Tracting Adventures and Brushes with Death

Hello!

So...Brentwood, being renowned for being the city where wealthy people live with super nice and rich homes, we naturally ended up tracting down this back dirt road.  The first home we decided to try had a half-mile long driveway and there was a sign which said beware of dogs.  Then two dogs, as if on cue, came running out towards us.  We drove on and the road led us to an open cow farm.  Like literally, a cow was just standing a few feet away from our small car!!  And there was no fence.  We awkwardly turned around and decided to skip this property.

The next house we go to is this crazy creepy abandoned-looking house with a dedicatory plaque to a dead guy.  It was so unexpected and funny in its appearance that I was planning to take a picture of it when suddenly the door opens and this really old and pale man is standing there looking at us.  We introduced ourselves as missionaries and he immediately invited us in.  People do not normally respond with that.  We were surprised and asked if there was a lady in the house.  He replied, "yes, there are many."  Oookayyy...that's odd.  I was secretly wondering if those women were alive or dead!  We shuffled inside and he introduced himself as Lewis.  He invited us to come follow him towards the back of he house.  The home was dark, dusty and damp.  There were no lights on and the architecture was old.  It was crowded inside and there were old portraits of people on the walls and piles of antique stuff.

Sister Miller saw a huge chainsaw in the backyard...we really thought we were going to die!  

But it turned out to be a super good experience.  We talked with the man, Lewis, and a family friend named Suzanne, and it turned out the Elders had been over just the week before and that Lewis and Suzanne had been talking about the Book of Mormon for the last 10 minutes and then we knocked on their door!  That's why Lewis let us in the door immediately.  It was a great conversation and we are planning to do service for Suzanne later!  

General Conference was fantastic.  The Spirit was strong and I loved how Elder Oaks spoke about the importance of members doing missionary work.  It's true.  Members are so critical!  

I'm loving my new area so far.  I'm over two wards, the Sunset and the Old Hickory wards, and it's crazy keeping track of two phones:).  The members we've met here so far are fantastic though and I'm really excited to work with them to build this area up as a special part of God's kingdom.

Sister Ririe

Visiting the zoo

New companion, Sister Miller

                                                      Saying goodbye to Allison and Mike

This is Sister Miller, my new companion!

   

Exciting Times!

So apparently the main gas line from Alabama that supplies gasoline to Tennessee broke?  And now everyone is scrambling to find gas.  A member named Deven, told us it took him 50 minutes to get gas on Saturday and when he was filling up, he got 6 gallons and it ran out.  There is literally no gasoline available to buy aIt's kind of funny.  We only have a quarter of a tank left so we're praying it it'll last us until the line gets fixed.  Two members offered us gas while we were visiting them, the day the incident happened, and we declined both, slightly confused as to why people were offering us gas??  And then we heard we news from the Elders, later that night.  Ahhh!  Why is there such a delayed news report system for missionaries?!  Haha, we should be fine though:)  We heard there was a bombing in New York too.  There is much calamity happening in this exciting time of the last days.  It really makes reading the scriptures and finding the parallels and prophecies so much more interesting.

Greetings everyone!

This week we were not able to see Jeff again because he is in New Orleans and Allison and Mike also took an out of state trip to Utah to go to Temple Square and also meet up with Sister Kronmiller's family (it's just so casual), so we didn't see them either.  

On Tuesday, we had interviews with President Stone.  Interviews with him are different than with President Andersen, but I suppose that's only to be expected!  He told Sister Kronmiller that he had he impression that her work in the Thompson Station 2nd area is not done and he told me that I'm becoming one of the more experienced sister missionaries in the mission which...nope, nada, no way!  I'm still a fetus missionary!  I am almost at my 7-month mark and that is so crazy!  Time flies by so quickly!!

We weren't able to teach Isabella a lesson because her sister was sick.  Brother Escobar asked us to keep her in our prayers and thankfully, she got better!  Isabella also came to church!  Her mom dropped her off, which is kind of a big deal because her mom was initially against her being baptized, and she had a great time!  Just one more Sunday and then she can be baptized!! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to talk to Isabella much, other than give her a hug before she left, because I was busily trying to keep track of the other 3 investigators who came to church on Sunday as well!

To start off with, we got a call from Sister Helquist in the morning on Wednesday, and she was just asking if there was anything we needed that day.  It was kind of an odd call and threw me off for a bit because I've never gotten a call like that before.  Actually, we were in the middle of studies so we asked her if we could call her back.  When going over our plans for the day, we thought of Katie, an investigator who we've kept around for the past several weeks and who'd not been making any progress.  We were about to drop her but we managed to get a last minute set appointment with her the day before.  We asked called back Sister Helquist and asked her if she'd like to come with us to that appointment and she said she would.  We read part of 3 Nephi 11 with Katie and invited her to come to church.  She didn't have a car so she initially said no but we offered to find her a ride and she then she said yes, she would come.  Come Sunday, Sister Helquist brought Katie and her two young kids to church.  Katie has two young kids and her oldest daughter is four.  Her daughter is a super social and active child!  We brought a coloring book and a bag of Cheerios to help keep her entertained during sacrament meeting.  In Relief Society, a sister mentioned how hard it was for her to give up coffee when she converted.  Katie was busy attending to her baby so I was desperately hoping that Katie would be wearing spiritual earmuffs but no such luck.  Katie looked up, surprised and asked, "y'all don't drink coffee?"  The whole room went silent and everyone was looking at us.  Ummm...the news has been broke!  Haha!  We told her to not worry about it and we'd explain it to her later.   She told one of the sisters she'd probably come back again and Sister Helquist told us that she's planning on watching the General Women's Broadcast too!

Also this week, a kid named Carter Helquist called us and asked us to come to early morning seminary with him and his non-member friendHe has a few friends who have been coming to seminary with him regularly so we got to wake up at 5am and have a seminary flash back experience.  It was great.  It was Sister Kronmiller's first time experiencing early morning seminary, actually.  And then Michaela, Carter's friend, came to church on Sunday!  I didn't get to talk to her either but we called Carter later in the day to follow up and he said she should be coming to church next Sunday again!

Also, we finally got to meet with Mark again.  (It only took us like, 7 or 8 weeks!)  Mark is an 18-year old who recently moved out and is kind of just struggling through life on his own.  We met him while tracting, super late in an evening, last transfer.  We were able to meet with him thanks to Deven (same Deven who told us about his experience getting gas) who picked Mark up from his home and drove him to a park where we could all meet up.  We talked about faith in Christ and how this gospel can bless us.  We invited him to come to church to see how he felt and also to be able to interact with more people.  He agreed to come if he didn't work on Sunday and he was able to come!  Deven gave him a ride so that he could come.  After all three hours, we asked Mark how he liked it and he said, "it was good, but I didn't like the church part of it."  What?  Mark, it's all church!  Haha he meant sacrament meeting.  He didn't like how formal and traditional everything in that meeting was.  But he really liked Gospel Principles and Priesthood Meeting, and he said he'd like to come back!

Church was so stressful.  But in a good way.  None of the three other investigators would have come if it weren't for member involvement.  Crazy and exciting times!

Sister Ririe

 Unexpected detour car drives down beautiful parkways are always welcome.

Our district

Us and Katie and Annabelle, her daughter

Sparkling cider at goodbye dinner before transfer.

I got a haircut this morning.  It's shorter than I wanted but...meh.  It'll grow back soon.