WEEK 15 - TRANSFERS!!! (AND FALSE TRAINING ALARMS!)

Dear Friends & Family,

   This week was hecka intense! P-Day was spent lounging, eating, and saying goodbye. I was still in the trio with Sister M and Sister B (Bartlett area), and Sister B and I continued our streak of ignoring sleep in order to talk to one another. It was a super fun time, but by this time I'm pretty sure Sister M was done hanging out with us , since we're so crazy. 

    We did contact this cool guy named D, however, who told us he is super excited to learn from us because he has spent a lot of time researching Mormons, and he feels like out of all the religions out there, our belief system matches up best with his own. He works a lot, and that makes him hard to see, but I am excited to see how things go with him. 

   Tuesday we were still in the trio, and we spent a lot of the day allowing Sister M to say goodbye to those people she had grown close to over the past two transfers. I was happy that my first experience with the sadness of leaving an area was not my own, but it was cool to see how many lives she had touched in the brief three months that we were together in Lakeland. 

   That evening we had to eat dinner and then head to pick up Sister M from the airport. She is Sister B's companion in Bartlett. Her mother passed away the previous Thursday night, and she had flown home for the funeral, thus the trio. We did not end up eating at the member's home we had scheduled dinner in, however, because while we were there and she was cooking, the Pyrex exploded in the oven! It was super crazy, but we didn't have time to even stay and help before we headed to the airport! 

   Sister S, whose house we were at, drove us to the airport, and we were so worried we would be late, only to arrive and find out her flight was an hour and fifteen minutes behind and wouldn't be landing until 9:00! Sister B and I were so tired, and just a little slap happy, and we got very silly in the back of Sister S's car. It was so fun though, I am so thankful to have such a good friend and example in Sister B. Since we hadn't eaten yet and we had plenty of time, Sister S took us to Chick-Fil-A. We accidentally drove straight through Orange Mound to get there though! Poor Sister S is new to Memphis and was not prepared for that level of sketchy. 

   We finally got Sister M though, and it was so wonderful to have her back with us. We all love her so much, and I am unbelievably thankful to know her. I am impressed by her every day. 

  Wednesday was transfer meeting, and I sent Sister M off to Arkansas at 8:00 am. I think she was ready to go. She has been on the Tennessee side almost her whole mission and I think she was ready for the change. I also think that training me was not the experience she expected it to be, but I am thankful for the lessons I learned from her. I know we were meant to serve together, and I hope I have been humble enough these last two transfers to learn all that the Lord had prepared for me to learn. 

  The biggest surprise of the week was definitely when I showed up to transfer meeting prepared to train, and when President W called my name, it wasn't a greenie's name he called next.....it was Sister M!!!!! I was surprised, but so, so happy. I am thankful that I have been blessed with the opportunity to serve Sister M, to be served by Sister M, and to serve with her.

   I was very excited to train, and I will admit that initially I was a little bit disappointed when I discovered that I wasn't, but I have realized that those feelings came from my own pride more than anything else, and these past few days with Sister M have been absolutely wonderful. I have gained such a powerful testimony of the revelation that goes into transfers, and even though I allowed my pride to initially make me disappointed, I am now so thankful for a Heavenly Father who knows me better than I know myself. I know this companionship is divinely inspired, and I am so blessed to be a part of it. She continuously blows my mind with her strength, courage, and capacity to love. I just hope I can be the companion that she needs and deserves. She is literally a beacon to all those who know her, and I am going to do everything in my power to help her in this time of need, because so many people need her light. 

   AND, Sister B went STL (sister training leader)!!! What a HUGE blessing!! She is now my leader, and I have the opportunity to work with her, go on exchanges with her, and be blessed by her knowledge, example, and strength. I literally could not have asked for anything better. 

  We spent most of the rest of the week tracting. Our teaching pool has gotten somewhat shallow as of late, and we are working hard to build it back up! It has been frustrating to see the effects of inconsistent work, and I feel bad that Sister M became new to the area, with very few people to teach, but we have committed ourselves to turning the area around, working hard to build on our successes, and strengthening our weaknesses. There is no such thing as a dead area, but there is such thing as dead missionaries. There have been points in my mission when we have not worked very hard, and even avoided work we didn't want to do, and I NEVER want to feel the way I felt then, again. I don't want to be a dead missionary. I want to be the type of missionary who leaves no room for doubt about their dedication to the work. I have a while to get there, but I want it. The Lord needs me to be that missionary. 

  One last funny story- we are currently on bike week, and we don't have a key chain, so I have just been carrying around our loose apartment key. Well Sunday night, I left the key in our apartment and locked us out!!! I was SO upset with myself, and I didn't know what to do. I felt prompted to try and pop the lock with a credit card, the way they always do in the movies, but both of my credit cards were too flimsy. I was freaking out because it was already 9:30 and we were stuck outside our apartment! Suddenly I remembered my clipper card from my trip to San Francisco in April. It was a thick, solid card, and I had never thrown it away for some reason!! I tried it, and it took a couple of times, but I popped the lock and got us into our apartment! I am officially a safecracker.  

I will do my best to never forget the key again, but I am very thankful for a Heavenly Father who helps us out of bad situations, even when we got ourselves into them by being silly or forgetful. 

      Over all it was a very good week, I am thankful for this ward, the people we are teaching, and the people we haven't found yet. 

Sister Hannah Kathryn Thomas

hannaht@myldsmail.net, 

ARLM 

Sister G gave me this outfit! Nike leggings and Texans shirt for workouts! Houston represent!! :)

WEEK THIRTEEN – Baptize, Baptize, Baptize!!

Dear Friends and Family,

Wow, this week was AMAZING! 

Monday we hung out with the Bartlett sisters, as always, and then we had dinner with The N's.

Tuesday we contacted an awesome referral from the Bartlett sisters named T. She works at a weave kiosk in the mall and she is the only person who works at it so she is there ALL THE TIME. Thankfully she is happy to have us come teach her at the mall and we are happy to do it! She is super friendly and I am really excited to teach her J 

We also had district meeting Tuesday morning and we talked about the importance of using dinner appointments effectively so that the members trust you and will be more willing to give referrals. (Now it's time for my soap box- if you love me, please give the missionaries serving in your Ward people to talk to. It doesn't even have to be super intense, most of the time missionaries are happy with "well my neighbor two houses down is pretty nice and probably would talk to you" and you can ask the missionaries not to mention you, it'll be like they just tracked out the person's home. Missionaries are constantly looking for people to teach, and you guys have the power to help them!! Soap box finished, sorry I'm so bossy) J  

That evening we went to see Sister G, and as soon as she opened the door she said: "I was about to call you guys and see if you wanted to go out for ice cream!" Obviously we were totally down for ice cream, so we went and we were able to have a really great conversation with her about the Book of Mormon. She is definitely making progress. It's slow, and maybe sometimes it is hard to see, but it is there, and I have faith that one day she will be back at church. 

Wednesday we spent some time contacting potential investigators and got to see C, who we met a few weeks ago with his mom K, if you remember K was super enthusiastic and let us in when we knocked on her door. She loved us and told us repeatedly how strongly she felt the spirit when we were in her home. We had a hard time catching her after that, though, and when we saw C this time she wasn't home, but we got to pray with C and that was good! 

We also met and prayed with the husband of another potential investigator named S, who we tracked into and she invited us back but missed the appointment because of a family emergency. When we went over this time she was at work, but her husband R was home. We got to talk and pray with him and it was really good because he was pretty unhappy with us talking to his wife he previous times we had been to the house. This time though he let us talk to him and pray with him, and hopefully he will now be more open to us being over there! 

That night we taught J the last lesson with B. We talked about the things that will happen once he's a member of the church, about callings and home teaching and receiving the priesthood, etc. Things always go so well with J, he was happy, prepared, and excited about everything we taught him. It's so cool to see how prepared by the Lord he has been to accept the gospel.

Thursday we saw S again with SB, she still won't let us inside her house, but she is always willing to talk to us and pray with us, I have faith that we'll get in there some day. We also tried to contact a media referral that we received about a person requesting the Bible. We brought them a Bible, but it turns out they wanted a Spanish, large print Bible! We don't have one of those on hand, obviously, so we have to get our hands on one of those and bring it back:)

On Friday we finally got to see K again! We also met her daughter C, and was able to invite her to be taught as well! K was as friendly and excited as ever, and we scheduled a return appointment for Sunday afternoon. They are all such sweethearts, I know they have been prepared! 

We also saw Sister G again, and when she found out transfers are coming up pretty soon she was super upset because she doesn't want either of us to leave! She even asked us when we could go to dinner before transfers. We figured out a day and she is taking us to eat this week! Man, I love that lady! 

That night we had dinner at The S's house with J. It was so awesome to be with him the night before the baptism because he was so solid, he wasn't jittery in the slightest! He has seen the blessings of the Gospel in his life already, and he is going to be such an amazing addition to this Ward. 

J was baptized at 10:00 am Saturday morning J

You guys, Saturday was such an amazing day. We were standing at our door ready to head out to the church  at 9:00 am when I looked down at my phone to see a missed call from J. The night before I had had a dream that he decided not to get baptized and when I saw that missed call panic flooded my heart, this was the one situation in which it was NOT cool to be psychic, but we called him back anyway, and it turns out he was just already at the church and wondering where everyone else was!!! You know it's a solid baptism when the first person who shows up to it is the person getting baptized. 

The baptism itself was so much fun, the Ward came out in full force to support J, and two of the elders who have taught him in the past, Elder A and Elder W, were able to attend the baptism. Elder W was actually part of the first companionship that taught J, and to see him enter the waters of baptism a year later was so cool for him. Both of the elders acted as witnesses and the spirit was so strong, as Brother M performed the ordinance! I am so blessed to have been a part of such a wonderful miracle. J is going to be the biggest blessing to the Lakeland Ward. 

After the baptism festivities were over we went and saw J again after a long time to check and see if he had read any of what we gave him. He said that he has, but didn't seem super interested in discussing it, so I don't know. While we were over there though, we had a HORRIFYING experience in which one of Js' other neighbors came over. I could tell the guy was a creep from the moment he showed up. He started talking about weird stuff like how we are all God, and Jesus Christ was never meant to be worshiped, then out of the blue he looks at me and goes "you know you'd look pretty sexy in a different outfit" that was followed by a string of extremely vulgar things that I will not repeat here. I was stunned, I've never had anyone talk to me like that, but especially not as a missionary!! It was super horrifying and J did nothing to make the situation better, so I don't think we will be going over there again. 

Later that afternoon we had to head to the church because that evening was the 40th Mission Reunion, and Sister M and I received the prestigious honor from The AP's of getting everyone attending the reunion to wear a name tag. The reunion was so amazing though. We had missionaries who had served in the mission anywhere from 40 years ago to 6 months ago! And the building was full of converts whose lives had been changed by those same missionaries. It was such a blessing to be there and partake of the spirit that filled the chapel that night. 

Sunday morning J was confirmed a member of the church! B and L were also at church that morning and L even wanted to bear her testimony! When she told us this we were pretty stunned because the last thing she had told us about her belief system was that she wasn't really sure she even believed in God, but apparently this week she had been praying pretty hard for a new job that would suit her much better than the jobs she has been doing, and right after she prayed one day, she got on Craigslist and there was the job she had been praying for! She sent in her resume and they called her back not even an hour later, and hired her without even interviewing her! They stayed for all three hours of church, and L sat by us in Relief Society. I think she is really opening up to us, and with this awesome testimony building experience I think she is ready to take lessons from the missionaries and get baptized. 

That evening we had a lesson with R. When we got over there our other neighbor, B, was in their apartment and he stayed for the lesson. We had gone in planning to re-teach The Restoration, but right after the prayer I called an audible and started teaching the third lesson, The Gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm sure Sister M was very confused, but she went along with it, and I am so glad we were able to teach that lesson. The third lesson is all about faith, repentance, baptism, and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. After I got through repentance, R thanked us and said what we had just taught was extremely pertinent to B's situation. B then looked at R and asked if He had rigged this lesson and told us what we needed to teach, because the last two sentences we said at the end of repentance were the answer to a prayer and hit the nail on the head concerning all his issues. It was SUCH a powerful experience, and the spirit was so strong. Then, S came in and started listening, and S never listens when we teach R! She even shared some powerful spiritual experiences in her life, and both S and B are going to come to the lesson when we teach R tonight. How crazy and amazing is that?!

I am so thankful for the spirit, for its consistent loving guidance, and the opportunity I have to bring it into other people's homes and help it to bless their lives. 

Sister Hannah Thomas

ARLM