We took the MakeUp

Hey Y'all.

July 18th

This week was literally sweat and tears. I wish I could tell y'all all that has happened but it would take up a whole week. First of all, we planned a wedding. YES. MY DREAM! We were able to plan, decorate and be bridesmaids for our investigators wedding. Check that off the bucket list. Kieren was married Tuesday. She wanted to elope buuuut she wanted the sister missionaries to be there because we are literally her best friends so she couldn't run away too far to get married so we just planned for the church and bishop would marry them. It was so much fun to see her face when she came into the room and to see it all decorated. A member of the ward actually plans weddings so we were able to use a bunch of her stuff to decorate with which was super helpful! We got them married and not their goal is to get sealed after she is baptized! ❤️

Kieren is wanting to stop smoking too. Nothing has been helping her to stop so she came up with a plan that we needed to find something that she loved more than smoking and we would take that every day she smoked.. We thought of everything but nothing was working. Then it came to us.. Her makeup. Every day she smoked a cigarette we would take all of her makeup and she would have to go without it. When she went a day without smoking, we would give it back. It was a good plan, except she was having an anxiety attack while we were driving away with all of her makeup and she paced up and down the hallway for two hours after we left. The next day we look at our phone and see that we have 5 missed calls and 20 texts from her (more than we ever get in a week from her) telling us that she absolutely NEEDS her makeup back. Right. Now. So we call her back and she swore at telling us to give her make up back!!! "Well Kieran, did you smoke today?" "Yes! Four cigarettes" ..... This is ridiculous. So we go to her house that night, we were all scared out of our mind because we don't know to what extremes she will go to to get her makeup back. We go inside, she sits down and has another anxiety attack. To make a long story short, we gave in and gave her makeup back after we had role played all the situations she may be in to where she would want a cigarette and what she could say. We also made her chain smoke 3 cigarettes that had been soaked in curdled milk (celestial soup) which obviously tastes disgusting. Watching her smoke those made everyone cry though. After her last cigarette she throws up and tells us she is never smoking again, the tears in our eyes were enough to make her stop. And the only way we could have done this is because she knew we were doing it out of love for her. It was an emotional night, but if I learned anything from this I learned to never EVER take away her makeup..

Tommy was baptized this Saturday! He was so prepared y'all! Just so solid and has the strongest testimony ever. He has changed so much since we first met him. It was a beautiful service and the joy on his face made everyone cry. The teaching process with him was so fast but it was because he was studying and praying and changing all on his own. His faith is incredible. Someday I want to have faith like him. It's amazing to see how the spirit works and changes a person. Most of the time, if the persons heart is soft and open enough, through reading the Book of Mormon and coming to church, the person will change without us even asking them to. That's how Tommy was. He was just ready. We are so excited for him (:

Update on Hope. She is currently in VA and loving it! We were a little worried she wouldn't progress in the gospel as quickly because we wouldn't be available to meet with her, but she called us yesterday and told us all about the ward she visited there! She loved it... Even though she accidentally went to YSA.. Oops. But she is still progressing!

Besides this we had tons of service, zone conference, singing at youth conference, a ton of lessons, and we are preparing Jeremiah for baptism this week. The south is a good place to be! 🍑

Again, i wish I could tell y'all everything because we had some fun adventures. But I guess they will have to wait. Have a great week!

Love, Sister Merritt