The Southern Sister: 06 July 2015 - Happy Birthday America!!!

So this week was good, another one come and GONE! We taught the Plan of Salvation to Ms. Renee and she took it so well. I remember one of Kensey's emails home when she said that she is helping people remember not teaching them new things, well I experienced that with Ms. Renee. We were talking about Heaven and Hell and what she believes. She said to us "Well I really don't think I believe in just a Heaven or a Hell. I think there is some sort of middle ground!" My mouth dropped open because people down here are so so strict when it comes to their belief in Heaven and Hell. People believe that all you have to do is accept Jesus in your heart and then your going to Heaven and if you don't to Hell you go even if you weren't a terrible person. She told us that she had always struggled with that because she really truly believed that God knows our hearts. It was an amazing opportunity to be able to bear my testimony to her and just share how much I really truly know that the Plan of Salvation is literally God's plan for our happiness, and nothing else. He has a plan only to help us progress. It's like my favorite Brad Wilcox talk, "We are not earning heaven, we are learning heaven!" We also got to teach Mr. Joe the Plan of Salvation too, and we were able to take our Branch President with us. It went really well and I am so excited to keep teaching him too.
I have crazy sad news. We have been preparing Tasha for baptism into her church!!! She said that she will never leave her church, but she still feels the need to be baptized. We talked to her about the importance of the priesthood and she felt like we were discrediting her church and saying that it's wrong. Thank goodness for the spirit because any feelings of defensiveness coming from her were washed away as we testified that her church was not false but it wasn't complete either. We talked to her about the Book of Mormon and the Plan of Salvation and talked to her about how she believes them to be true. We talked to her about the importance of doing what God wants us to do and not for a social experience every Sunday. I was able to use my life growing up in Upstate New York as an example of we don't always do what is fun or what is around us. We do what God wants! So we left her with the commitment of praying about it, because if anyone can answer her it is God. We are going to help her quit smoking tonight, we have a certain workshop to follow which will help her quit smoking and it lasts a week, I hope all goes well.
Sister Heath is the member with the ice cream, we challenged her to read Alma 22 and to come to church. She did both and she bore her testimony during Fast and Testimony meeting about how she knows God is listening and that she can ask Him anything because of Alma 22. It was really neat to see how the Book of Mormon works differently with everyone. I love the teaching and the feelings that come with it.
We were tracting one evening this week and we met a super awesome lady named Jackie. When we spoke with her she would call God her God. She would never refer to Him just as the God but hers. I loved it I want to challenge each and everyone who is reading this to claim God as yours. He hears you and He loves you. Show Him you love Him just as John says "If ye love me keep my commandments." Do the things He asks and then proclaim His good works to all the world. That is one thing that the South has taught me, DO NOT EVER HOLD BACK YOUR FEELINGS WHEN THEY ARE ABOUT GOD OR JESUS. They deserve to be shared. I love Mississippi and the people. It is so easy to talk about Jesus but it is also so hard to help people to be open to His gospel. For a lot of people it is a new concept, because they believe all you need to do is accept Him in your heart. We believe you need to accept Him and act upon it!
Here is a laugh for the road. I was taking the trash out this morning, rolling the bin to the road and Sister Lanning being from California is paranoid for our safety so she grabbed the keys and shut the back door behind us. Then I remembered that the front door was dead bolted and we don't have a key for that and we don't have a key to the back door. So we were locked out. No phone either and I had my greasy hair glasses and sweats tucked into my rubber boots. We went next door borrowed a phone and called the land lord they said they would be an hour, so we did our personal study in the car haha Thanks to the stash of Book of Mormon's in the car! :)
Love y'all, looks and sounds like y'all enjoyed your Fourth of July! Everyone was so cute and decked out in the colors of the flag, I did too! The weather was so bad the the severe thunderstorm sirens were going off so we ended using it as time to clean instead of celebrate!
HAve a blessed week, love Sister Kerr