First Baptism

 

My first baptism! (Kassidy--16)

13th Email: 13th Week in Salem

Hello!

Well, another great week has blown by. We had a baptism yesterday! :D It was simply wonderful. Her name is Kassidy, she's 16 years old, and she is pretty much the sweetest girl ever. When I came into the area, she had already taken almost all of the discussions, she's been coming to church and YWs for a couple of years, and she was pretty much good to go! She lives in New Castle, which is about 40 minutes away, so setting up appointments has been a little difficult, which is why it's taken so long, but we finally got through everything, and yesterday was her big day! It was a little stressful during the week, trying to get everything set up and organized, because I've obviously never done it before, and my companions are only 6 weeks out, so they had no idea either, but it all worked out! There was really no reason to worry.

 

Brother Vaassen (the one in the picture) baptized her, and he is such a great guy. He has a great conversion story, and he has done so much to help the Lord in the work, on both sides of the veil. Every transfer, he gets up around 5 am, drives a 15-seater van up to Charleston, West Virginia with a load of missionaries being transferred, and comes back with another load around 5 or 6 pm. He has missionaries at his house all the time, and he is so involved with our work! Then once a month, he takes the same van with a load of members from the ward up to the D.C. temple. He makes so many sacrifices, and I admire him a lot. Next week, he is getting his knee replaced, which will be so hard for him--not being able to do everything that he usually does. He is such a trooper!

 

Speaking of transfers, our new companion, Sister Larrabee, is great! She is from Rescue, California...and I just realized that's where my friend from BYU-I is from, so I asked Sister Larrabee if she knows her and she totally does! Haha such a small world... Anyways, Sister Larrabee is great. She has such a sweet personality and a strong conviction of the gospel. Oh, something else about transfers...so when Sister Tuckett was here, Sister Habibpour's money was put on Sister Tuckett's debit card, because visa-waiters don't have their own card. Anyways, when Sister Tuckett got emergency transferred to Christiansburg, she got all the money she had left on it in cash and left the card with Sister Habibpour for her to use. Then, we had to figure out a way to get it back to Sister Tuckett before transfers because she needed to turn it in before she went home. So we decided we would give it to Brother Vaassen the day before transfers and he could give it to her. All of a sudden, 10:15 the night before rolls around and....we still have her card! Bah! So we're scrambling around trying to figure out what to do, and long story short, we woke up at 4:30, called Brother Vaassen, slipped on our shoes, drove to his house to give him the card, drove home, and climbed back into bed. So fun.

 

Anyways, y'all are great, I love you, and the church is true. Know it. Live it. Love it.

 

Love,

Sister Myers

Camel

 

I made a new friend this week!

We drive past this big guy every week on our way

to an investigator's house.

12th Email: 12th Week in Salem

Okeydokey! It's transfer week again! So Sister Habibpour and I are staying in Salem but....(drumroll)...we're getting a third companion! We'll be a trio once again! Tomorrow we will pick up Sister Larrabee, who just so happens to be Sister Habibpour's MTC companion! Yup! They are both waiting for visas, so it should be interesting to see what happens this transfer, if one of them or both of them get their visa... Who knows!

 

Anyways, I'm really excited for this transfer. We've got three baptisms coming up, and it's just gonna be great!

 

I'm still learning a lot all the time. This week I learned that service really is the way to go! The other day we were driving around trying to visit some less active members, and on the way to this one guys house, we saw this lady out raking her leaves. Sister Habibpour and I looked at each other and said, "yep." We were thinking the same thing. We finished raking her yard for her and she was so appreciative, she invited us in for a drink of water. We ended up talking to her for over an hour. She's a very active Methodist, but we were able to talk a lot about Christ and his Atonement, and we even shared some of our beliefs that might be different from hers. And it was super chill! When we left, she said to come back any time. She did say that she wouldn't want to leave her church because it feels like home to her, but still! If we had just knocked on her door and tried to get her to listen about the church, she would have said no then and there, and that would have been the end of it. But now, we're good friends, and even if we aren't able to teach her the lessons, I know we've planted a seed. Maybe in the future when missionaries knock on her door, she'll remember us and the good feelings she had while we were there. I totally feel like Ammon in the Book of Mormon! The first thing he does when he meets the Lamanites is serve. Three days go by before he even tries to teach! That's when the timing is right.

 

Yeah. Good stuff. Oh, and my testimony of the Area Book has increased. Yesterday I looked through it and wrote down some names of former investigators that stood out to me, and we went to see these people who investigated 6 years ago. We talked to them for quite a while, and they said they saw missionaries in the past, but then one of the sister missionaries went to a different country, and they just stopped coming. What the? It's a family of 5, and all the kids are old enough to be baptized. How did this golden opportunity somehow fall through the cracks?? So, we're going to start teaching them and see what comes of it!

 

Whelp, I love you all. Keep on keepin' on. Oh, and here's my favorite quote from our last district meeting: "There's no comfort in a growing zone, and there's no growing in a comfort zone." If you want to get to the top of the mountain, you have to go uphill!

 

Love,

Sister Myers

11th Email: 11th Week in Salem

Okay, this last week was Ca-razy. Just crazy! It started out fairly normal, but when Tuesday hit, the craziness started. Okay, it wasn't that crazy, but anyways, on Tuesday Sister Pitt (Mission president's wife) called and told Sister Tuckett they needed her to spend a few days in Christiansburg (which is about 30 minutes away) because the sisters there were struggling. I'm thinking, okay, I guess this is good... Sister Habibpour and I will have a little taste of what it will be like when Sister Tuckett goes home. Um...nope! JK! on Wednesday, Sister Tuckett called and said, "Hey, I'm getting emergency transferred to Christiansburg today. I'll come home around 6 to pack up my things and go." Whaa? So crazy. Sister Tuckett goes home next week and she just got transferred. Didn't see that coming! Needless to say, the next couple of days were a little more stressful than usual. I mean, of course I knew Sister Tuckett would be leaving, but I just thought I still had two weeks to prepare for it. But it's all good! Sister Habibpour and I just took it in stride. Or at least we tried to! Technically, Sister Tuckett was still training me, because I still have another week of the training program. I guess I'll just have to train myself while I finish training Sister Habibpour! No big deal haha.

 

Anyways, it actually turned out to be a pretty good week, and I learned a lot. One thing I learned is that everything about missionary work all boils down to agency. I can teach and teach and teach, and the spirit can testify of what I teach, but unless the person I teach chooses to accept it, they can't be converted. We taught S-- F-- this week (one of our investigators whose husband is a member), and this was confirmed to me. S-- is active in another church, and she has some very firm beliefs, but she is very friendly and lets us come teach her in hopes that her questions about our church will be answered. Lately, we've been really focusing on the Book of Mormon. She has a bunch of questions about things like the priesthood, temple sealings, and endowments, and we have tried to explain to her that she first needs a foundation before she will really understand those things. When we saw her last, we talked more about the Book of Mormon, and we read 1 Nephi 1 with her, because she has refused to touch the Book of Mormon. Anyways, long story short (too late), it seemed like everything was going really well, and I really felt guided by the spirit in what I said...I shared some of Alma 32 with her and asked her to just give the Book of Mormon a chance before she rejects it. I felt like I had said everything I needed to, and that she would finally say, "okay, I'll try it," but she didn't. After all that she still said she wouldn't read it. 2 Nephi 33:1 says that the Holy Ghost will carry truth unto the hearts of the children of men. Unto. Not into. The truth can only touch their hearts if they use their agency and open their heart to it. That's the only way it'll work! haha and it's frustrating! But I know that that's how it's supposed to be.

 

Oh, so the other day we met this guy named G-- R--. He investigated the church a little bit about 8 years ago, and he is pretty much the nicest guy. And he LOVES history. he's 63, and he came out and talked to us on his porch for about an hour, mostly about a bunch of random history facts he knows. We played off of a lot of what he was saying and tried to connect it to the Book of Mormon (like Christopher Columbus being mentioned), and he seemed pretty interested! He said he'd add it to his stack of 20 books that he is currently reading. haha great! Maybe he'll get around to it someday. Just a few minutes before we left his house, our phone rang. He didn't hear it, so we just ignored it, and when we got into the car and checked it, it was a member of our ward, Sister Welcker. Apparently she had talked to Sister Tuckett about having dinner at their house that night, but Sister Tuckett forgot to tell us, and now she's in Christiansburg, of course! So we went to dinner anyways, even though we were 45 minutes late. Meh! What can ya do?

Well, I love you all very much, and I hope you have a fantastic week. (And I love you, random citizen!)

 

Love,

Sister Myers

10th Email: 10 Week in Salem

This week was pretty good! Not as much success as we were hoping for, but we had some good things happen! We started the week off with a great game of soccer with the Salem Elders, which was great. My legs have been itching to play the beautiful game since I got here! So that was wonderful. Oh, and we got to split wood again! Super fun. We split wood for our ward mission leader's mother, who is 84 and lives alone on a farm. And she was out hauling wood with us and telling us how to do everything. What a trooper! Not to mention the fact that one of her "four legged children" stepped on her foot that day, so she was in a lot of pain.

 

We taught one of our new investigators, C--, this week, and it was great! He investigated the church a long time ago and was actually going to be baptized, but he got turned away by some anti information about Joseph Smith. But now he's super open and wants to learn everything he can about our church. And there's some icing on the cake! He's got a 20-year-old son who sat in on the lesson, and he is super elect. He's a really good guy and just wants to do what's right. He just needs a good group of friends. He seemed pretty excited when we talked about the singles' ward! Anyways, good stuff.

 

V-- is doing great. She came to church yesterday (2 weeks in a row!!). Oh, and F-- came to church too! Which was so awesome. It's been so hard for him to come because he had a stroke, so he's bound to a wheelchair and transportation is super hard. Plus, he lives 40 minutes away from the church, which doesn't make the situation any easier. But he made it! Anyways, we taught V-- this week and she just takes in everything we teach.

 

So Sister Tuckett goes home in a couple weeks, which is crazy! It's going to be hard without her here. But I know Sister Habibpour and I will be fine. The other day Sister Tuckett went to Botetourt to work with Sister Stone and Sister Stringham, so it was just me and Sister Habibpour in Salem. It was nice to get a little taste of what the next transfer will be like. Of course, who knows when Sister Habibpour will get her visa, so things will be changing again soon! Bah! Anyways, Sister Tuckett has been an awesome trainer, and I'll miss having her around. But alas, everyone must eventually go the way of all the earth.

 

Love you all! Have a great week!

Love, Sister Myers

Fall Explosion

 

The trees have finally decided that it's time for fall, and there has been

an explosion of yellows, reds, and oranges.

So Beautiful!!