Transfer Number 2!!!!

Guess what we did today?! We totally went caving! It was so awesome! And so so muddy. Yeah we expected that though but we were seriously covered in mud! Well, just our shoes but it was awesome!!!! The cave was so cool! I'll send some pics from the experience! Best P-day!

Someone told us Mormonism was a cult for the first time this week and told us not to come back. That was no fun especially since the dad was reading the Book of Mormon and the son really wanted to come to our church. Ah well, no effort is wasted. At least it was through a text so it's not like they were yelling at us on the porch or something.

We had a huge rainstorm this week! It was insane! The whole road was pretty much a puddle. You could see whatever splashing up around the car. It was insane! The parking lot was like a river. It was crazy. It lasted for about 30 or 40 minutes or something and then it was done. It was insane.

We had interviews with President this week and that was seriously the most amazing thing ever! I was able to just ask him questions and talk about stuff that was troubling me and it was just the most amazing thing! I learned so much! And the interview with Sister Anderson was also so great! She is the best! They are both so great! Like second parents or something and I know that they love me already and I've only known them...well, this is really the first time we had talked at all since we got in so late at the beginning of the transfer!

So....transfers were this week! I made it through my first transfer which also means I am halfway done with my training, which by the way I really don't enjoy so I'm glad I'm almost done...haha. Anyway....Sister Oldroyd is staying!! Wahoo! I was so worried about that I was going to get a follow-up trainer, because apparently that's common. Also, that means that she will have been in this area for 7 and half months by the time this transfer is over! Over a third of her mission! She got trained her, had a normal transfer and then trained me. Isn't that crazy? She'll probably peace out after this transfer. Anyway, our district changed quite a bit. Elder Fore became the new AP...but we weren't surprised at all. We always joke that he is going to be an apostle one day...he hates when we talk about that. Anyway..........

I really don't even have much to say for this week. We have just been trying to build up our teaching pool and so we have been tracting for dayzzzz! It's actually been pretty fun though. We met this one guy named Lee one day while we were tracting...he actually pulled up in front of this one house and so we talked to him about our church and gave him a pamphlet and he seemed really interested and then we asked him when we could come back to visit him and he was like, "Oh I don't even live here! I am just visiting these people really fast, I live a couple streets over." So we got his number and we texted him a couple days later and asked if we could come visit him and he actually told us where is lives and said we could come and talk to him! What? Little miracle right there!

Jay is doing alright. He basically told us that he doesn't want to be baptized and also just doesn't see why he needs to be baptized. It's been a tough situation because his Mom is pretty much forcing him with the thought, "He'll thank me later." No! You can't just get baptized for whatever reason! He's progressing though. Very, very slowly but surely.

Man I just don't really have much to say for this week...I guess I just don't have any stories or anything to tell....oh well. I hope y'all have a fantastic week! Love you so much!!

Love,

Sister Myers

P.S. Here are some pics from caving today!!!

I look awful but oh well...we were in a cave and we were very muddy. You can't really tell much from the pics but ya...we were muddy.

Insert Clever Subject Line Here.....

Well...um my brain is going about 5000 miles per hour so I have no idea how this letter is going to be! Hm...well....tomorrow Elder Myers, my big bro, dies. Rest in peace Elder Myers. Rest in peace.  25 months down 17 to go till I get to see you! Not that I'm counting...I actually don't even know if that is an accurate count but whatever...I just guessed. :)

Anyway....so...hm where to start. Oh yeah. I don't know if y'all non-missionary people saw it but the Elders in my district/in our ward were in Deseret News! It was a little article called like, "Mormon Missionaries use song, ukuleles to share the gospel" or something like that. Pretty cool! They are so awesome.

Okay so all you non-missionary people probably won't understand the magnitude of this but guess what? We had 32 other lessons this week. Just OTHER lessons! The Standard of Excellence in the mission is 30 TOTAL lessons. How insane is that! God is working miracles for us this week! Seriously! We have been trying this new thing where we set a specific goal as to how many lessons/pamphlets we want to give out while tracting and praying to reach it and BAM! Miracles! It's crazy! Previously we have only been getting like 18-20 other lessons each week. Y'all missionaries who are reading this are probably like, "32? We are getting like 40 every week!" Haha but for us it's cool!

Here's a miracle of the week: so there's this less active lady, Sister Morris, who Sister O in the 6 months that she has been in Murfreesboro (yeah she's been here forever) has not been able to contact her. They had gone to her house many times and...nothing. So we planned to go try to see if she was home this week and we planned to see her after this Book of Mormon study that our ward does. We left our apartment at like 6:10 so we could be to the church right on time to get to Book of Mormon study (since the church is like 15 minutes away) and we were at a stoplight and all of the sudden Sister O was like, "I think we need to go see Sister Morris right now." And so I was like, "Aright, let's go." So we went over there and she had just gotten home from work and she was just about to leave to go pick up her dog or something and so we were able to talk to her! She is seriously the sweetest lady. She invited us in and we had a great talk with her! And then when we left...she left! We were late to Book of Mormon study but who cares because she's reading the Book of Mormon again and she even gave us her sister's address to send the missionaries to and she has told us how grateful she is for us and that we have brought her back! What if we hadn't gone right then?? Wow. God is so good.

I don't even know if that last paragraph made any sense. Hopefully you understand the magnitude of how amazing that is! So we had trainer-trainee meeting this week and there was this one part where we split up and all the trainers went in one room and all the trainees went in another and we wrote down all the good and bad things about our trainers on the board (sounds awful I know) and then we switched rooms so we could talk about what we could work on. It was weird though because the other trainees were naming things that their companions could work on and I was just looking at the list and thinking, "None of these are Sister O!" She is seriously such an amazing trainer! I've learned so much from her! It was a good meeting. And afterwards we were talking to Elder Tagaloa (one of the AP's, pronounced tonga-loa) and he gave Sister O a waffle iron! This is so great because 1. Sister O loves waffles like none other and 2. He said he was going to get us one and he hadn't yet and so it was just funny when he had one there! Sister O, when she got it was like, "Guess what we're having for dinner Sister Myers?" It was great. PS we actually have waffles for dinner....haha but we had waffles for lunch yesterday! :) Anyway...that was a really pointless story but probably entertaining just the same!

So guess what I had this week? My first time having a person trying to Bible bash us! We were tracting and came up to this guy and he said he wasn't interested and so we left but then when we were passing by the house again and he was outside he called us back to show us a scripture...like John 14:7 or something and he kept saying how the scripture was 100% clear that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are one and he was just like, "I don't understand how you can say you believe the bible but not believe all of it." I was just like...okay....let's go now... we were just super nice and tried to explain it the best we could and showed him some scriptures in Mark 1 but he was like, "But those aren't clear like this is." I really just wanted to be like, "Are you kidding? How is John 4:7 PERFECTLY clear that they are one!" Obviously I didn't. We just let it go and let him win...well...whatever you want to call it because we are representatives of Jesus Christ so we do not Bible bash. :) It was an interesting experience.
 

 

So Bill is doing awesome! He is progressing quite well! He won't come to church for some reason though. We asked him on Saturday if he'll come to church and he said, "yeah, I'll go" and we were like, "Tomorrow?" And he said, "Uh...no. But I'll come sometime." Ah! Bill! He believes the things we are teaching him and he is reading the Book of Mormon and he told us he feels the Spirit when he reads but he just won't come to church...at least for now.....Oh Bill. He'll come eventually.

So today we were going to go caving but it rained all of yesterday and so it was pretty much flooded so we went on a little hike up the 3rd highest point in Tennessee. It took us like....20 minutes tops to get up there. Just goes to show how Tennessee mountains are pretty much just piles of dirt. Okay not really but still! It was super fun though! These 2 members took us ( us being all 8 sisters in the district) up there and then we came back down and played Ultimate Frisbee. It was so fun. I'll send some pictures of that!

Well I think that's it for the week! I love y'all so much! Here's a quote I heard this week that I just love: "I believe in Christ like I believe in the sun. Not because I can see it, but by it I can see everything else." C.S. Lewis

Love,

Sister Myers

P.S. Here are some pics. There's one of me in front of the Hard Rock Cafe in downtown Nashville (from last week) and then a picture of downtown Nashville, and a picture of a sunset. The sky is like...way prettier...like all the time here. Even just during the day...it's weird. I don't know why it just is! Maybe I'm biased.

A Bright Day After a Dark Night

Hello family and friends!

Well, we always say that the sun will come out tomorrow but we don't really think about it....but let me just say that the sun will come out! This week has been so much better and brighter!

First of all, Sister Carson went home today. Rest in peace Sister Carson!! Ah! And Elder Myers dies in like...1 week! Ah! He's on his death bed!!!! Soon I'll be saying to my companions...Rest in peace Elder Myers!

But hey, since when we took Sister Carson to the mission office today, since it was P-day and we were near Nashville we went and visited downtown Nashville today! It was schweet! We got to see the stadium and the Hard Rock Cafe (we didn't go in but we took pictures outside it) we walked around the main street and looked in the windows and we went and got T-shirts and it was just so much fun! Glad I got to see it! Nashville is sweet! We had these members take us: The Ewing's. They are so great. We seriously call them Mama and Papa Ewing. We love them to death. Sister Ewing is less active so we've been working with her to get her back to church but they are doing well!

Guess what? I did my first training this week in District Meeting! That was pretty scary! Okay, not really, except for the fact that one of the AP's was doing exchanges that week and so he was there! Ah! He's leaving in a month and I've only been out a month. Every time he's seen me since he says I did great but I'm like..."Um...yeah...I just got up there and rambled so I don't even know what you are talking about..." Anyway...that was fun.

The Minters!!! I can't believe I didn't say this first! They are totally over whatever they were thinking. We went over there after they were texting us and telling us that they were fine now and they told us of some amazing experiences that showed them that God was there and that they were in the right church. Also, they realized that ALL church have opposition, not just this one. Whew....now we are just working more with Jay and Lauren to be baptized. Jay is having trouble believing the things we teach him, like how Joseph Smith is a prophet and saw God and whatnot. He's been reading the Book of Mormon and praying a bit but hasn't felt any different. Of course, he is really difficult to talk to because he is a man of VERY few words. Like....very few. We just talked to him about feeling the Spirit and stuff and we have been praying super hard that he will be able to recognize it!

So remember Roger? He's doing alright. We went back there and he was just like, "I will probably read the book but y'all probably don't need to come around here to talk to me about it." So we kept talking to him and by the end I know he was feeling the spirit again because he was more open. And, he told us that he can't come to church on Sunday because he works but he said to us that if he found out that this church was true then he would switch jobs to be able to come to church. SWITCH JOBS!!!!! He's very confusing and we keep praying that he will just keep reading the Book of Mormon!!

Bill is doing so good! He's kind of confusing because he just readily believes like everything that we say and he says he wants to be baptized but he like won't come to church or anything. And we aren't sure if he is reading. He says he is but he can never remember what he read about or where he is. We won't stop going though! We just keep praying that he will become more invested in this church and really have the desire to learn more!

Yesterday we went tracting and got 3 new investigators! It was insane! One of them was this super nice guy named Tanner and he was super open to what we had to say and even though he already "has a church" he was super willing to let us come back in a couple of weeks (after he gets married) and talk to him and his wife about it more! One of them said they had been looking for a church that they could go to and she said we could come talk to her more about it! Insane! I don't really remember much about that other one but it was such a good tracting night! Wahoo!!

I don't really have many other stories to tell or anything. We had a nerf gun war last week at a members house for P-day with the STL's and that was so much fun! We were dying laughing like the whole time. (Mom, I hope you post the picture with this letter if you didn't post it last week.) That was at Michelle and Joshua's. Michelle is like our mom. We don't really call her that but she pretty much is. And Joshua is like a younger brother. They are so funny.

It's seriously been a crazy week. We've been getting Sister Carson packed up to go home and we have been trying to visit people so she can say bye so that's been crazy! it was pretty sad to say goodbye to her...and it's going to be an adjustment...the only thing I've known so far on my mission is a trio so it's going to be weird to just have the 2 of us.

Well, that's all for now I think! I love y'all so much! Please feel free to write! I've only been gone a month and so I still exist! Haha I'm just joshin ya. But really though. You never realize how much missionaries love letters until you are a missionary.....

Love ya! Have a fantastic week!

Love,

Sister Myers

P.S. Actually I don't have my camera card so I am going to send the pictures of Nashville next week! Love you all!!!

 When it rains it pours...and maybe floods a little bit.  And Nerf wars are fun!

Every town has its up and downs

I'm not going to lie, this week has been quite difficult. I don't even know where to start. There have been some amazing things that have happened, but, they seem to drown out by the fact that I feel like the world is crashing down. And the thing is, I can't really even describe the magnitude of the entire situation of this week.

I don't even know where to start. Remember the Minters? Well, after the amazing lesson we had last week, we went back again and had another amazing lesson! We taught Jay the Restoration and about the importance of baptism and feeling the spirit. Last time, we had asked him to be baptized if he came to know that what we were teaching him was true and he said that he would! So we are teaching him and we ask him again if he will be baptized and he is like, "I was already planning on it." WHAT? ARE YOU KIDDING? We were like...about to die. It was such a great lesson. So, we set a baptism date with Jay and Lauren for August 9th. Also, Lauren and the Dad, John, have trouble with smoking and so they were going to quit together on August 1 so that Lauren could be baptized. So we were super excited. 

Okay, so Sister Carson got sick this week. Like, really sick...she had to stay in for like 4 days. It was insane. So we had to find members that would watch her and stuff so that Sister Oldroyd and I could go out and work. So on Friday, we couldn't find someone to watch her so I stayed in with her and Sister O went on an exchange with this less active in the ward (which was really good for her). And they went to the Minters and found John and Lauren smoking outside. So much for that. So they had a good lesson with them and then left. So we had been texting them a bit on Saturday and we said we would see them on Sunday at church and they said yes.

So we get to church and...no Minters. So we text them and ask where they were. "We are just going to take a break from church today." Great. So Sister O and I drop in later to talk to them and we ask them what's going on. They told us that they are taking a break from the church because want to investigate it. Turns out they had come to church that day and gotten out of the car and something told them to leave. They say it was the Spirit but that definitely wasn't it. It also turns out that their investigating involves reading anti-Mormon things online rather than coming to us as a source. John is freaked out by the priesthood and it doesn't help that people keep calling him for interviews and asking him about it. It also turns out that every time we had asked them to read the Book of Mormon, they never did. I mean a little bit but they had mostly been reading the Bible.

Sister O and I just went outside and cried. We cried because of the Minters. We cried because the area is really suffering because Sister Carson is sick. There's more to it than that but not that I can really say. So we drove straight to the ward mission leaders home, which our our really good friends the Philburn's and cried with them and both got blessings. It was amazing that as soon as Brother Philburn put his hands on my head I just felt so peaceful.( Also Dad, Brother Philburn sent you a picture. I gave him your number to send it. That's why it looks like I have been crying in it.) They are so amazing. We are so lucky to have them.

Y'all probably think that me and Sister O are crazy. She is so great though. I don't know what I would do without her. We have had a lot of fun together. Yesterday we made some super funny videos of us just saying random things and every time we are feeling down we just whip them out and laugh for like 10 minutes. It's so dumb but so funny.

Okay sorry for the downer. It's been crazy hard. I thought I was fine all week I was doing okay but yesterday it all just sort of came out...and same with Sister O. But, now for a little pick-me-up. The other night we went to do a bit of finding and we found ourselves in an area that we weren't even planning to go to and we knocked in this house and this guy comes out (who is baptist by the way) and we had the most amazing lesson with him. You could tell in his face that he was feeling the spirit like crazy. Then at the end when we gave him a Book of Mormon he said, "I was hoping you would give me a copy. I was afraid to ask." Then we prayed with him and he said the prayer and in it he asked if what we said was true and then get this: he asked Heavenly Father to help him to know which church he should go to and asked if he should leave his church! I had to hold back tears because the Spirit was seriously so strong.

Also, we've been teaching this guy named Bill. Some other Sisters found him like 2 months ago and we've been trying to contact him and last week we finally got him and made an appointment with him. We taught him the Restoration and while we were there I just got the strongest feeling to ask him to be baptized. But, me, being new, freaked out and was like, "I don't know how to do this! I'm insane." So I was just praying and praying that Sister O or Sister Carson would get the same feeling and they would say something. Then Sister Carson totally just asked him and he said YES!! We set a date for August 22! He said he'd have to think about the date because it is really soon but still! Then as we left Sister O was like, "Thanks for asking him because I was getting the same feeling!." Funny how the Spirit works!

I hope you all have had an amazing week! At least better than mine! But hey, this week is going to be better! I just know it! 

Sister O told me this story that she heard once that she wanted to share. This dad was telling it and he said that his son had fallen and broken his arm and they were at the doctors and the child was just crying and crying and asking his dad to take away the pain. His dad just cried with him and said, "I'm so sorry. I can't take away the pain. But I'm here for you and I love you." I think that that is like me and Heavenly Father. Here I am in so much pain and anguish for the Minters and for everything that has been happening, and I am praying that Heavenly Father will make it better but He just can't. But I know that He's there and that He loves me and that He's there to comfort me. 

I love you all! Have a great day!

Love, 

Sister Myers

P.S. I actually wrote half of this letter this morning and half....right now and I'm doing better, all things considered. But, any words of wisdom would be appreciated.