bad speech impediment) and we are nervous but excited for him and hope he does well especially because he is training a brand new missionary!! It was so funny driving home from transfers and listening to him freak out about the dead armadillos on the highway! It is crazy how far I have come since I left the MTC!

I am excited to tell you how my first week with my new Caribbean companion goes!!

         People keep telling me that this is going to be the hottest week of the summer...but actually I think it is starting to cool off! It blows my mind every time I notice that it is almost September! 

Bishop Johnson keeps giving us ghost peppers from his garden...I do not know what to do with them? Any ideas?

I am having trouble focusing because my body ACHES! I washed all of our walls (they get dirty easily because of the humidity...) and scrubbed the mold/dust/mineral build up off of the baseboards and the layer of mold off of our door and balcony. I was really grateful because a lady came to paint our door frame right after I washed it! We gave her a mormon.org card because she was curious about what us missionaries talk about. As we were leaving she commented on how nice it was that we kept our doorway clean! How embarrassing would it have been if she had to wash our moldy, cobwebby door after we told her about the church! Because we are in Mississippi we really cannot get away with skipping deep cleaning on pre-transfer day of service, so it was really hard doing it all myself while Sister Walker packed.         

There is a bananna spider building a web on the stairwell by our apartment and Sister Walker told me she would take me out to dinner if I poked it...I never understood what is meant to be “paralyzed” by fear until that moment. I REALLY tried to touch it! But I could not make myself! Yeah-- I go a different direction just to avoid looking at it...Their webs are HUGE though! The stairwell is about 15 feet wide and its web spans the the whole stairwell!  SO GROSS!

         I need to start taking pictures of all of the weird bugs we find here! I have seen so many different types of beetles here! AND THE MOTHS!! AH---Mississippi is Mutant Moth Central! They are either normal-sized and really creepy, or they are HUGE and normal-looking! But today when we were leaving Vicksburg the trunk popped open, so we pulled over and I got out to move the luggage and close it. When I was getting back in the car, I stepped into a fire ant hill and they swarmed all over my foot! Sister Walker heard me shouting and got out and she stomped on my foot for me. That is all you can do, because if you use your hands they will crawl onto your arms and you can only do so much with the bottom of your shoe. But yes...my foot is on fire! I will be wearing my derbies this week because the top of my feet are so gross looking! Fire ants leave small red bites, but they blister.

I am LOVING MY MISSION! If they allowed Sister Missionaries to extend: I WOULD IN A HEARTBEAT! I will never live here, but the South has my heart! 

I love you all so very much!