Any Way We Can Find Them!

Oi Gente! This week was pretty mellow, but that doesn't mean nothing happened! We started the week off with a Zoom call with the entire east half of the mission and the social media specialists. They wanted to give a few more points on how the new 🎉Mission Wide Facebook Page🎉 will work/what we should do. Holy cow did they talk forever, but it’s alright. There was a Q&A portion at the end and I actually was intending to ask something, but when I began to speak, our connection fell through and the Wi-Fi didn't work for hours. Just my luck, right?!

Of course, what would missionary work be without some service right? This past week gave me the opportunity to serve two awesome families. One of these families lives just a few blocks from us, and we found them through them responding to a Facebook service post/ad thing. They asked for us to literally take out an entire wall on their house, for they planned to have a garage door placed in its stead. With that task in front of us, we utilized the couple of hammers and the one drill that we had and we successfully took down their wall without a single casualty! The other person we served was actually the first councilor in the ward bishopric, whose daughter just turned 8 (we'll get to that momentarily). We trimmed some bushes and took things to the dump, nothing too crazy. Then with the same family, we went to a Baptist church and helped them with a food drive!

For the youth's activity, we were invited to come and talk about what it's like to be a missionary, why we came out on a mission, and what we wish we knew before coming out. It was pretty cool, and let's just say... I came with visuals haha. The boys really enjoyed themselves and when I ran into them throughout the week, they would come up to me and say how really grateful they were for my advice. They're a bunch of beasts. Oh yeah, there is only ONE YOUNG WOMAN in the entire ward! Well, active that is. I am getting to know more of the members and I hope to use that to my advantage in future lessons in fellowshipping other people. 

I also was blessed by the Lord with the opportunity to be introduced to a family that had been referred to us! This family was given to us by some missionaries up in Massachusetts that found the mom (Sharroya) and had her come to church with them until she finally moved down here! The family consists of Sharroya (40ish), Ejay (17), Layla (13), Nalya (9), and then two other little girls who are also named Sharroya – lol. We had a weird first encounter with Sharroya, but since then, we've become homies. Our first time seeing her and the fam in person, was at the baptism of Quinn (the girl who just turned 8). They enjoyed it and I had the chance to take the younger girls up to see the baptism up close:) After the baptism, we gave them a church tour and it was quite the party. It wasn't as much of a party as the lesson we had with them AFTER THEY CAME TO CHURCH!!! There were a lot of distractions going on with all of these little kids in the room, but the spirit was still strong and we were able to put Sharroya and Ejay on date for April 17th! Trust me when I say that this family is elect. I will be sure to give it my best and be the missionary they deserve and help them come unto Christ's fold through the gates of baptism! CHOO CHOOOO!

Angels Among Us

I'm sorry that I was unable to write y’all an email this last week, so I'll just make a short yet detailed list of the big events that happened in these last 14 days of mission life. At the beginning of the other week, I had dinner at a member’s house. Everything was going great, and after the meal, their youngest son wanted to shoot some hoops with us. I placed my phone and wallet on the hood of his mom's car as we were playing and it wasn't until his mom hopped onto the freeway, that I realized I hadn't grabbed my things off her car. I frantically searched the sides of the road where she drove, all the way up until the entrance of the freeway. Nothing! We finally gave up and headed back to the car, we then received a call on our other phone from the Reid family who lived quite nearby and they said they had my phone AND wallet! I guess angels really do look out for me. Brother Reid said that a lady knocked on his door and said that she knew he was from Utah and saw that my license is a Utah one, but the weird thing was, he had never seen this woman before. It was an awesome blessing for me personally and it has really strengthened my testimony of how God is always keeping His servants safe and in good care.

The next day, we had a zone conference with the Maurer's in Goldsboro. It was reaaaalllly long, and they tried to keep us engaged the best they could. They started off their PowerPoint by bringing up "Racism in the Mission", which I thought was weird, but okayyy then lol. It was pretty good though, and they were really focusing on how many different ways missionaries can find people while here in the NCRM. One of those ways just so happens to be us (the missionaries) putting our area code into the phone, and then typing some random numbers afterwards! Looks like we are the newest line of telemarketers in today's world!!

Throughout both of these weeks, I have focused on cleaning up our area book by calling people who haven't been taught in a while, or referrals we’ve received but haven’t gotten in touch yet. I happened to get in contact with a few people who are pretty cool, so I’m going to give a quick intro to these cool kids.

-Jia is a gal who talked with missionaries in the past and we taught her the Restoration right on the spot when we called her.

-Ikea is her daughter and overheard our convo. She is interested in talking with us and one day being baptized!

-Stephanie is a referral who wanted to learn how to truly follow God (through baptism) and she has such a passion for it.

-Juanita was also a referral who originally wanted to know how to pray the right way, and she is planning to come to church this next week, if we can get her a ride!!

-Skip was a guy who wanted some clarity in what he sees going on around him. He has so many beliefs in common with us, but uses different words (Ex. Says "energy" and not "spirit")

Lastly, I wanted to talk about what I have been studying this week. In preparation for this up and coming General Conference, I wanted to go back and see what the prophet has asked each of us to do in the 6 months before this next conference. One thing that President Nelson really pointed out was that we all should study up on all of the blessings that are promised to covenant Israel. With that on my mind, I tried to read up a little bit about it on the church's website and came across the article 'The Abrahamic Covenant: a blessing for all people'. I really like how they narrowed a lot of the blessings into 4 promises given to Abraham from God: A promised land, a great posterity, priesthood and gospel blessings, and lastly, a mission of salvation to others. One scripture that they used in the article (Galatians 3:27-29) really brought it home for me when it says,

27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

29 And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise". 

I feel that if others could truly see how easy it is to be one with Christ and receive the blessings in store for those willing to "Let God Prevail" in their lives, then people would be much happier and the world would be a much better place! 

But what are your thoughts on this subject? What all have you studied about through these last 6 months? I hope that everything is going great and things aren't getting too crazy over there. But anyways, I suck at writing so imma end this here. Tchauuu! 

This Week Was Sick!

This week has been pretty sick! Both literally and metaphorically. Let me explain. On Tuesday, we got a call from my boy, brother Stroman, saying he was in the hospital:( We kept in touch with him throughout the week and instead of just having some intestinal issues, he also has pneumonia now! Be sure to keep him in your prayers!

We had a zone council in Goldsboro and my zone is pretty hype. While there, we had a game of Jeopardy, based on how well we know our companions. It was really fun and we ended up winning the grand prize – a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts! I also found an awesome leather bound copy of Jesus the Christ. I took that as a sign that I should study my scripts more. There are actually about 6 or 7 people in this zone that have the same release date as me so that's pretty cray cray. We set a zone goal of having 8 people baptized for the month of March and I have faith that things will work out!

Throughout this week, I decided that even if my comps don't want to do too much, I’ll get all of our contacts done for the day and set up future lessons. The Lord has seen my efforts and knows my limits. Through my hard work, I have been able to find 2 new people and one person who came to church. Her name is Melinda and we actually put her on date for the 20th of this month!:) I am soo pumped and I hope that I can continue to keep up this intensity. I can see that I sound a little bit selfish when I've been talking, my companions are actually really great missionaries and they have so much experience, they just don't really have the drive to do much if there's nobody on the schedule to teach. So I’m going to keep us busy by setting up lessons!!!

I was able to finally meet Momma Reed's husband this week and boy is he cool! Brother Reed is a pilot for a company that flies around celebrities and other famous people, so he was sharing some of those stories with us when we were over at his house this last week. They were generous enough to get some of the best steak filets I've ever had! These cuts of meat were sooo tender and juicy and the Reeds were just sooo over the top kind to us that evening. I love their family! 

We also had the chance to help a family move out of their house. It was a young couple in the ward that wanted to head out to Morehead city. There were little kids running around the entire time, but they were usually in their giant backyard. After moving the stuff into their moving truck, I was tasked to take down their kid’s big wooden playset thing.  When I was taking it down, we lost the drill bit. I started looking for it with the girls and found nothing. After a while I asked them, "Do you think God knows where the drill bit is?", And they replied, “of course He does”. So we knelt down and had the oldest daughter say a prayer for us to find it. When she finished the prayer, we started looking again for the part on the ground. After about 5 minutes, I looked up and found the drill bit resting on a piece of wood above my head. Upon finding it, I showed it to the girls and the youngest one said, "I think God wanted us to look up towards Him instead of looking down, huh?!" It was a very special experience to me and I am grateful for this amazing new memory!!

These past 3 days I've also been feeling suuuuper sick and in a lot of pain, but that's fine because the more I prayed and relied on the Lord's help, the more I was able to withstand the pain and keep up the work that I'm a part of. It reminded me of when President Ballard just had hand surgery but still needed to do quite a bit of paperwork, so instead of giving up, he said a prayer and asked the Lord to not take his pain away, but to make it bearable and allow him to do the work he needed to do. Kind of how the Israelites or Alma’s people, when they were in bondage; the Lord did not immediately free them from bondage, but first made their burdens light so that they could endure the trial and then they were freed in His time. Anyways, I'm feeling a little better and I hope y’all have a great week. Valeuuu!

Get Out When The Spirit Tells You!

Boa Noite Gente! These past couple of weeks flew by h*cka fast, even though not too much happened. Elder Stohl and I were able to get in quite a few lessons with former investigators and grind out all that needed to be done. We also were able to go with Sophia to her church in Apex!!! Before we left for the meeting, I learned the lesson of not squeezing a Tide Pod too tight... WITH A SUIT ON NO LESS! Needless to say, it got all over me. It's alright though because I just put on my next best thing and headed out the door. Anyways, the meeting was really awesome and we had an amazing opportunity to see the temple in Raleigh once more. Sophia instantly was introduced to quite a few girls her age and made some new friends in her ward! I enjoyed my visit with the APs and even got to see the Maurers as well (and a quick glimpse of my boy, Pres Henderson). When Sophia left, I low key got roasted by President and Sister Maurer about my apparel and hair, along with Elder Stohl. It didn't leave the best taste in my mouth, but it's whatever lol. 

After church, I did the tradition of going to bass lake one last time, and after that... time truly began to fly. First thing I did on Monday morning was take my suit to the dry cleaners. Then that night, I started to explore the attic that I've been eyeing for the past 6 months. I was lucky to have some help from other elders:) Tuesday morning, I started off by finally lighting and sending off the lantern I've had kept on hold for Papa. We then took a picture in front of the Masonic Lodge in Fuquay. I took one last pic with the squad before grabbing my suit and leaving for Raleigh. While at transfers, I only saw President for a few seconds before he disappeared to help some missionaries get ready to return to their original assignments. I went to the table with transfers on it and finally found my name. I’m being transferred to the Rocky Mount area with my new companions, Elder Chapell and Toso. Elder Chapell is from Spanish Fork and is number 6 of 13 kids in his family lol. Elder Toso is from Washington State and was actually in Samoa for the first 2 years of his life. They are both amazing athletes and have about 20 months of mission experience each!

My first "full day" in my area was cut short with a surprise exchange after district council with my district leader's companion, Elder Wilson. I wasn't too happy to go, but it was a pretty good day in the end. While there, we had a lesson with a guy named, Napoleon. All I knew before going to his house was that the sisters passed him off to the elders and that he only likes reading from the book of Revelation. He kept making comments about how he receives revelation for the Mormon Church on how to save them from themselves. Every time I brought up something about our church, he would change the subject. The only time he seemed interested was when I mentioned how we can give blessings, like in James 5:14. He said he wanted us to anoint him with our special oil, so I was like "ight but let's do it inside so there's less distractions" (cause we were in the hood and a lot of crazy was going on around us – lol). We finally got into Revelation and right as we started to explain what we understood for those scriptures, he cut us off yet again and had us read a scripture that talked about false prophets and how they shall be judged of God. I asked him why he wanted us to read that, and he said that those who preach false doctrines need to know the consequences, then he said the lesson was over and that it's time for us to go give him that blessing in his house. Throughout the lesson, I was feeling a little uneasy and I brushed it off because I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt, but by now, I didn't feel good at all. As we were grabbing chairs and taking them back to the house, I grabbed Elder Wishart and asked him how he was feeling. He was also feeling unsteady, and then I told him that I had heard a voice tell me, "You are going to be physically harmed if you go into that house", so we pulled an excuse out of nowhere and GOT THE H*CK OUT! I decided to call the sisters and ask why they passed the guy onto the elders and then I recounted the story of what just happened. When I finished the story, the sisters told us that was the exact feeling they had with him and told us to not see him anymore! Scary! 

Anyways, the rest of the week went by in a flash and I am loving this ward! Brother Stroman and Momma Reed are the greatest and have really helped me feel welcome. Y’all will hear more of them in the future! I also had the chance to share my testimony in church. Even though it was last minute, I was still able to think of some zingers to add onto my short and simple testimony. Sorry for this lengthy email, but y’all deserve it hahaha. Falou!