Tuesday, December 30, 2014

 Its a Holy Night y'all! 

   It was so much funny to see my family last week! I am so glad God sent me the silliest bunch off goofballs he could make so that way I wasn't in tears the whole time! I wish I had a recording of Colin and Grace Ballet dancing for me. Of all the performances they have ever given, I think that one was my favorite. I was grateful that we were able to spend an hour together. Once it was over it felt like a dream, it is a nice dream to think about though! Christmas was good! After I got off everyone played a game sorta like Bang called Puerto Rico while brother Turley and I watched Bible videos. Those Bible Videos the Church just put out are SO EPIC!! I already love the Bible but those videos made me love it more! Sister Forbes at some point convinced me that Paul was black (which I thought was AWESOME) so I read all of the books in the Bible he wrote (so basically I read the entire new testament) and fell in love with Acts and the first book of Corinthians. I love Paul, he is an amazing missionary. All the Book of Mormon missionaries are too humble. I need some one attainable who is makes mistakes...and is sassy. Paul is a sass-o-frass. One of our investigators met one of our members, she didn't think to say "they have tags with the name of your church on it" and she told us what she said to try and explain who we are to them "one of them has pretty red hair and the other is SO meek and mild and lowly" Yeah. I am the one with pretty hair. Sorry Mom.
     Okay enough ADD! Sister Fry and I have been sick so our numbers were down pretty bad this last week haha I mean REALLY bad! So this week we are going to reach all of our goals and get those 7 hours of tracting! We are super pumped! Heavenly father has been blessing us for our efforts! I am so proud of Sister Fry (my tugboat) she really has taken on her nickname truly. The past two days are technically days off, but did we waver or falter? NO! We taught three lessons on day of service and went and did and hour of tracting on our p-day!
     But our p-day has been super fun because after we biked in the FREEZING COLD (where am I? I could barely move it is so cold) to the area to tract we went with the Elders to Leeland where the duh duh duh! the Jim Henson Museum is! The creator of the Muppets and Kermit was raise in Leeland, he refers to it as the birthplace of the green frog. Which is super funny because I have eaten frog legs in Leeland. One of the original Kermits lives in the museum and a lot of awesome memorabilia! The best one is the Giant Stuffed Kermit the frog you can take a picture with! The Elders thought it was lame but Sister Fry and I LOVED it. The Blues museum was closed for the holidays:( So sad! And silly! Isn't that when you can make the most money?
     I want to make sure Sister Fry gets to have time to practice piano so I am going to share a spiritual experience and any other random things I can think of and finish up!
   SO! Recently everyone one in the mission has been telling us to try this message of missionary work. Where you pick a specific person you will find. I will illustrate this concept with a story. And let it be noted that this is two out of many other examples. Before we went tracting Sister Fry and I said a prayer where I asked specifically to find some one who had been prepared to make temple covenants. I didn't think to much of it, right as we were right about to end our tracting we knocked on this door and a man about Dad's age answered and we told him"Hi! We are knocking on your door so we can share a message about Christ that has changed out lives!Can we share that message with you?" he looked really uncomfortable for a second and VERY reluctantly let us come in. His wife told us as we walked into the living room "you bettuh make this quick cause I gotta go pick up my nephew (pronounced nef-uh)" I awkwardly moved the coffee table away from right next to the couch and we sat. 
   The next thing that happened is actually more common than you think it would be.
"We like to start our message with a prayer, would that be all right with you?"
stares at us for a second
 "sure if you need to"
*Sister Missionaries shift uncomfortably
"okay who would you like to say it" (it is supposed to be out of courtesy to them but 65% HATE that question)  "umm....*silence* it don't matter. one of you can do it"
"Sister White will you say the prayer for us?"
"I would love to Sister Fry!"
after all that weirdness! I whipped out my Bible (if we are short of time I usually share a principal out of the Bible, it usually promises a return appointment where I can actually have time to explain the Book of Mormon or prophets) usually I will share some scripture that talks about Christ and we will share an uplifting message about the atonement. But this time around I shared...
1 Peter Chapter 4: For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.
and another in chapter 3 where it talks about Christ visiting the spirits in prison after He had be crucified. See where I was headed? I told this couple that if they know anyone who has died without a REAL chance to accept Christ there is a place where they can do that 
"we call it the spirit world" Said Sister Fry (I am going to to tell this storybook style now)
We continued to teach for a minute.
"We also believe that even after we die that we can still be with our families, that families can be together forever" Said Sister White
"We receive these blessing through temples, have you ever heard of temples before?" said Sister Fry
     She stopped and thought about it "no. where are there these  temples"
Sister White gives a TON of examples. Mainly when Christ cast out the money changers of the temple.
"where are these Temples?" 
"The one I usually go to is near my home in Washington, it is called the Seattle Washington temple, the closest one to you right now is the Memphis Tennessee temple!"
She kept asking questions but our time was up, even I knew she had to leave. So I said"We don't want you to be late! When can we come back and teach you about temples"
"well you can come back, but I don't think I will ever go to your temple in Seattle or baton rouge" 
we set a return appointment, that her husband requested to us that we schedule so he could be there. And went on our way, as we walked back to our car later that night she drove up "so you can pray for people who are dead and be put with them forever in these temples"
"Yes! You can be sealed together forever! Even to those of your family who have died." 
"Okay. Just making sure." And she drove off. I am really hoping that this story has an even happier ending. But I still count it as the highlight of the week! Thank you so much for all of the wonderful cards and gifts! I wish I had time to write you a thank you note! But things like that seem to never get done both because I am a missionary but also because on top of that I am ME!
I love yall so much! I hope the rest of the year treats you well!
Here is a Mormon message about the new year that I LOVE!


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