One Month Marker ♡

HAPPY BIRHTDAY ROSIE ROO!! I love you girl friend ;)

My companion has been out 9 months! We are both completely honest with each other which is great. No struggles really that havent been dissolved right then and there. She is teaching me a lot. When I got here she had been here for one transfer and is really having a hard time getting over her last/ first area. But we are really focusing on getting lost in the work so we can come to love everything about this place.

Kensey!!!! God knew how much I needed that package. We had our first contentious lesson with someone and I had a really hard time. I didnt handle it the way I wish I had.. but it wasnt too bad. I kinda really got down on myself about it though, and there was a package waiting for me in our mail box. I about died. Tore it open and held everything close. I love my pictures, I love my music and I loved them cookies. I adore that necklace too. You guys are the sweetest and I miss you. But I know Im in the right place. 

The Salt Lake Missionary council people came and trained us on how to use the pamphlets when we teach and by using them we can really shorten our lesson time! It was a really great 7 hour meeting. The spirit taught so much that by the end we didnt want it to be over then we looked at our watches and realized it had been 7 hours!    

Tracting is one of my favorite things to do! Sister Smith and I walk up to random people or knock on there doors and just proclaim that we are their missionaries! What can we do for them? They always look at us like what? I have missionaries? But then we explain that we are living in this area and we are here for them and the sweet people of McComb, Mississippi say come in! I love them :) We have been working on finding a lot and teaching a 7 minute restoration lesson and then set up a follow up appointment to weed out the uninterested, or unprepared people. We have been working on shortening our lessons so we can get more in. It is very common to be in someones home for an hour and a half which is ridiculous to me but its also the culture down here. So we are trying to find a happy medium with the people :)

One time this week Sister Smith and I were talking to someone we had just tracted into and she said we should come back after the holiday so we said alright and turned to leave and Sister Smith says enjoy your ice cream :) Then we get back to the car and I told Sis Smith that she was holding a bowl of mashed potatoes!! We got a good laugh out of that one.

I ate a crawfish!! It was pretty crazy. An investigator took us to dinner and we slipped in the first lesson :) Im not too sure he was expecting that though. Everyone just tells us how amazing we are to be out here doing Christ's work but then just think that they already know everything... So we share with everyone and sometimes religious people are surprised because they think... wait I already go to church. But the crawfish were great!! The tails were yummy the brains a bit salty... not sure I will ever willingly desire the brain but the tail was good :)

Conference was so good!! I swear it was only a total of 2 hours long! I was not ready at all for it to end. We went to Liberty to watch it, the town next over with a ward building that broadcasts it. Liberty is beautiful. The drive there looks just like the drive to black pond in June. Mississippi in April is just like New York in June! So we get there and watch and I loved Elder Bednars talk so much about Godly Fear. It really changed my perspective on a lot of things... So did Jeffrey R Hollands. I love hearing from God's messengers. I wrote down some specific questions to be answered because we had asked our investigators to do the same thing so I wanted to be able to talk to them about my answers because I knew I would get them. It is so amazing what the spirit can do. Easter night we went to the Culotta's house and they are just like the Drake's! It felt so good to be in my element. We played ping pong and pigged out. They have such a comfortable home to be in :) It was so good to be able to spend Easter with them, I love them. But having Easter on my mission put so much more meaning into the holiday. What an incredible thing to celebrate. In personal study I was able to read through all 4 stories of Easter in the New Testament. I think that Jeffrey R Holland captured my thoughts and feelings in his talk. He had me crying and I am just so grateful to be apart of such a beautiful plan. Knowing that if I jump my very highest I will be caught by his powerful arms reaching for me. The big thing this Easter I #BecauseHeLives and as we were handing out the cards inviting people to watch the video I thought that I should come up with an end of that statement for myself, and it wasnt until Easter Morning when I was reading in the last chapter of John that I came up with Because He lives I must feed His sheep. So that is what I am out here doing. That is why I am out here, because He so boldly told His disciples to feed His sheep. Well I am a disciple of Christ, and He refers to His people as His sheep all throughout the Bible and the Book of Mormon. So therefore I KNOW I am in the right place at this time, God would not have me anywhere else. I just want to testify that this is Christ's work, this is NOT my work. That our Savior died for us, for our own good! And it isnt until we jump our absolute highest, we do EVERYTHING we can and put forth every once of strength and then some that He can catch us and pull us higher.