Miracles!!!! - just because God is GOOD

Welcome to another miraculously spectacular week in the life of Sister Myers in the Tennessee Nashville Mission, Green Hills YSA. Fasten your seatbelts and enjoy the ride!!

We had a great start to the week when we were determined to get a baptismal invite every single day. It was the zone goal to have one each day and last week, sadly, we got none. But we recommitted to the goal and were bound and determined to succeed! So Monday we embarked to find out baptismal invite! The first one of the night came when we followed up with this guy we had met a couple weeks back! He basically said no but that's okay, because all we're here to do is invite!

Anyway, so then we went to try to contact this LA member and decided to knock the apartments that were around her because we didn't really have much to do. We knocked into this girl named Amanda and she let us in! We taught her most of the Restoration (it was kind of scattered but good because it was more of a discussion) and then we invited her to be baptized and she said she already had been. This is typical in the south. So we re-explained/taught the Priesthood and re-invited her and she said if she felt from God that she should then she would! She is so awesome! She was talking at one point about her belief in the Bible and she basically said that she believes that we can learn from all the stories in the Bible but we don't necessarily have to live everything in it these were basically her words, "I mean, I believe that the 10 commandments like not killing and stuff are definitely still valid today, but I think that we can wear jewelry and use musical instruments and stuff. That was just during that time that it was important not to do that." I was thinking, "Who are you?" So then we talked about modern-day prophets and how they lead and direct us to know what God still wants us to do and what we don't necessarily have to do...if that makes sense. Anyway it was so cool. She's awesome.

That leads me to another cool miracle that came from that. So me and Sister Dillon decided that we were really going to try to follow the spirit this week and so we decided that any good thought we get that we think could be a prompting we should just do, because all good things come from God. Then, on Saturday we went to go try Amanda again and she wasn't home and so we tried a couple of other people we knew over there but none of them answered. As soon as we were done trying the people we knew, I had this thought that we shouldn't leave this area/complex until we talked to someone. But I pushed it away and we went to go try this less active. Well, in the long drive just to get out of the apartment complex I was in this state of arguing with myself as to whether or not we should knock some doors before we left. But I kept driving and finally I just turned around and told Sister Dillon I felt like we should go tract. I don't know why it was such a struggle just to decide that because me and Sister Dillon both said we would just go with whatever prompting the other had. But anyway, we went and I went straight to this one building I thought we should tract and we knocked that building and found 2 new investigators! And they are like, pretty solid!!! Some of the people we meet are just kind of so-so I guess you could say but these two were awesome! God is good. Follow promptings people.

So here are a few more miracles that came from exchanges this week!

So I stayed in the area and Sister Miller came here to Nashy with me. Well, me and Sister D planned for us to go tracting after we got back into Nashy and we had written down 2 addresses of apartment complexes we could go to. So me and Sister Miller decided on the 2nd one, and prayed about and both had the thought that we should do the first one. So we put it in the GPS and went there and it wasn't even an apartment complex, the address was off or something. So then we drove around for like 2.7 seconds and both said to each other that we should just street contact (because there were tons of people around). But, then in the process of finding a place to park, we found the apartment complex! So we knew that we just thought we should street contact so we would have to find a place to park and therefore find the complex. So we went there and it was one of those apartments that's like a hotel, where you have an outside door and then the doors to the apartments are on the inside and they were locked! But then we saw one was propped open so we just went in. Haha so we knocked and found this awesome girl named Chelsea! She was pretty solid! Then we met this guy named Conrad that wasn't interested but he said we really made his day because he is going through a lot. Then after a series of events we realized that we definitely knocked at the hospital residency...for patients and people in medical school. Awk. Welp, I know we were lead there so I don't really care. But we laughed about it like the whole rest of the day and Sister Miller was like, "Well I hope we didn't contract some sort of disease!" Haha

So then another miracle was that we tried this LA that me and Sister Dillon had tried and she actually answered and let us in! We talked to her for like 45 minutes and oh my goodness she was just so awesome! I just love her! And the thing that was so cool was that her sister is in the ward that Sister Miller is serving in so she totally knows her sister! Crazy! I'm not sure if she's really interested in returning to church any time soon but we she's super awesome and a great artist! (She showed us some of her art!)

And here's yet ANOTHER miracle from exchanges! So this week, Sister Dillon and I have been bound and determined and committed and whatever else to talk with everyone! I trained on that this past Wednesday (and I'm doing part 2 of the training this Wednesday, I asked Elder Denhalter if I could do it in 2 trainings because there was so much I wanted to talk about that I couldn't fit it all!) and so when I was with Sister Miller we were tracting an apartment complex (not the hospital one haha) and we saw this guy getting ready to paint a fence or something but we kept going and Sister Miller was like, "We should have talked to him." So on the way back he was still there so even though he was like painting and awkwardly on this hill we waved him over and talked to him and he was super interested! He isn't YSA but we told him other missionaries would come visit him and wow, he was just so cool! God is good! When you talk to everyone God will definitely place people in your path!

Are you done hearing the miracles of this week? Well too bad because I've got more!

So yesterday Sister Dillon and I were planning to go park contacting at Bicentennial Park. But when we put it in the GPS is took us somewhere weird, like, not the park. So we didn't know what to do so we prayed. And we both had the thought to go to Centennial Park. So we put that in the GPS and start going over there and on the way we found Bicentennial Park! (God works in mysterious ways, I'm telling you) So we went there and it was funny because we pulled up and after we prayed and before we got out of the car I was like, "Maybe we had to come here for someone certain. Like that guy." And I pointed to some random guy on a bench nearby. So we go and talk to him and actually had a really good conversation with him and gave him a Book of Mormon! He wasn't really interested in learning more but he said he would look over the BOM. So then we kept walking around found this other guy named JD and had a super awesome conversation with him. He basically taught him the gospel of Jesus Christ and briefly the restoration and he was really interested. Sadly, he did not have his phone on him and could not remember his phone number so we have no contact information for him but he said he would definitely call us. And we committed him to call us. I really feel like he will. Who knows though. But I know we were supposed to be there to talk to him. He was kind of eccentric but definitely searching.

Okay, now this one is awesome.

So yesterday we were doing our companionship study and Sister Dillon had felt like we should call and invite this one guy, named Nathan to church. Nathan is this guy that Sister Dillon met on the bus and then he moved but he moved back to Nashville and then called us! What?! He said he was praying and thought of us so he called. We haven't been able to meet with him yet. But anyway, we called him and he said we wanted to come! So we set up a ride and everything. We went with this member to pick him up. But here's the really weird part...he was just weird. I don't even know how to describe it. It was like, he wasn't interested at all....but obviously he was. It was such a weird situation and me and Sister Dillon keep wondering why she was prompted to invite him and why he came. I don't know, God has a plan but it was just an odd situation. ALSO, Anne Parkes's (this super awesome member that is basically just the coolest person ever) brought her friend to church AND Carlos came!! Yahoo!!!

Speaking of Carlos! It was a cool miracle that he came to church this Sunday because the primary from the Green Hills family ward came and did their primary program for us and it was super awesome because Carlos actually has 2 girls but he only gets them every other weekend and we've been trying to get him to go to a family ward when he has his girls (not in Green Hills but the one by where he lives) and I feel like it was so great for him to see what his girls would be learning! We'll see what comes of that. Also, this week Carlos, at the end of a phone lesson said he was praying about his baptism date! WHAT? So this week we had a super awesome lesson where we asked him the baptismal interview questions without telling him, like in a roundabout way and then invited him to pray about November 7!! We had prayed about it and we felt good about it so now we'll see if Carlos feels good about it too! He is so ready. There's something holding him back. Ivan, his recent convert friend who referred him, and even Carlos himself said there's something he has to work through. The trouble is finding out what it is so we can help him! But, maybe I'm just supposed to learn patience.

Well, I'm just going to wrap up with week of miracles in a bow and send it off because I'm running out of time. The Women's conference was SO good and I'M SO STOKED FOR GENERAL CONFERENCE!!!!

Sorry there's no spiritual thought. Just remember that God works in mysterious ways, follow promptings and never forget that God is good.

Love y'all lots!

Love,

Sister Myers

Here's some pictures to enjoy

1. #bejealous #nashypride

2. This was out best jumping picture but we both look crazy haha

3. After exchanges at Baja Burrito...I purposely ruined the smiling picture haha

4. I was joking that I didn't know how I should hold my BOM to take a picture and so I was being funny and sister Dillon snapped this one..haha 

 

 

God is good

What a week everyone! Here in Nashy it's a real party in the YSA.

Okay so here's a funny story: so we had interviews with President this week and I decided I was going to be real funny and tell him I hated my companion and then I was going to proceed to tell him that he should probably leave us together for a long time so we can learn how to get along. Haha but President is a clever guy and caught me in my guile....so I told him I hated my companion but before I could proceed he got really serious and was like, "What's wrong? Do we need to do an ET (emergency transfer)?" THEN he proceeded to pull out his little notebook (that he always has at interviews so he can take notes as needed) to write stuff down and I was like, "No, no, no, President I was kidding." And then he just smiled and was like, "I know." Haha I got pranked from my own prank! I love that guy!

Here's an interesting fact: President told me that there will be 0 sisters coming in at this next transfer! AH! What's happening to the sister missionary population! He said there will be many whitewashes. Crazy.

I went compus cantacting this week! Or I guess I should say campus contacting! Sister Dillon said compus cantacting and now I can't call it the actual name because I keep saying that! Anyway, it was good! Definitely not what I'm used to! But yeah we found some good people, there was this girl that had headphones in so we just asked her if we could give her a picture of Jesus and she kept walking (but still took the picture) and then we keep going and all the sudden she turns around and takes out her headphones to ask us about our church and stuff because she's looking for a church family. Cool! God is good.

I got sick again this week! Yeesh! Not sure if God is trying to teach me something or if I just don't know how to live healthy. But yeah, I'm pretty sure Saturday night was the worst night of my entire mission. Or maybe even life....it was horrible. I went to bed Friday with a headache and woke with a sore throat and had that all day. By Saturday evening I was in BAD shape. Headache, sore throat, stomachache/nausea and congestion. The kicker was that it kept me up ALL night. Every time I would fall asleep, I would feel so sick I would wake up. Every 15 minutes. Longest night of my life. Anyway, Sister Dillon is the greatest person ever and I finally woke her up at 1:00am and we prayed together and she did everything she could think of to help me slash sat with me for like 30 minutes while I bawled my head off then I fell asleep from 2-3 and the cycle started all over again.

In the morning as soon as 6:30 hit BAM called the Elders. They graciously came and gave me a blessing and I felt the same, but I was promised that I would feel better as the day went on and be back to full energy by the beginning of the week. So I went about getting ready and by 8 I was so exhausted, so I slept while Sister Dillon studied and then I felt like 89% better. But it came and went, but by the time church started I felt basically fine, except general cold symptoms. Don't know what happened there but goodness gracious I'm grateful for the priesthood. On the bright side I had the best sleep on my life last night!

Anyway, now back to the missionary work:

Steven is......I don't know what he is. He needs some prayers. He has had a lot of bad things happen to him and it's made him pretty bitter. But he wants to know that God is there and is living and active in his life, not just watching his life play out. He reads the Book of Mormon, he prays, he comes to institute and FHE every week (hasn't been to church in a while though) and still hasn't had a spiritual experience. He asked us to pray for him to have a soft heart so he can find happiness. He is so sad. Pray for him.

Carlos is so awesome! We taught him the Law of Chastity this week and that was so great. It was Sister Dillon's first time teaching it and she did so great! She is seriously such a good missionary I can't even handle it. Anyway Carlos is just the best. His baptism date is still at New Years or around there but hey, it's better than nothing! He'll just be that much more converted! But yeah, we are hoping he'll just decide he doesn't want to wait that long :)

We had Zone Meeting this week and that was great! Always a great meeting. Missionary meetings are the greatest.

We had a stake service project on Saturday where we went to an Elementary school where we painted the walls and did mulching and gardening and other random things with Hands On Nashville and it was a lot of fun. Also I finally got to meet the branch president, President Johnson, who actually used to be in the mission presidency, but got released in April. He is the best. Him and his wife were actually in Utah (including visiting a daughter in SoJo!) and doing some sort of biking race thing or something from Logan to Jackson. Crazy. They love biking apparently! He is so cool though. I just LOVE him already! Also he is so missionary minded and so the branch council and everything is super awesome! 

Well that's all for today folks! Hope y'all have a wonderful week! But first, let me leave you with some spiritual goodness.

I found this quote from a talk called "The Essential Role of Member Missionary Work" -

"With a prayer in your heart, talk to everyone you can. Don’t prejudge. Don’t withhold the good news from anyone. Talk to everyone, and trust in the promised power of the Spirit to give you the words you should say. Let them make the decision to accept or reject your invitation. Over time, the Lord will put into your path those who are seeking the truth. He is the Good Shepherd. He knows His sheep, and they will know His voice, spoken through you, and they will follow Him."

Everyone need the gospel - which is why we must share it! When we talk to everyone we can about the gospel, then God will trust us and he will put people in our path that are prepared to hear the message! And sharing the gospel isn't hard. I attached a PDF that's 50 ways to share the gospel and it's so cool because it shows that sharing the gospel isn't necessarily inviting someone to meet with the missionaries or giving them a copy of the Book of Mormon, although those are GREAT ways to do missionary work. Sharing the gospel is easy, especially with the help of our Savior Jesus Christ. I'm going to go missionary on all y'all and invite you to look over it and find 5 things you will do to share the gospel this week! (But don't do all of them from the same section)!

And don't forget that God is good.

Love y'all lots!

Love,

Sister Myers :)

Pictures! :)

1. Some cool building in downtown Nashy

2. Batman building!

3. "Hello Mr. Horse would you like here a message about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ?"

4. The zone! I think it's funny to see the difference between the Elders and the sisters...the Elders are like, all over the place and the sisters are just all in the same spot but doing funny stuff haha

5.  In the baptismal font...haha 

 

 

From the sticks to the city #Nashville YSA

So.....I moved to Green Hills YSA!!! Yikes! I have no idea how to be in a YSA branch....haha awko taco. Also we cover like basically EVERYWHERE!!! Haha just kidding, but we do cover Nashville, Franklin, Madison, Brentwood and other surrounding areas. It's intense.

My new companion is Sister Dillon and she's from Iowa and she is so cool! Man I just love her to death and she just got out of training but holy cow she is such a good missionary, I feel like I'm in training again! I've already learned so much from her and I know I will learn a lot! We are also a lot a like so we get along so well. We are buds!

In other news David Archuleta is the branch mission leader so that's an interesting development.

The weather has cooled down so much! It's so crazy! We could see our breath the past couple of mornings! Not that I'm complaining or anything though because it has been absolutely beautiful!!! :)

So one of our investigators we saw a couple of times this week was Steven and he is so awesome! Although, he thinks very deeply about things and so sometimes it's a struggle because he can get really overwhelmed, I guess would be the right word. So we've been trying to keep things really simple and short so there isn't much to think about. Haha we had a lesson with him and this recent convert and these 2 other members and it was a good lesson, but also a little much. 5 people giving information would probably overwhelm anybody. Luckily it was a lot of testifying so it was just really good.

We had this really awesome miracle this week! So we have the car every other week and we ride the bus when we don't have the car because it isn't safe to bike and our area is ginormous. So we were waiting for the bus and Sister Dillon knew which bus stop to get off at but she left the map with the times the buses come at home and she didn't know what time to get on the bus to go to our lesson in the evening. And when we got on the bus there were no maps on it! (which usually there are). So we decided we would just have to ride the bus all the way to the bus station and get a new map and then ride to our stop. It would take extra time but we didn't really have another option. Well, when we get on the bus we always try to talk to anyone we can and so we were sitting there and there was a guy behind us that randomly starting talking to the girl across the way. So me and Sister Dillon both knew we needed to talk to him but we just had to wait till the girl got off or they stopped talking. Well she got off really soon after that and so we started talking to him and he was asking our opinion about some random business stuff and then we kept talking and somehow it all related to agency and the gospel and we gave him a pamphlet and he was super interested! And then he was like, "Do you have any more of these I could read too?" Do We?! So we gave him another one and got his number and everything and he was so interested to learn more. The thing that was so cool was that if we had gotten off at the stop we originally planned then we wouldn't have been able to talk to him for so long. It was so cool. His name is Chase.

Here's another one for you: so we were knocking these town homes (we knock mostly apartment complexes and town homes because that's where most of the YSA live) but these were a little bit nicer and we kept tracting into older families and so we were going to leave but we decided to knock a little longer. Also it's like 8 at this time and people don't really like random people knocking on their door at 8 at night. So then we knock on this door and this super nice guy named Todd answers and we talk to him for a minute and then he just started telling us about how he tends to get really angry and frustrated at his friend a lot and he didn't know how he could overcome that and so he asked us what we thought (I don't think anyone has asked me a sincere question like this while tracting...it just doesn't happen) so we talked him about turning to Jesus Christ and that is what our message is all about and he was like, "wow that is so cool. Thank you for telling me that. It made my day." so we gave him a pamphlet and set up a return appointment for tomorrow at 5:30 and he was like, "Tuesday at 5:30. I'm excited!" Man he was so cool.

We have baptism date for this awesome guy named Carlos. He is so great. He's so spiritual, like you can just feel the spirit when you are around him and he knows the Book of Mormon is true! But, he set his baptismal date for around New Years. That's so far away! But we keep having him pray about his date. He seems to have something he is working through (at least that's what he says) and he wants to work though it before he is baptized. So we think that has to do with why he wants to get baptized so far away, because he says it's because the New Year symbolizes like a new life and that's what he'll have after baptism but we think there may be more to it. Who knows?! He's awesome though and I just love him!

There is so much going on here. We got to FHE (most of the time) on Monday nights, Institute on Wednesday (I'm so stoked for that) and other various activities. I forgot how much happens in YSA. Also we got to watch the Worldwide Devotional thing or whatever that was that was on yesterday and it was so good.

Also, since I'm in Nashy and there is so much MUSIC everywhere....there is a special musical number like every single Sunday. Like, an intermediate hymn is like, unheard of. Haha everyone is so musically talented it's crazy.

We went tracting in the rain this week. Absolute down pour. It was fun though. I love rain. Except we didn't know that was going to happen so we had no umbrellas or raincoats or anything at all so that was an adventure. But it was okay because we were tracting apartments and so it was covered mostly.

Well, I don't have a lot of time left and so I'm just going to end with a quick spiritual thought! I've been reading in Mosiah with Abinadi and oh man that guy is so cool. Powerhouse! If I could teach like him I would baptized nations probably. I love when he quotes Isaiah because Isaiah is also a powerhouse. I read in Mosiah 14 when he quotes Isaiah 53 and oh man I love that chapter. But anyway, the thing that I think is so cool, is since I've been comparing the BOM to the Bible I have found a lot of cool things. This week I found how King Noah and Abinadi are like this king named Jeroboam and Amos in the Bible. It was crazy. I don't know the references but if you looked at footnotes in Mosiah and stuff you could probably find it. It was crazy the similarities though! God is so cool. And so good.

I love y'all so much!!!

Love,

Sister Myers

PS Here are so pictures!! :)

1. Sparta reunion!

2-3 Bye Sister Sumbot :'(

4. me and Sister Orch and basically my favorite mission office lady....she is so funny...and also going home soon! :(

5. Me and Sister D!

 

 

Moving Out of Mayfield!

I am sad today because I am leaving Mayfield! I love Mayfield tons and I'm going to miss all the wonderful people here! I'm also sad because my mission keeps going faster and faster and I'm getting on the low end of the scale for how long I have left.....ugh

This week has been great though! I don't know how long this is going to be though because I have a ton of things to do and I don't really feel like writing a lot but maybe once I get going it will be better. 

First off, I don't even know if I have told y'all about Roxie! She's this 85 year old lady who is SO funny. Oh my goodness I love her so much! We tracted into her like, last transfer and did some service for her and stuff because at first she said she wasn't interested. Well, then we got to teaching her and she has come to church for the past 3 weeks and she's getting baptized in the beginning of October! We gave her pamphlets every time we would go and do service for her and after she read them she would say, "That's the most interesting thing I've ever read!" Haha but we didn't know how much she was comprehending. Then she said she wanted to come to church....oh my goodness I just remembered that I have talked about her....oh well...haha well anyway, she's been reading the Book of Mormon and this week we taught her the Restoration, like actually taught it to her with the cups and stuff and we invited her to be baptized at the beginning of October and she said, "Well, I've already been baptized but this one feels better!" Haha we asked her if we believed God would restore the true church of Jesus Christ back to earth and she said, "Oh I know it's true!" Haha she is so great! I hope I'm close enough I can come back to her baptism!

Amy and Bill Powers came to church this week and they seemed to really like it! I hope they keep on coming! Maybe i can come back for his baptism! They are great :)

Got sick this week! It's going around. For the like the entire week I could not stay asleep at night! I've been so exhausted. Then I just felt terrible on Saturday (cold symptoms, exhausted, just generally sick) so Saturday night the Elders were going to come give me a blessing.....then Sister Orchard in the evening on Saturday got so sick, but her symptoms were like, stomach flu symptoms. So she decided to get a blessing too. Well, must have been a trial of our faith because after our blessings we went to bed at like 9, but Sister Orchard just lied down on her bathroom floor for 3 hours because she thought she was going to be sick, and I tried to sleep but I literally could not! Then there was a cockroach in my bed! GROSS! Sister Orchard finally went to bed at like 12:00 and fell asleep. But I didn't fall asleep until like 12:30 or 1 and didn't really even sleep. We were zombies in the morning! It was a struggle. But last night, for like the first time in like, gee a week or something I slept like a rock!!! Woot!!!!!! We decided it was Satan because two investigators came to church!!!!!!! :) haha JK

Randoms:

1. No one here knows what a knock knock joke is...seriously we tried telling knock knock jokes to a couple of people this week and they just didn't know what to say. 

So we did it to Roberto and this is what happened:

Us: Knock knock

Roberto: Mormons are here

Haha then we did it to Mary and this is what happened:

Us: Knock knock

Mary: (No response)

Us: You're supposed to say "who's there?"

Mary: Jesus

Haha seriously no one knows what a knock joke is, it's so funny. 

2. I tried grilled egg plant. it was delicious

3. I'm a nut. In a rut. I'm a nut, in a rut, so what?

Well to make up for this rather terrible letter, here's a lovely spiritual thought: Remember how I was training on the enabling power of the atonement? Well I want to talk about one thing I learned.

So Elder Bednar gave Mosiah 24 as an example of the enabling power of the Atonement (this is when Alma and his people are under the rule of Amulon and they ask God to help them and he comforts them in their afflictions) well, one might wonder why that would have to do with the enabling power of the atonement, which helps us to do and become good. Well, let me tell you!!!

Look at Mosiah 3:19 to you: "For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father." Wouldn't you say that being as a child, submissive..........would be the attributes of a someone who has done and become good? 

Okay now listen to what Elder Bednar says: "As we progress in the journey of mortality from bad to good to better, as we put off the natural man or woman in each of us, and as we strive to become saints and have our very natures changed, then the attributes detailed in this verse increasingly should describe the type of person you and I are becoming. We will become more childlike, more submissive, more patient, and more willing to submit." Now jump back to Mosiah 24:15, "and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord" Alma and his people were not only comforted but they became better people through the Atonement. So when we use the enabling power of the atonement to comfort and strengthen us, we are putting off the natural man and submitting ourself to the Lord. So really, whenever we use the atonement, in any way, we are becoming better. 

Well, love y'all lots!

Love, 

Sister Myers

Here's some pics, hopefully they go through! If not....too bad. Maybe I'll send them next week. There were so many to choose from since I took a lot of pictures with people...

1. MYERS FOR THE WIN

2. Bodyguards