Canadian Comp, Nashville Tribute Band, and Baptisms!

This week has been one of the greatest and most stressful weeks of the mission!! Although most of the time some of the best weeks are also very stressful!

Sorry this one's gonna be a long one! SO much happened this week! But there are some amazing miracles you just got to read!! :) 

Well first, I'll start out with transfers...our new companion is Sister Johnson!! She is soooo amazing! I just love her so much!! And also, we heard the wrong thing and she wasn't sick, she was just waiting for her visa so she was serving in Canada for a while. So she's actually been out about 7 or 8 weeks! but she seems like she's been about for at least 7 or 8 months! She is such an amazing missionary! I didn't know I was going to get trained so much in my mission! :) Haha

We went street contacting for the first time with her and wow I realized how terrible I am at it. She just has this way of getting people to stop. Actually it's really simple but she just doesn't fear anyone! And she is so good at testifying! And she is such a hard worker! Man I could go on and on and on. She's just THAT cool.

I love that she has certain words that she says like, "washroom" instead of bathroom and she says "pardon" instead of "what?" and also she says the word pasta "pass-tuh" It's so great. Also when she was serving in Canada she was serving with my friend Elder Stallings (Taylor) from Utah State!! So that was fun to figure out! :)

So the big thing of the week was the baptism we had!! It was really wasn't our baptism though, we just walked into it and planned it basically. The Elders were teaching this guy named Thomas and he had a baptism planned for October 24th but then the Elders left so we had to get it all planned out and get him all ready! Now this is where the stress of the week comes in...(I'll get back to this in a second though)

So Thursday was a great day (but insane!) So we had a bunch of things planned for the evening and so all the timing had to work out so we could get places on time so we could leave on time and so on. So we had this appointment with that guy Nathan, the one who came to church and it was just such a weird situation (we finally reached out again and he said he would meet with us...(even though he seemed 0% interested)). so we planned to meet him at 5:30 because he got out at like 4:30 from work but traffic is a struggle in Nashy so we set it for later. And we had to leave by 6:15 or 6:20 to get to our dinner appointment. Well, he didn't get there until 6:00 because of traffic!!

Okay but this is where is gets SO GOOD! Brace yourselves for this MIRACLE! So we sit down with him and we ask him about his BOM reading and what he thinks about everything and he said he wasn't sure about Joseph Smith, like he literally didn't know anything about him so he was asking who he was. So we talked about him and also we talked about the BOM and the Bible and he said he felt so much better because he thought we didn't read the Bible! And then we started doing some How to Begin Teaching and talking about how this message will bless his life and what not and he just kept saying, "That's nice." (Don't get me wrong...that sounds condescending but his tone was one of sincerity).

So then we shared Moroni 10:3-5 and invited him to pray about it and we talked about the Holy Ghost and he said, "So y'all are the messengers. I was also praying another time and I read a verse that said that messengers would come before my face and prepare the way for me (PS that's Matt 11:10). You are the messengers." I about cried the spirit was so strong. And then the member that was with us bore such a simple but amazing testimony and it was so cool.

Then after we kind of finished he asked, "Do y'all do baptism?" And we were like, "Yes!" And he said that a year ago he was reading in the Bible and he prayed and opened it and read a verse about baptism and he knew that's what he needed to do. So then we invited him to baptized and he said yes. So then we invited him to be baptized on Nov. 28 but then he asked a question about baptism so it never got to the point but it was one of the most amazing lessons I have ever had on my mission. And we left by 6:20. Booyah.

We made it on time to our dinner appointment and left on time to make it to the mission home to have a lesson with Carlos!!! (The timing working out was a huge miracle in and of itself!) I finally got to see the mission home!!! :) We had a great lesson with Carlos and the Andersen's. Also, Patti (RC I think I told you about) came and so did Ivan and it was so awesome. We talked about temples and eternal marriage and it was so perfect to have the Andersen's there!

But then we didn't even leave there till 9:30 (haha at least President was there) because the Andersen's were coming back from a meeting. So then we didn't get home till 10 and we were planning Thomas's baptism interview and then we looked at his teaching record and saw that he didn't have any of the laws and ordinances! And some random commandments (like obey and honor the law and stuff). So we called up Elder Barrus and we asked him what the dealio was and well...there was confusion about what needed to be taught before and after baptism. So we had to call President and ask him what to do and he said to try to teach him everything since the baptism was already set for Saturday and so then we had to move his baptism interview to Saturday and teach him everything on Friday and we had like 10 million other things to figure out...we didn't end planning till like 10:45.

So then on Friday, there was about 17 struggles getting to be able to teach him because he doesn't have a car so we went with this other member to pick him up and then go teach him but traffic was INSANE and so we went to a park and then this homeless guy was selling some art or something and then Thomas had about 45 min - 1 hour before he had to be back (including driving). But the lesson actually went really smoothly and we got everything taught and did the baptism interview questions to prepare for his interview! We felt like he was ready to be baptized. We were worried because we didn't want to baptize him too quick so we prayed and prayed and prayed all day before the lesson that we would have the gift of discernment to know if he was ready. All of REALLY felt the spirit as we went through the questions so we knew he was ready!

Gratefully, the baptism went really smoothly and it was just a great baptism! The Elders were able to come back for that and many YSA came and it was just great :)

So yesterday I got to hear the Nashville Tribute Band for the second time on my mission!!! Oh my goodness they were SOOO good! They did their "Redeemer" CD and oh my goodness I always forget that it's like 20 million times better live!! It was so cool and the spirit was soooo strong. Carlos came to church and went to the fireside by the band but him and Ivan left part way through for some reason but I'm glad he got to hear some of it. I seriously love the NTB so much!!

Well that's it on this insane week!! This week is probably going to be pretty busy too! We're working with double the people since we took over the Elder's area! It's crazy but I love being super busy!

I love being a missionary so much!! I'm not gonna lie, if I was offered the ability to serve 2 years like the Elders, I would take it in a heartbeat! I think it's so unfair that they get to serve longer than us! I told sister Dillon this week, "I feel so unfaired!" I like to make up words sometimes...haha

My ponderizing scripture for the week is D&C 42:14. One of the goals for this transfer is to improve in my ability to listen to, recognize and follow the spirit and so I wanted to pick one related to that. I really like this scripture because it can be like a command or a statement of fact. We are commanded as missionaries that we must teach by the spirit or we shouldn't teach. And on the other hand, if we aren't teaching by the spirit, we really can't teach. It would be pointless to teach without the spirit because really we aren't the teachers, the spirit is.

I love y'all lots and I hope y'all have a blessed week!

Love,

Sister Myers

PS Happy Halloween! :)

Here's some pictures!! :)

1. Us and the other Sisters at Sweet Cece's (like Menchies...owned by a member so we eat free once a week!)

2. Us, Alek (member) and Tim Gates - what a classy guy!

3. Us and the Truman brothers :)

4. Us, Jason Deere (lead singer of NTB) and Dan Truman! 

5. pickin up sister Johnson at transfers!

6. matching with sister Hammer! And sister Richardson photo bombing! :)

 

 

The YSA tri-force begins!

So here's a funny story for you. So this week the YSA Elders in our branch got a call from President that they are getting closed down and we will be taking over all the YSA (this is not the funny part...we were sad about that). So then we were talking about how there is only one sister coming out this next transfer. She was supposed to come out 2 transfers ago but she got sick and so she's coming out now. So we were all saying it would be super great if we trio trained her (which we REALLY wanted to do, not gonna lie) and so we were thinking about that.

So then on Saturday after studies we went over to the other sisters to get some stuff out of their car and we jokingly told them that we were trio training and they were like "Really? Are you lying?" And we were like, "yeah!" Haha and then they were like, "Aw...dang you got us excited!" So then we left and not 10 minutes later President called us and asked us to trio train!!! Man we were so excited it was unreal! So then we decided not to call the sisters and tell them and so when transfer calls came they were like, "Liars. Man you got us good." Hahah because they thought that we really had gotten the call and just pretended like we were kidding! Hahahaha it was classic!

But yeah TRIO TRAINING!!!! WAHOO!!! And guess what? She's from Canada how cool is that? And we know all this because Elder and Sister Dunn told us hahaha they are so funny I just love them (they are a senior couple in the office that go to our branch). Yeah so we spent like 2 1/2 hours this morning doing some rearranging slash cleaning of our apartment getting ready for our new companion!! :)

This week is going to be soooo busy! The elders have a baptism planned on Saturday for this one investigator and so we are going to have to work on setting that up and getting him interviewed and see him every day and all this stuff but it's gonna be good. His name is Thomas and he is SO smart! Haha we were talking to him yesterday at church and we asked him how he was and he said he was really really tired because he was up most of the night researching for a Bill that he is writing. Like legitly writing. As in at some point it's may be put in Legislation or whatever it's called. I was just blown away! He is so cool though. And he referred himself to meet with missionaries and the Elders have basically just taught him all the lessons in meeting just a few times and he's ready to be baptized! We are pretty excited for that.

Carlos is doing great! We had a lesson at President and Sister Johnson's house this week and it was really good! We taught him the Word of Wisdom and he is already living it. He even told us, "It's a good thing that you taught me this today because I have not been doing good on my exercising and eating healthy and stuff so this is like, good motivation for me to be better." Hahah if you only knew him and could hear him say that!!! Oh he is so great. He probably won't get baptized until the end of the year but we are okay with that. We don't want to rush anything and he'll just be that much more prepared when that day does come!!! Keep praying for him though!

So remember Devin? We had met him and then went back for the appointment and he wasn't there and he didn't respond to our calls or texts. Well, this week we decided to try him and he answered and it turns out he was asleep because we had caught him write after work and he had to go out of town right after that so he was getting some rest or something like that....and we had the wrong number! Hahah I decided to check the number with him and I'm glad I did! So yeah we set up an appointment with him for this Tuesday night so that should be good!

Still doing a lot of tracting! We have found some pretty solid people this week! Unfortunately none of them are YSA! But hey, everyone needs the gospel!! So we're going to be going on a few exchanges with other sisters this week to do some pass off lessons and stuff so that'll make the week even busier!!

Okay so here's a cool miracle! We took this recent convert, Patti, with us to try a less active named Kelly in Franklin who no one really knew anything about. Well she answered and didn't seem super open but then guess what? Kelly's mom was there and she's really active and so she kept the conversation going and at one point she was asking for Patti's number or something for something else an that clever woman gave Patti Kelly's phone number too and Kelly was just like, "uh okay" Haha but it was just so cool because Kelly really just needs fellowship. She doesn't have any friends for family in Tennessee. She's from Utah and went to BYU and on a mission and everything but her job paid for her to come out here and she's not the most outgoing person. And Patti just loves everyone so we are really happy that Patti will be able to do some fellowshipping for Kelly!

Next week the Nashville Tribute Band is doing a fireside in our building for the YSA and the Murfreesboro YSA and so that should be good! They are doing their new "Redeemer" CD and I'm super stoked!

So was looking for a scripture this morning to ponderize for the week and I felt like I should look in Romans. So I kind of scanned through it and found Romans 15:4. I just love it!!! "For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope" Oh man I just seriously love that! Hope definitely can be gained through the scriptures! They were written for our learning and so that we could have hope! Hope in what? The answer is in Moroni 7:41 "And what is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the Atonement of Christ." Christ's Atonement is infinite and eternal and no matter how dark the world may seem, the light of Christ always shines brighter!

Sorry this letter is so all over the place!! My brain is really scattered today!

I love y'all so much and I hope y'all have a blessed day!

Love,

Sister Myers

Here's some pics for you!

1. Elder and Sister Dunn, me and Sister Dillon and the Elders (Elder Johansen and Barrus)...#YSAforever

2. The district! It was such a great district!

3. Our rap album cover

4. Our trio training selfie 

 

 

Myersites vs. Dillonites

It's been a more slow week but it's been a great week!!!!

On Saturday I got to Skype a baptism for that old lady named Roxie in Mayfield!!!! Oh my goodness I love her so much! I was seriously dying she is so funny! She couldn't hear me from the iPad so whoever was holding the iPad would have to tell her what I was saying! And then when she wanted to say something to me she would lean in and talk really loud! Hahaha she is so great! It was so fun to see everyone in Mayfield! Sad, but good! I wish I could have gone up there but 3 hours is just too far away! I'm grateful for technology though!

This week has been filled with a lot of finding with not a lot of numerical success. Meaning, really no one was interested but we did have good conversations with people! But no new investigators :( BUT one thing that has been running through my mind this week was, "We are blessed BECAUSE of our efforts not THROUGH our efforts! And this was confirmed to me yesterday.

We were having companionship study and we got a text from this member in SLC. He said that his girlfriend was going to Vanderbilt and that she wasn't a member but wanted to go to church and needed a ride! So, we called this other member that goes to Vanderbilt and she picked her up and brought her! Her names is Charlotte and she is SO cool! Her dad grew up in the church but is inactive, but her dad's side are basically all members. She went to church a couple of weeks ago to the family ward but they suggested she go to the YSA branch but I guess she since she needed a ride and didn't know how to get a hold of us she asked her boyfriend how! She came to all the meetings and fit in so well with the branch! She seemed just like she was a member! Obviously, she has had experience with the church! She is going home to Atlanta this weekend but she said she would like to meet with us next week! WAHOO!! God is so good! I know that this came because of our great efforts in finding this week! We were blessed BECAUSE of our efforts, not THROUGH them!

Steven came to church yesterday! But that is because he was coming to say goodbye to everyone because he is moving to California...today! It was SO quick! Like no one knew about it and so he came was just like, "I'm moving tomorrow!" What?! We told him how to get ahold of the missionaries in California if he was ready to learn again. One day......

Devin wasn't there when we went to his appointment and hasn't answered our texts :( But we shall not give up hope!

Southern quote of the week: "Just hangin on like a hair on a biscuit!" :P

Carlos came to church also! We have had some pretty good lessons with him this week! Haha funny story we were having a phone lesson with him and he was confused about the Nephites versus the Lamanites and how they came about and stuff and I explained it and it made a little more sense and then I went into this crazy analogy and it was went something like this, "It's like if me and Sister Dillon got in a fight and separated from each other! And then it would be as if you took Sister Dillons side and y'all called yourselves the Dillonites and then Ivan (this RC that comes to lessons a lot) took my side and we called ourselves the Myersites. So it's like our team name!" Haha I am so weird but Sister Dillon was dying and Carlos was laughing....which is weird for him because he's just so quiet and doesn't really laugh out loud that much. Yep, I have weird analogies for like everything haha

We are having a lesson with Carlos at President Johnson's house this week and I'm super stoked! It's going to be so great! Carlos is really progressing! Slowly but surely! He is working through some things but nothing that's his fault or anything! I'm excited for him! Keep him in your prayers!

My ponderizing scripture this week is Alma 5:14 "And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren, of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced a might change in your hearts?" I love this scripture!

I read this quote this morning on that scripture that I just love!

“When you choose to follow Christ, you choose to be changed…The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature…Yes, Christ changes men, and changed men can change the world" - President Ezra Taft Benson

I love that! If we truly are following Christ we are going to change! We are CHOOSING to change! And the Atonement of Jesus Christ allows us to do that! :)

Love y'all millions! Have a blessed day!

Love,

Sister Myers

Here's some pictures from the week!!!

1. This is Sister Herbert! She is in my district! We went on exchanges with the Bellevue sisters for like, an hour because they had met a few YSA so they wanted to pass them off to us! Sister Herbert is so great!

2. Sister Dillon, Patti (a recent convert that I just love to DEATH! she is so cool!), me (obviously) and Sister Peterson, or Alex. She was a missionary that served in the YSA! I didn't really know her that well but I knew her through other people! She's so awesome!

Who keeps flipping the weather switch?

So this week the weather decided to take a random turn and get cloudy and cold with several rain showers/misting all week! We had to bundle up! It was so weird though because it was like literally all at once! Then yesterday it switched back to being nice and sunny. Um what? Nashville weather is CRAZY! Kind of like Utah weather I guess haha

Okay, this week was a great week! It was really long but also went by super fast! It's been crazy!

So remember that Michael guy that we miraculously met last week? Well we saw him this week with a member and had a super awesome lesson with him! We taught a lot of the restoration and talked so much about prophets! He had so many great questions and you could tell that he just really wanted to know! It was so cool!!

Also, we met this REALLY awesome guy named Devin! We were planning to go tracting and the traffic and bus system was taking forever so we ended up at the place we were going to go tracting like, 30-45 minutes later than we wanted to be. BUT while we were tracting Devin's apartment building (like the first building we got to) he came home from work and so we would not have met him if we had been there at the time we wanted too! God is so good! He was super interested and we have a return appointment with him on Thursday!

Okay and here's another cool miracle that at first was really a struggle. On Saturday night, we had like, nothing to do. All our plans fell through and Saturday night in YSA is such a struggle. No one is available. And it was freezing so street contacting was not an option. So we decided to just hard core bus contact. But, we BARELY missed the bus because of the cross walk. So then we literally had nothing to do. We just stood there for like 5 minutes. Then we decided to pray because, you know, inspiration and stuff. So we pray and just keep standing there. I saw this guy across the street that was walking and I was hoping he would cross the crosswalk but he didn't so my thoughts of talking to him were dashed. So then we kept standing there and I noticed the same guy was now sitting at the bus stop of the bus we had just missed, and I knew the bus was not going to come for another like 45 minutes so I was like, "lets go talk to that guy!" So we go and Wow! He was so cool! His named was Templeton and he asked us all sorts of awesome questions like what we do if we had no fear, and a time when we've prayed the most (if we wanted to share) as well as our favorite scripture. We shared some from the Book of Mormon and he was astounded. Like, that's the best way to describe it! He just kept saying. Wow. That was an amazing scripture! (It was Ether 12:27 that Sister Dillon shared) and so we kept talking about the Book of Mormon and a bit of the Restoration and it was just sooo cool. And right after we got his number the bus came. Perfect timing. God is SO good!

A lot of people have been dropping us slash we have had to drop a lot of people this week. Steven is taking a break from the Book of Mormon and praying, but he went to the priesthood session of conference and came to the Sunday afternoon session. But I'm pretty sure it was because of food and the social aspect. Oh well.

We also had a lesson at Anne Parkes house with this investigator named Tessa. I might have mentioned her. But yeah she was very honest with us and said that there were things about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon that she just couldn't believe. She has trouble reading the Book of Mormon and she doesn't go by feeling to come to know that something is true. She has to believe it logically first or something like that. It's difficult to explain. But yeah that was sad. She is so awesome though. Maybe one day. But in the mean time we are still finding good people like Devin and Templeton. And this week we have the car so the slow week should pick up!! :)

Okay well I am running out of time because the internet was being a struggle at the beginning. But hey, I LOVED CONFERENCE!! It don't have any of my conference notes though so I don't really remember much. I loved Elder Holland's and Nelsons. And I am so stoked the Elder Renlund is a new apostle. I met him and he is just so awesome! I'm so excited for Elder Rasband and Stevenson also!!! They will be so great!!!

I loved the Ponderizing talk!!! My scripture is 1 Corinthians 3:16-17! I just picked a random one from PMG!! :) Share with me your ponderizing scripture!! I want to hear them!

I know President Monson is a true prophet and that God speaks to us today through his servants! I know the Book of Mormon is true!!! I love it so much!!! And I love y'all so much!!!! Sorry for the shortness of this email!!! :)

Love,

Sister Myers

Pictures:

1.the struggle of nightly planning

2. us seesters

3. I believe in Nashy!

4. Us and Sister Crawford! I just love her! She went home this week :(

5. Bundled up in the rainy cold!!