The Southern Sister: 02 May 2016 Dare to Stand Alone

Well me might as well get the embarrassing stuff out of the way! So we were at a members house for dinner and they had this beautiful hand made lazy susan in the middle of the table that had all of dinner on it. Well we dish up and all is well until I go for seconds, spinning the lazy susan and knocking an entire glass of ice water into the moms lap.... oopsy! I was sitting next to there 3 year old son and I said "Oh my gosh I am so sorry!" He looked at me and asked "Was it and accident?" I answered "Yes!" He said "THEN ITS OK! ACCIDENTS HAPPEN!" I literally felt like I was 5... It was so funny and I just thought dang I will never grow out of my clumsiness!

We had dinner at the Relief Society Presidents house on Monday and we had Sister Banta come too! She had a blast over there and just talked their ears off! Sister Banta was telling some story and then pauses to ask (because apparently it was vital to her story) "What television show were yall over watching with me the other day?"..... Oh shoot... the Relief Society Pres shoots me a look of disgust like yall are sitting at her house watching tv...? I was literally racking my brain and was thinking what in the world is she talking about we haven't watched TV over there.... Then I remembered we watched General Conference so I finally answered Sister Banta after about a 20 second pause.. "Are you thinking General Conference?" She gets all excited and says "That's the one!!" and then continued on with her story. It was so funny.
So on the topic of Sister Banta... It was super stormy this weekend so we were put on lock down for most of Saturday and Sunday but we didn't hear from her for like 2 days which was really strange and uncommon. So we went to see her and she answered the door and let us in. I could definitely feel something was up! So I asked her what was wrong and she said she had sent us a text explaining everything. But for some reason, I personally think it was the grace of God knowing that my tender heart would not be able to stand the news the text carried, it didn't send. So I read it off her phone it it said some thing like "I love you girls but I have come tot he decision to remain with my catholic roots. Quitting smoking is so hard and my family is so against me going to church with yall."
My immediate thoughts" NOOOOOOOOOOO, Satan I'm going to KILL you! I am so sick of this crap you do, this is not the end... you will get a piece of my mind later!"
Obviously I kept myself together I said a prayer and told Heavenly Father that I knew that He knew what she was feeling and where she was at spiritually I asked Him to use me and my companion. I dont have much specific memory after that, I know we sang her a song, we shared some scriptures, shed some tears and at the end she decided she would continue to meet with us! She made a comment about how it would be so easy for her to jump right in to the teachings and change her life style if she had support from people in her family. I then thought about this personally, God could easily tell her whole family its all real and true but where would her faith be? Where would her growth be? She is traveling against the current! And aren't we all? It reminded me of President Monson's talk in conference where he said "May we ever choose the harder right than the easier wrong. Just know that if you have chosen Christ, you have made the right choice!" My challenge for yall this week is to DARE TO STAND ALONE! If you know what is true and what is right, even if you don't understand, GO FORWARD!

We had a super awesome lesson with Caden and committed him to be baptized on May 28th! I hope I am here for it, he asked me to give the talk on the Holy Ghost! Transfers are on May 18th. He is so fun to teach and is learning super fast. This week we taught the plan of salvation and when we got there we first reviewed the restoration and he had the whole thing spot on! He is 10 and has a killer memory!

We had a ward day of service this week and we went to a handicap school and did yard work. It was way fun! The elders manned the bush trimmers and us sister raked up under the bushes! We went HAM on that place it looked so great when we were done! It was super cloudy out which was the greatest miracle ever because it would have been so hot! It was pretty warm out, my companion was literally dying... i was dying laughing. Half way through she told me she was sure she was suffering from mild dehydration. I told her to chug two bottles of water and she would be alright we had only been outside an hour at this point! I have a right to laugh because yall laugh at me when I am a drama queen! She survived with only one unidentified bug bite on her stomach.. which also very much so concerned her... My only advice "don't itch it." It started pouring minutes after we finished!

This was a very rewarding and hard week. So many emotions were felt. It was exhausting!
Congrats to Josh and Kensey Cordon on your wedding! I am so happy for yall :)
Love sister Kerr