Searching, searching, searching...

 The planning area

 Lots of walking...lots of shoes

No week as a missionary is ever boring, as long as you are being obedient and striving to truly do your best. We meet new people each day, just looking and looking and looking for those that truly desire to change and come closer to Christ. This Gospel is sweet, and it boggles my mind that anybody actually turns us down (which actually happens quite often haha). No matter! The Lord will prevail, and truth and righteousness will always triumph.

Monday-- We never have anything note-worthy happen on P-day...sooooorry...we are lazy bums on this day and we enjoy it :)

Tuesday-- We got to clean out this big puddle for a member in our ward...we had to clear out the drain that is supposed to be taking care of that so I got a lot of mud on me and it was quite the experience haha!

Wednesday-- We taught Bobbie again, and while she is living the Word of Wisdom, she declined our baptismal invitation. We pray for her each and every night, but in the end it's up to her. While we may be able to see how much this would bless her life, she has to choose whether or not to take the plunge for herself. 

Thursday-- Man, this day we had a hard time filling in our schedule. Especially after it gets dark! Everybody here is either old and goes to bed at like 7 or 8, or they have little kids that need to go to bed to be able to wake up for school the next day. It also doesn't help that it is really just not the culture around here to make appointments. It's more of a "come by when you wanna" kind of place. However, because of this, you also have to be polite and not knock on doors after it gets dark. As missionaries, we're supposed to be out till 9:00, but that is becoming a very hard thing to do.

Friday-- We had District Meeting and I gave a 5 minute lesson on prayer! It was nice, because with that I have already started my talk for next Sunday! We also went to go see one of our favorite less-actives, Jimmy & Rose Neighbors.  They are now going to be feeding us squirrel next Thursday...haaaaaahahahaha.  I am so going to do it. If for nothing else but to be able to say that I did!

Saturday-- We had a Relief Society luncheon, and we had been inviting like craaaaazy to this thing. When nobody showed up, did me and Sister Herring become discouraged? OF COURSE NOT! We got some leftover cake and took it to all those people that we invited but didn't get a chance to come and see us there :) 

Sunday-- Church is always nice, and Bobbie was there.  Josie was also there.  She's another investigator that is 17 and dating a boy in the ward...she took the lessons, and really wants to be baptized, but her mom won't let her, so she does what she can. She is totally awesome though, I'm not gonna lie. She signed herself up for early-morning seminary, which is more than I can say for myself at 17, haha.  While we were hoping to see others there as well, that just means that we're going to be teaching a loooot about the importance of church attendance this week so those people can gain the desire to dedicate the Sabbath day to the Lord as that is what he asks us to do on that sacred day. Also, we went tracting and ran into this totally nice Jehovah's Witness couple. It was basically just each of us trying to convert the others, but it was nice to talk to them nonetheless :)

This week has been a lot of learning the importance of keeping your chin up even when it seems like it's not going to do much good. As missionaries, it is so important to always be consistently faithful in all that we do. In obedience, in working, in the little moments that you don't think matter.  Because that's just the thing:  

EVERY moment matters as a missionary. Every single little one. No matter what we do, we are either serving or preparing ourselves in some way to serve. To become a Preach My Gospel missionary is to 'have an eye single to the glory of God' not just for yourself, but for everyone around you. We must be constantly thinking: 'How can I bring this person closer to their Savior?' 'What steps does this person need to take to repent and receive all of the goodness that the Lord is waiting to pour out upon their heads?' And always, always, ALWAYS: 

'How can I help?'

That is exactly what being a missionary of the Lord is.  

This is the nutcracker that watches over letters from home.  To demonstrate their faith and desire to find investigators to teach, Sister Nisse and Sister Herring agreed that they would sacrifice opening letters from home until p-day. So they place their letters by the nutcracker--kind of like presents under the Christmas tree--and wait until Monday to open them.

Their cute little kitchen

Sunset

Sister Herring, from St. John's, AZ

Writing home at the library

Sister Nisse and Sister Herring

 

This week has been full of adventures and crazy happenings. The work is a different ball game each week, I'm learning. 

Monday-- P-day, so nothing crazy. However, every month on the 2nd Monday, they have this thing called 'Empty Nesters' which is when all the empty nesters of the community (whiiiiich is basically everybody) come out to have fun with the Mormons while we eat and listen to a live bluegrass band. The missionaries go because we meet about 101 non-members. They love talking to us, because we're young and interesting (not my words) but it really was a very fun night!

Tuesday-- We contacted a lot of referrals, not a lot came of it, but tracting really makes you feel like a missionary, let me tell you. We had a few lessons, but none of them were all that eventful.

Wednesday-- Craaaaaaaaaaaaazy day! All the stuff that we had planned the night before fell through, so about 2 hours into our day we were grasping at straws, which is never fun as a missionary. However, I'm learning that when that happens, the Lord is just basically saying, "Ya, those plans were nice, but look what else I've got in store for you!" I say that because while we were just trying our hardest to stay out and working, we got 3 new investigators! Two of them are formers investigators that we looked up in our area book and really wanted to contact them, due to the section in PMG that talks about trying out your formers. They were interested and oh my goodness--me and Sister Herring were just on cloud 9. The 3rd investigator is Jessica, the momma of the Mexican family that I told you about last week. Miracle--we knocked on the door just as her 9 month old baby had gone down for a nap and she only woke when we were done teaching her mom. Jessica is super nice, and she's interested in  learning more, as she had brief contact with the Church in Mexico...haaaa she thought that we were polygamists...funny stuff :)

Thursday-- Had specialized training basically aaaaaall day which was AWESOME, but we didn't do much besides go to our dinner appointment after that. 

Friday-- Tracting again, and lemme tell ya. These bugs our here just simply adoooore me. My legs seems to be the must-try diner of the bug world.

Saturday-- We went to Jessica's yard sale, and she was very friendly, but there was also this Baptist preacher there who started to give us a little mini-sermon about how as long as we're all just trying to follow God it doesn't really matter what faith we're a part of...in any case, he started his little thinga-ma-jig by saying that he'd always had questions about the Mormon faith, and so I ended up giving him a mormon.org card when he was done preaching to us :) Hahahahahahaha I'm too funny, I tell ya...after that, everything fell through again, which obviously means that we had another miracle :) We were on our way to contact a referral when we had to stop due to the fact that there was a lady picking up her trash which had been strewn all across the road by some bears. We of COUUUURSE got right out to help her! She is interested in learning more, and it was just really awesome talking to her. She said that she feels guided to where God wants her to go to church (aka church shopping. regular practice out here...you just keep trying churches out till you find one where you like the pastor/minister/whatever the heck as well as the congregation). Which will make it quite the thing  to teach her about having the same gospel all around the world :) 

Sunday-- Committed a stubborn but hilarious 80-year-old named Bobbie Lavender to living the word of wisdom. Pretty much made the rest of my day the best thing ever :)  We hope to commit her to baptism by the end of the month.

Being a missionary, you see people where they are in their lives and you just have this amazing ability to see where they could be with this wonderful message that we've got. It's process getting them there, but it's definitely worth it. I can't say it enough...missions are the best :)

Deer and wild turkeys in the yard

Virginia is beautiful!

Meaghan with President and Sister Pitt

 

Things I've learned while living in the South:

1. You never call to get just one detail sorted out. There WILL be chit-chat.

2. When you have exchanged hugs/handshakes, you are approximately 75% of your way out of the door.

3. You eat all the food on your plate. However, you always begin with saying, "Oh, how in the world am I going to eat all of this??" 

4. ALWAYS ask how a person is doing/how their day is going. (Be sure to actually listen as well.)

5. You can say whatever you'd like about a person, and as long as you end with, "Bless her heart", everything is just fine and dandy.

The culture of the South is pretty different, haha. People are friendly, and all the conversations are long. However, I love love love it here! Life as a missionary is pretty wonderful :) People are coooonstantly trying to feed us or give us money for food. Me and Sister Herring are about 95% sure that they're all secretly playing a game of 'Who Can Make the Missionaries the Fattest?'

Many miracles! We got a referral a couple of weeks ago for a Mexican couple that have just moved into the area, and while our first try didn't work, we now know why: we needed to spend more time with this one sister in our ward from Chile! She offered to go to lessons with them, and maybe even have them over for dinner to speak Spanish and create that bond. I imagine that coming to a place like this would be hard if you were used to being surrounded by Spanish all the time. Luckily, we've found a way to help them with that :) Also, we were able to help one of our less-actives in a big way this week. They had a friend recently die, and while we weren't planning on visiting them, we ended up doing just that. They needed to hear in that moment what we had to say about out Heavenly Father's plan for us after we die. It's amazing to me how much the Lord cares for His children and knows their lives and their struggles. What's even more amazing is that I get to be a part of that. 

Love and miss you all!

Meggie

First Area: Roanoke, Virginia

I am in the Back Creek Area, in the Roanoke Zone! However, Back Creek is basically just the fancy part of town in the outskirts of Roanoke. Settling in has been interesting, because the sister that I replaced had been here for 5 months. I hear a lot of, "Where's Sister Tuckett?" and "Aww, i'm gonna miss Sister Tuckett." It's alright though, they'll definitely learn soon that having a redhead is quite the little blessing :)

Sorry that I didn't email yesterday. We email in the library, and since it was Labor Day yesterday, we're doing emails today.

We got into Charleston at about 11 am on August 27, and I was deeeeeeead tired. They had some meetings for us to be at, but they let us go to bed at like 6:30 due to our flight circumstances (I was traveling all night and didn't catch a wink). However, I totally passed out in the middle of our testimony meeting at the President's house. Sister Williams had to wake me up because I was making noises apparently...hahaha. The classy streak continues.

 Charleston, West Virginia

The sisters (there was 14 of us) stayed at a nice hotel in Charleston for 2 nights before we headed off to meet our trainers. My trainer's name is Sister Herring, and she is 24. She has also been out for a grand total of 6 weeks! We have fun in our area, the people are amazing. We've gone tracting 2 times now, and both times yielded new investigators! Tracting is truly an act of faith. In all fairness, it was more guided tracting, however. We had a referral that we wanted to tract into, and so we just did all the surrounding areas as well. Last night we found 2 families that want to meet with us later today (SOOO EXCITED!!!) and as for the other time, there's a little story that goes with it. 

We had stopped at a member's home, and she told us to go and see if we could say hello to this little family that had just moved in, coming from Mexico. We tracted down the street to their house, and they didn't answer their door, so we just continued down the street. We had finished and were walking back to our car when we a car started coming down the street to pull into the house that we had just knocked on. We waved, and she stopped (OMGosh). She rolled down her window and said that she'd like to learn more (OMGoshOMGosh). We had a Book of Mormon with us, but for some reason it had been misprinted, so we had to go back to our car to get her a new one. It started to rain, and so she ended up letting us inside (OMGoshOMGoshOMGosh). We talked to her more about the Book of Mormon, and she said that she'd be happy to learn more.

Kay. 

So.

I love tracting.   

So this week has been craaaaaaaazy! (Don't ever do laundry in the MTC if you can avoid it. People let Satan into their hearts down there, I've decided.)

We taught a lady in the TRC (Teaching Resource Center) who was raised in Venezuela and had 5 kids...very Catholic. However, when I told her aaaaall about how my dad was raised Catholic, and that he had been baptized into The LDS Church, it opened the conversation up quite nicely :)  Our second time with her we decided to talk about prayer, and found out that she hadn't prayed since she was a child. She said that the rote prayers lost their meaning to her pretty quickly. I was able to tell her about my experiences with prayer and how it has helped my mother, which she liked to hear about. She actually ended up saying the closing prayer! It was so awesome.

I have about a billion stories to tell, and no time to do it. Friends, write me snail mail instead if you could! (see address below)

I got really sick this week (I now use my hand sanitizer religiously) and had to go to the health clinic. The doctor tested me neg. for strep, which is good, and prescribed me some ibuprofen and a decongestant that has saved my life. I still feel really dizzy though. I have no idea why. Prayers, please :)  

Also, I have a new companion! Sister Hutto is from Dallas, Texas, and was delayed a week due to medical issues. Teaching in a trio is quite the trick, let me tell you. However, when you eventually DO get it down, the miracles are plentiful. We taught one of the most amazing lessons ever the other night in our little trio and it totally boosted my spirits.We are so blessed to have her :) She's leaving us Monday morning, though, to head to the Fort Collins, Colorado Mission. So sad. However, me and Sister Williams are terribly happy that she is going now instead of having to wait another week. Me and Sister Williams are going to be leaving Monday night, and our flight leaves at 1:00 am. Loverly.

Have a wonderful week and I'll write again soon!

(From WV...Eeep!)

Mission Home Address:

888 Oakwood Rd, Ste 310

Charleston, WV 25314-2071

Meaghan's First Email from the MTC:

 

Heeeeey there. It's P-day, or, as I like to refer to it, yoga pants day.

Anywho, my adventures have been grand. I got a beautiful new blister from running on Tuesday and Wednesday morning (gotta shake the stress away) and then when I got to the MTC, it popped. And hurt. A lot. I stopped at the bookstore with my host (the sister that showed me the way to my room and stuff) and got some Vaseline and a Band-Aid. I fixed myself up as best as I could, and then hobbled on over to my first class. When I got there, I met all my new classmates, who urged me to remove my shoe to ensure that I would be more comfortable. We then realized that I was in the wrong classroom.

And that, my friend, is the story of how I showed up to my first class minus one shoe, plus one giant blister, and with a fabulous new strut (i.e. limp).

I'm so classy.

On another note, my companion's name is Sister Williams and I pretty much love her to death. She's from Texas, but she's a tiny little thing so in this case, we really can't say that everything is bigger in Texas. I just got assigned to be the senior companion, which means that for now, I am the Doctor and she is my companion. A metaphor that she gets because she is a Whovian as well :) Proof that the Lord knows me and wants me to be happy! She is more on the reserved side, and me with my much more outgoing self gets toned down a bit when we are together. Which is always. So that makes life just grand :) We go on many adventures...meaning we get lost a lot and make the best of it, haha. We are both really happy to be one another's companions', in any case. She has been patient with me, and I have been the friend that she has needed for her first few days here.

Oh! So we were studying in a little alcove that we found close by our classroom yesterday and a man that works here comes up to me and says:

"Hi Sisters! Can you do me favor?"

"Suuuuuuure."

"I have a girl in there that's auditioning to be an 'investigator' for missionaries to practice teaching on in the TRC and we need to see how she interacts with the missionaries. Could you guys come and teach her a lesson so we can see that?"

Whut.

Of course we accepted, and while it was not my finest moment (give me a break, it was my 2nd day here and I was given appx. 30 seconds to prepare) it was cool because we were going to teach The Restoration, but after praying, we decided to teach her The Plan of Salvation. Later in the lesson we found out that she had a little brother die when she was about 7 years old and was looking for a way to mend her family back together, as things have never been the same. 

Little miracles :)

Experience Leaving.

The emotions of leaving are something else entirely. You have been dreaming, hoping, wishing for this day to come--and now it's here.

And you can't seem to take the next step.

This phenomenon has got to be the oddest thing about the human experience. We can want something--something big, something dramatic, something that will completely change the course of a person's life--and the hardest thing is taking the first step required to enter into that longed-for place.

It's difficult because you realize that that first step, that wonderful, beautiful thing that you have imagined time after time is also your last on the path that you have become familiar with. All of a sudden, the sights that you looked at with apathy on a good day and disgust on a bad one, are now the most beautiful things that you have ever had the blessing of beholding.

We fear change because there is nothing to grab hold of when the storm sets in. Our familiar surroundings are in immediate danger of being severed from us, nevermore to be the same--even upon return. In our cozy world that we've created, we have built up our rituals and our comforts for when the night seems dark and the winds are never-ending. We have cried, laughed, experienced the space that we have formed from a combination of the personal decisions and events that make up our lives.

In leaving, you are saying goodbye to all of that. You never realize that when you're dreaming.

But now is the day that you say goodbye. You release your grip on the life you have lead up to this moment. Roll your suitcase forward and get ready for a big wide wonderful world that you have yet to inspire, influence, and experience.

And don't forget to smile.