Golden investigator - almost

Hi, people!

This has been a good week.  We've been focusing on active member visits and strengthening our relationship with the ward, this transfer.

Last week we had a fire hydrant experience of tracting into this 14-year-old girl, Christine, who was interested in us coming back and she wanted to come to church and girlscamp!  Her family recently moved from Kentucky and she had a friend invite her to girlscamp and church before, up there and she really liked it.  We returned and had a fantastic first lesson with her and she wants to be baptized!  We set a baptismal date for the end of May.  We also arranged for a Young Women's leader to take her to church.  But the Saturday night, Christine texted us and said her mom wanted their family to k church together (understandable) and she didn't want Christine to change churches.  We were very disappointed to have just found a golden investigator and lose her within one week.  I had been praying all through the week that Christine's parents' hearts would be softened so that she would be allowed to come to church and be baptized but that didn't happen.  So Saturday night, instead, I prayed and asked God to help me be at peace with the fact that Christine wouldn't get baptized now and probably won't for years until she is at least 18.  Then at church, one of the Young Women's leaders were talking to the girls about Christine and we found a girl who goes to Christine's same school, who thinks she knows who Christine is.  She talked with us and we encouraged her to meet Christine and befriend her or maybe invite her to youth activities, so that Christine could still have some contact with the church and gospel.  That definitely brought peace and hope to my heart. Heavenly Father answered my prayer and I am so grateful that He is so aware of and loves us.

I love all y'all!

Sister 

This is His Work and His Glory!

It's a new transfer everyone!

Wow, each week, I look back at how much has happened and I'm blown away at how many things we've done.

On Tuesday, we had transfers.  I said goodbye to Sister Peyton and hello to my new companion, Sister Hansen!  Taking over the area isn't as scary as I thought it'd be, actually.  With a lot of help from God, I'm successfully remembering names, people, and places we need to be.  We've been doing a lot of hardcore tracting, this week.  I know I've been saying we've been tracting a lot, in previous emails, but now I realize that we were mainly just following up on formers, a lot.  This week, we've been door-to-door tracting a lot.  And it's paying off.  We found 7 new investigators and we're excited to follow up with them this upcoming week.  I'm incredibly thankful that it didn't rain this last week, because it was "no car week", so we were able to walk/bike to wherever we planned to tract, in the sun.  Speaking of the weather, it's beginning to get hotter over here in Nashville.  

There are so many miracles, both big and small, which we experienced this week.  One of them occurred when we were walking to an apartment complex we were planning to tract.  We came to a huge stoplight intersection and pushed the signal button.  We waited on the sidewalk corner, and standing by us, is this other guy who is also waiting for his light to turn into that walking person sign thing.  We stand there, keeping to ourselves, waiting for a few moments, and then Sister Hansen turns and starts talking to the man who is standing a couple feet from us.  I start half listening to the conversation and half keeping an eye on the light.  After a few minutes, I'm certain that the light is malfunctioning because it hasn't turned, when it was supposed to.  Then, I stop for a moment and realize just how silly I'm being.  Here I am, waiting for a light to turn so that we can make our way to some apartments we plan to tract so that we can find people to teach, when right here, is a person who is openly talking with us missionaries and expressing interest in talking about religion.  Wi this revelation, I abandon all thought and attention I had on that malfunctioning light and became fully engaged with the conversation.  That man's name is Darrell and he is running an organization which focuses on improving the education of youth, especially in financial literacy (both things I'm super passionate about!) and it turns out that he works with a lot of LDS people.  He's been to church and talked with missionaries before.  Even more incredible, is that he's totally willing to meet with missionaries again and he agreed to come to church on Sunday!!  Unfortunately, he lives in downtown Nashville, so he isn't in our area, but we got his number and referred his information to the Green Hills Sisters.  Looking back on that moment, I feel even more silly for even considering keeping my attention in that malfunctioning light in the first place.  It's like, God was forcing us to just stay and talk with Darrell.  This experience strengthen my resolve to just talk with everyone and not avoid unexpected/unplanned teaching opportunities.

The more people I meet, whether they be active members, less-actives, investigators, or random strangers, the more I see that everyone is going through personal insecurities, financial struggles, health problems, times of grief and much confusion.  I realize just how blessed I've been, growing up.  And my heart aches when I can see how life's trials are wearing these people down, whether they open up to us about their circumstances or not.  But at the same time, I marvel at how so many of them turn to God during these trials and keep trying to just move forward with a hope that things will turn for the better in the future.  I just want to give them all a long hug and give them strength, peace, and comfort.  Many times, I can't do that.  But I find solace in the knowledge that because of  the Atonement, Jesus Christ can.  And my purpose as a missionary is to invite others to come to Christ so that they can receive that strength and comfort.  As Sister Hansen told me, God trusts me with the people in this area.  That's rather motivating for me to make sure I'm doing the best that I can to be Christ's representative.  

I love y'all!  And to my dismay, I think "y'all" has officially become a part of my natural vocabulary.  

Sister Ririe

My First Transfer Has Passed

[This week is going to be short]

Hello all!

Last P-Day, we went to downtown Nashville and had an awesome time in Centennial Park, seeing the Parthenon, the pedestrian bridge and the Honky Tonk.  Nashville is super cool.

Not a lot happened this week.  We did more tracting and were able to set up some return appointments.

We got to see Tabitha again and go over prayer and scripture reading with her.  We found out she downloaded the Gospel Library app and has been receiving a daily Book of Mormon scripture.  She also goes to the Book of Mormon to look up the rest of the chapter from which that scripture is from, and reads more.  Also, she's been praying at night!  She's been noticing a difference and says she's happier and frustrated less often when she prays.  That's just been a testimony builder to me, of the power of prayer and what an incredible tool it is!  I'm really thankful that we took a member with us because Tabitha's oldest child was so full of energy and being really disruptive to the environment.  It was hard for the Spirit to be present because Tabitha was getting frustrated with her child not minding and settling down.  Then Sister Sabey, our member, had her son come sit by her and quietly look at pictures.

I can't believe that this transfer is already over!  Time flies by so quickly.  Sister Peyton is leaving and I don't feel ready to take over the area yet but I do know that if I just rely on the Lord, I'll survive...and maybe even thrive:)

Also, our resident cockroach re-appeared this last week.  I took a video of our internal battle of what we should do with it.  Thanks to hairspray, we defeated Amara!  But then later, Sister Peyton discovered there's another huge cockroach still alive, and it got away.  So...Teancum still has use in slaying Ammaron in the future.

I hope y'all are doing well!

--

Sister Ririe

Lesson with the First Lady

Greetings Everyone!

So, when you decide to text the mission president's wife and ask her if she can come on splits with you and she says yes, you better have something solid you can do!

This being my first area, I don't really have some place to compare it with, but Sister Peyton remarked that she'd never experienced a place which had so many canceled appointments.  We've been struggling to find good availability and get members to come out with us to appointments.  Sometimes the members cancel and other times, the investigator cancels.

Then Sister Peyton had this thought: you know why you can't get a member to come with you to Tabetha's?  It's because you need to take Sister Andersen!

So after much debate, we nervously ask Sister Andersen if she was available.  We have this really awesome investigator, Tabetha, who we've only been able to see a couple of times, because satan really does not want us to continue visiting her.  From random migraines, impromptu naps, exhaustion, extended family staying over and more, just about every thing that could stop us from continuing to teach her, is happening.  But with a lot of coordination, we were finally able to set up an appointment with her in the evening on Wednesday and have Sister Andersen come with us.  And then Tabetha reschedules with us for Thursday.  So we nervously ask Sister Andersen if she could come Thursday instead, and thankfully, she was.

Then, come Thursday afternoon, Tabetha texts us and says she can't have us over because she's got a migraine that just won't go away.  Reluctantly, we tell her that we'll meet her sometime next week.  But now we're in a bind because we'd just gone through an emotional roller coaster of rescheduling with Sister Andersen and now we had no investigator to visit!!  We frantically looked through the rest of our teaching pool but we couldn't find anyone to visit that night.  Right before I was about to give up and opt to cancel our plans, I called Jackie, an investigator I'd found with Sister Osborne during exchanges and whom we'd recently given a church tour to on Friday, but she didn't answer.

Sister Peyton and I were both at a loss.  Why was this happening?  Week after week, why is it so hard to find members to come out with us and meet with our investigators?

Finally, we decided that our outing with Sister Andersen would just be canceled and we texted her to notify her of just that, but as we were heading out to go tract, Jackie called us back!  It was super last minute, but she agreed to meet with us at the church later that evening.  Our evening with Sister Andersen was officially UN-canceled!

We had a fantastic lesson with Jackie that night.  She had a lot of questions and we taught her about the Restoration.  The Spirit was present and Sister Andersen was boss at naturally redirecting the conversation back to the gospel whenever discussion started veering off.  We also learned at that lesson, that Jackie had actually come to our church on Easter!  Sister Peyton and I were both surprised because we hadn't seen her slip in or out that day, but she mentioned how she loved the meeting, especially the children singing.  

It was only after that lesson that it was clear to us, we were supposed to teach Jackie with Sister Andersen that night.  It was an amazing blessing for all four of us and reemphasized to me, that miracles only come after the trial of our faith.  I am so thankful I decided to make that last minute call to Jackie before giving up.

And then, spiritual bomb: General Conference!  This weekend was so uplifting.  There were many talks focusing on remembering our identities as children of God.  I love so many of them, but I think Elder Holland's pulled forward as my most favorite for this session.  It, as well as many others, reminded me of the scripture I've chosen for my plaque, which is Romans 8:38-39: "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

I know that no matter what happens or what we do, Christ is always willing to rescue us.  He is always there and we need not worry whether we are worthy of being rescued because we are...simply because we are children of and loved by the Most High.

I love y'all!

-- 

Sister Ririe

p.s. "First Lady" isn't actually a title...but I think the Mission President's wife deserves one :)