Another Great Week

 I was warned I'll have long days and short weeks on the mission but it's just been short days and shorter weeks! I've been very busy and all the days are blurred together haha! 

Rick's baptism date had to be pushed back to Feb 11th but we'll take that week to help him prepare even more! It's been amazing see God change his heart. 

Eric declined a specific date to be baptized and is now avoiding us :/ or maybe he's busy! Please pray that we'll be able to meet with him soon! 

Spiritual:

I've been working more on teaching by the Spirit! The Spirit will give me thoughts or promptings to say certain things and when I say them, the person I'm teaching receives it in such a way that I know that was from God! I have been on the receiving side of that before and it is powerful! I know that God is aware of all His children and I'm grateful to be an instrument in His hands to let them know that! 

Miracles:

●Someone just showed up to church on Sunday wanting to meet with missionaries again! He basically said he wants to be baptized, and he wants to introduce his girlfriend to the church as well!! 

●We knocked on someone's door, they weren't home, but their neighbor was! She was grabbing her mail when we were walking off the porch and said hi. We gave her a Book of Mormon and was interested in learning more! 

●Rick brought a friend to his lesson with us! Her name is Tina and she had so many great questions! 

Fun moments:

●We drove over this beautiful lake while the sun was setting! 

●the GPS was being weird and decided to take us on so many dirt roads. But it was raining, so they were more like mud roads! We got our car so muddy right before they did vehicle inspections! It was a great excuse to go through the car wash for the second time this week ;)

Monday Funday

 I can't tell you how much we all look forward to Mondays (P-days) to be able to talk to Brinlee over video chat.  We always turn every moment, even those boring moments into something fun.  As a couple of examples... if we are waiting for our food at a restaurant, we will see if we can throw our straw wrappers into each other's open mouths - usually to the dismay of other diners and our servers.  Or pass the buzzer, seeing how comfortable we are with risk by holding the buzzer longer than usual before passing it.  The holder, when it goes off, has to go get the food at the counter.  

We had a lull at the end of our conversation Monday, so we decided to give each other a dental exam and make half hearts and baby hearts with our fingers as we were saying good bye.  Some are more dexterous than others.

Great Work

 This week flew by! It was such a great week!

Miracles!

》Rick is our friend who is on date to be baptized and he is going to make that happen! When we told Rick what the word of wisdom was he was not happy haha! But when we told him it's required to be baptized he changed his mind! The Spirit softened his heart and he was willing to change his life choices to prepare to make the covenant of baptism! This was a miracle! 

》Eric was also struggling with some of the sacrifices required to be baptized but he had a change of heart as well! Just all of a sudden he texted us saying he was willing to change! I know that this work is in God's hands! My job is just to invite and help these people to receive
the restored gospel and He will do the rest! 

》There's this one family who requested to meet with us but we missed them every time we've gone. We were planning for a lesson when I thought of this family (We didn't have a visit planned for them or anything). One of our lessons fell through so we decided to follow that prompting and visit them! On our way there we were stuck behind a school bus that made so many stops, at every red light possible, and we were going to be late for dinner if we weren't at their house at that moment! But I just had faith that these were happening for a reason and that we'll arrive at their house exactly when we need to be there. When we got there, there were people outside and their door was open!! We were finally able to talk with them and set up a time to come back and we gave the mom a Book of Mormon!! Such a cool miracle!!

It's been raining a bit this week. Actually all day yesterday! And the rain here is odd haha! It was raining super hard at times and at other times normal but there was one time it was misting! It wasn't sprinkling, it was mist in the air! So crazy! And the only other way to describe the rain here is soft. It just falls so softly😂

Fun moments:

》Our district was wanting to do "vlogs" every week with how our day went. And we had so much fun making ours! It's so awkward, it's funny😂 Unfortunately, the file is too large to send! 

》Someone running back into their house when they saw us. She was trying so hard to avoid us! 

I have learned how important members are in these lessons! Their testimonies, experiences, and friendships are needed to these people who are new to the church and are learning about the church. Everyone is a missionary! I invite you to make an effort to talk to someone new in church this week or to share your testimony!

Pictures

-sunset! 

-Our friend Eric (ft. The Andersons and the Taylors)

-our friend Rick (ft. Sister Riley)

-Celebrating David's birthday! He's not turning one but he's number one! Him and his wife, Nancy, are like our southern grandparents!! 

At the Car Wash

 As you saw in Brinlee's last letter, she was pretty excited to go to the Car Wash on P-day.  In fact, she was planning to go to Top Golf on the very same P-day and she was more stoked about going to the Car Wash to check it out.  She wrote and said "The car wash we went to had windows!!"

I was totally geeking out!! And during the wash too! Sis Peterson kept looking back at me haha

They had some different equipment! But they use Simoniz soaps! TNG used to use those soaps!

And it was a good quality for a $10 wash! Tire shine was amazing and vacuums were very strong but too loud. We were yelling to talk to each other haha. And we had to walk all the way to the entrance of the tunnel to grab towels! Ridiculous, haha. And the trash cans were ghetto. No sack just the 5gal trash cans

Also those hoses were so tangled tsk tsk.

After all this, we got a sentence long, update on Top Golf (and no pictures).  You probably don't know anyone else with as much passion for car washes than her!

Tornado Warning 👀🌧

 I've already been a missionary for one month! I had a very fun and busy week this week! 

The people here are just amazing and always want to talk about God and Jesus Christ! I was able to invite another person to be baptized and he accepted! Ricky is preparing to be baptized on Feb. 4th! Rose, an older lady, called us and asked us to help clean her house, so we accepted! She ended up not having anything for us to clean but she showed us her entire house instead haha! After, we were talking with her and she was sharing her feelings of missing her parents who have passed a while ago. We told her that because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and God's love and plan for us, we will see our families after this life. We were able to teach her more about the plan of salvation and she is just so sweet!! She was asking us all these questions and was astonished at our answers and just wanted to learn more and more! Eric is our most progressing friend! He also has a lot of sincere questions, which is amazing! He recognizes the feeling of the Holy Ghost more at our church than in any others he's been to. He said "This church got it!" It was a testimony builder for me, honestly. It was amazing to know he knows he feels God's Love for him when he comes to church and reads the Book of Mormon! 

Some fun moments:

We were coming off the highway to another road about the same speed limit, 60mph, and didn't realize the hill we were going over was steeper than anticipated😬 we may or may not have caught some air...

I had a very fun P-day today! We went to Top Golf and played mini golf and I got to go to a car wash!! This month has been the longest time I've gone without going to a car wash in 3.5 years!  

Miracles:

We had a tornado warning on Thursday which was crazy and a lil scary! We were 45min away from home so we got to the nearest members house but not before the crazy rain started. Blankets of rain were POURING down on us! We prayed for safety and for the rest of the night whenever we had to drive somewhere, the rain stopped. When we reached our destination it started pouring again! God is so good! There was no tornado luckily!

This week I have learned the power of prayer and of faith!

Please pray for 

-Eric to have a desire to be baptized

-Rose to have the support and means she needs to come to church 

-Barbara to heal from her surgeries

I love you all, thank you for your prayers! I see the answers to them everyday! 

Pictures

-Soda shop someone we are teaching owns! They got the idea from Utah!

-Knocking doors #butfirstletmetakeaselfie

-golden hour photo shoot on the train tracks 

-beautiful sunset 

-tornado warning 

First update from the "field"

 I made it to South Carolina!! I've absolutely been loving being a missionary! The MTC was so fun and I learned so so much. I've made some amazing friends too! Four out of six of the sisters were going to South Carolina too! So I got to take them with me haha. From the MTC I learned how to teach to the needs of people and by the Spirit. I have gained so much confidence in my teaching from my amazing teachers in the MTC! 

I flew to SC on Wednesday. We had to take two flights with only a 30 min layover! We almost didn't make it to our connecting flight! But we were expecting miracles, and we made it! Another great miracle was that I didn't get sick on either of the two flights, like at all!! This has never ever happened in all the flights I have taken! God is so good! 

My first area is the Harlem/Grovetown area in Agusta Georgia! The trees are gorgeous and the sunsets are magnificent! It honestly doesn't feel like I'm across the country from yall :(

The accents have been so fun to listen too haha. Just gotta get used to it, I can mostly understand what they're saying haha. 

The best part of this week was hands down teaching some lessons. I got to teach some lessons on Saturday! And I could feel the Spirit so strongly throughout those and I was able to invite someone to be baptized and I gave someone a Book of Mormon!

More Miracles:

-We prayed about who to visit next and I felt prompted to go to this one members house (I don't even know people here yet) and we got talking with them, they invited us over for a dinner and the only day we didn't have a dinner planned was on that next Tuesday! So we'll get to have dinner with them! 

-Someone requested to visit with the missionaries months ago, her name is Kadizha. We were running late from a lesson, knocked on her door, her mom said she was
n't there but as we were turning back she was pulling into the driveway! She was so excited to see us, I gave her a book of Mormon and she was excited to read it!

Email me if you want to, I'd love to hear from all of you! Thank you for your prayers❤️

Pictures:

-my companions and the beautiful sunset

-there are cats everywhere and this house had 15 just on the porch!

-sunset and moon

-I love the temple!

Arrived in SC

 

We're still waiting to hear from Brinlee, but for now, we got this picture and the following text from her Mission President, Pres. & Sis. Monson...

Sister Alexander arrived safely to the mission. We’re so excited to serve with her in the SCCM!

Last week at the MTC