Me and Sweet Logan

Challenges Already?

Hi Ya'll~

Do you want good or bad news first?

Bad: 

-Logan's mom didn't want him to take the lessons anymore. ),:  

-We found a new investigator! ... And then.... she dropped us. 
-I thought it couldn't get any hotter..... and then it did. 
-15 hours of tracting 

-Our investigator Jennifer went back to work, so it's going to be harder to get in with her. 

Good: 

-Even though we were dropped from Logan and Marius, we miraculously saw him at our apartments pool today with his mom! We were able to talk to his mom and she's more open to him taking the lessons now (: 
-Earlier this week Jennifer felt like she didn't want to be baptized without her husband, but the other day she said that she felt like she could. 
-For sisters p-day we had a princess picnic, and ya'll know how much I LOVE princesses. We also crashed elders p-day on accident.. Oops. 
-One night we were having a really bad day with everyone dropping us and nobody was interested in hearing about the church. We had been tracting all day and we just weren't seeing any success. We decided to jump in the car, say a prayer, and go where the spirit led us. We were led to a street where a potential lived. We had her address but hadn't met her before. The thing is, her house number didn't exist! We walked up and down the street and it was nowhere to be found. We said one more prayer and started knocking on doors. As we were walking up to this house I had the greatest feeling ever. This was it. This was Martha's home. She had been taught by the elders before, but wasn't ready for baptism yet. We were able to teach her a little and she wanted us to come back. (: 
-We didn't die in this heat.. Yet. 
-We didn't have a cockroach in our apartment!! Yay

Also, if anybody wants to start a snow-cone shack in GA I would love you!! Can you believe there are NO snow cones in Georgia?! I'm craving one. 

Love ya'll. <3

Sister Merritt

Teaching Pool is Filling Up

Hey y'all.

This week has been amazing. We had so many lessons, we didn't know how to juggle them all. Tuesday night we were able to go over to a members house for dinner and they had invited our investigators Logan and Marius to join. Y'all NEED to meet Logan. He's the cutest nine year old boy ever. Imagine the cutest thing you've ever seen and then times it by seventy. That's how cute Logan is. I'll get a picture with him this week hopefully. We have three new investigators this week! One of them is Jennifer. She's a cute mother of two and just so happened to have two weeks off from her busy work schedule so we could teach her. She's flying through the lessons and just thirsting for more. She came to church yesterday and is having FHE with us and a member tonight. She's so great.

We're definitely staying busy. We don't have time to complain about the heat or how tired and hungry we are. After not having any investigators come to church in a long time, we were able to have 4. We were so excited! 

Miracle of the week: 

Friday, while we were tracting the streets we prayerfully picked out the night before, we had a feeling that we needed to be knocking on doors the next street over. We didn't have much time because we had to go to a lesson, but we decided to pick just three. All three doors didn't open. The third door we stayed at just a little longer and rang the doorbell one more time. All of a sudden we hear a faint "Who is it?" We respond saying we're sister missionaries and the door opens. A woman named Jeanie comes outside and starts talking with us. She tells us that she's taken the missionary lessons before and was on date to be baptized, but couldn't give up smoking. Jeanie also told us that she just bought a fridge because her old fridge was broken but she had no idea how she's going to get it in her house because she can't lift it by herself. We tell her we have elders who would love to help her move it and she was so excited. We told her that we loved to do any other sort of service for her as well, to which she started tearing up because she's trying to sell her house and just can't get it ready to sell by herself. The next morning Elder Poulsen & McMeen went to help her move her fridge and then we stopped by Sunday night. She told us that before we had come to her door the first time she had been praying for God to send her someone to help her move her fridge and that's when we knocked on her door. She started crying, telling us that there was a light around both us and the elders that she loved and wanted more of it in her life. After we had stopped by Jeanie and her mother decided they would both come to church and wanted to help us as missionaries in any way that they could.

Jeanie also told us that while the elders were struggling to move the fridge she was just praying that the fridge would be made lighter for them, she told us that as soon as she said amen all the drawers in the fridge fell out on Elder Mcmeen. LOL. At least the fridge wasn't as heavy right? (: 

Yesterday night as we were just minding our own business planning for the next day WE SEE A COCKROACH. I scream because... duh a cockroach. I then proceed to tell Sister Barben to kill it as a lock myself in the bathroom. The cockroach runs underneath all of our suitcases and bikes and just like super woman, Sister Barben flings EVERYTHING out of the way until she stepped on the cockroach. She's my hero. <3 I was then able to come out of the bathroom. If any of y'all spots some anti cockroach spray it would be great if you could send it to me. Me and bugs don't go well together. 

I love yall! 
-Sister Merritt

Hot, Humid and Holy

Ya'll are my favorite people. Did you know that?

First of all, WE GOT IPADS THIS WEEK. That's right folks, this email is coming to you live from my brand new iPad! It's been such a blessing having this as a teaching tool. We've been able to show Mormon messages right on the doorstop and it opens people right up to our message. Our favorite one to show is "Because Of Him." If you haven't seen it, GO WATCH IT. I've seen it so many times and I still feel the spirit so strong whenever I watch it again or show it to somebody. Tears come from people's eyes! The only weird response we got from somebody was from this southern baptist who said "so close but you missed the point." The point is right in front of you sir. You just watched it. Oh well.

We were able to go to the temple this week which was such a blessing. It was so much fun going with a bunch of other sister missionaries and getting to know them better. I wish we could go more than twice a year. While we were in Atlanta we ran into some Elders from the Atlanta mission and they said they got to go to the temple 8 times a year! Okay, spoiled. That's okay, I'm just grateful I had the opportunity to go. I also ran into someone with a USU game day shirt and I got really excited cause I thought I was back in Logan for a second.

We have three new investigators this week. A mother and her two daughters who are so stinking cute! We love them and just want to hang out with them all the time. We also had the opportunity to watch our cute investigator Chelsea receive her first priesthood blessing. It was such a precious moment. We love her <3 While tracting we ran into this Muslim man who didn't want to learn about our message at all but invited us in to teach his daughter who just graduated from high school. She wanted a copy of the Book of Mormon and was really excited to read it. She taught us about her faith and we taught her about ours. I actually really enjoyed learning about what she believed. It was interesting (: We were able to go into a nursing home and talk to the older ladies in there. They were so cute, even though one of them flashed us both LOL. We were able to sing some hymns for them and they really enjoyed it. This week has been so hot too! It's bad. Haha but although most people don't want to hear our message they always offer to feed us or give us some water. So I guess in a way we're really blessed. Life is beautiful, especially here in Georgia.

Love,
Sister Merritt

I love Georgia!

Hey Ya'll.
This week has been so great. Full of miracles and adventure. First of all.. I'M IN GEORGIA.

Let me describe it to you. Cutest houses with big porches and lots of windows. Trees everywhere. It's literally like your in the canyon's of Utah like all the time, but without the mountain part. The roads are windy and narrow. Everyone is wanting to talk... about everything except church. It always smells like rain and BBQ. Most of the houses are up on hills, so that's fun to walk up. At night all the fireflies come out and light up the trees. It reminds me of a fairytale. And even though it's so hot and humid during the day, by sunset it's all worth it because it's beautiful.

I'm in an area called Shallowford, Georgia. I don't know anything different, but I love it. My companion/ Trainer is Sister Barben, from Logan Utah and is so cute. She has long gorgeous red hair, and has the strongest testimony of the gospel. We work well together and have the funnest times. I love her.

This week we've gained FOUR new investigators which is so exciting. There are so many people here who are ready to hear the gospel. We are teaching a 9 year old boy and his dad, an older lady, and a man we call J. (cause we can't say his real name, it's hard to say).

My favorite experience was with J. We were going to visit a potential investigator but she ended up not being there. As we were driving away we saw a man walking the down the street with his son. We decided we'd pull over and share with him a Mormon.org card and talk with him for a bit. He had just moved here and was looking for a church to join. We exchanged numbers and told us he would love to come to church , but he needed us to remind him Saturday night. So, Saturday night comes along and we try calling him but turns out we wrote down the wrong number. He wasn't at church so we decide to go back to the neighborhood we found him in and try to find him again. We say a prayer and go tracting down the street trying to find J. We knocked on every door. Nothing. But, we decide to say one more prayer and start at it again. Going down the same street we find a man working on his car in front of a house that didn't answer their door. Rather than talking to him about the church we felt prompted to just ask where J was. Turns out J lived in this mans basement and we had to go around the house to find J's door. WE FOUND HIM and we were able to teach him the first lesson and invite him to be baptized. He accepted. So of course we were all so happy. Hopefully we'll be able to get a date figured out soon. But it just goes to show that if we have faith, are in tune with the spirit and are willing to work hard, miracles can happen every day.

We also had many other experiences.. for example. A lady we taught who was CRAZY. Literally. I honestly think she was because when we entered her home, there were satanic dolls everywhere and pictures of dead people and she had possessed dogs that tried to kill us and things like that. (never going back there, the Lord was definitely protecting us).  And of course many MANY bible bashers. It's kind of fun to run across the bible bashers though because that's when we rely on our testimonies the most. But of course many other miracles. It's been a crazy first week. But I love being apart of this great work. I love being a missionary.

Love,
Sister Merritt