Flood the Font

Hello! 

We have had many faith building experiences this week. So our zone has set a pretty high goal for baptismal invites this transfer. 1000 baptismal invites for the transfer as a zone with the initiative #FloodTheFont. We have done the math and it shows that every companionship needs to have at least 11 baptismal invites per week. It doesn't seem too bad, since inviting others to be baptized helps us to fulfill our purpose as missionaries, but at the same time, I know it will stretch us and it will be challenging. As I was reading and studying preach my gospel this week, some passages stood out to me on page 146. "Goals reflect the desires of our hearts and our vision of what we can accomplish. Goal setting and planning are acts of faith."  

As we set this goal, the desire of our hearts is help baptize converts. But of course, we can't do it alone. I have been trying my best to strengthen my faith this week and to put my total and complete trust in Him. Knowing that if I do, I will be an effective instrument in His hands to help people receive the restored gospel in their lives. On page 61 of PMG it states that if we have faith in Jesus Christ, we know he will fulfill his promises. He promises us that if we work hard and have faith, we can perform miracles. We needed a miracle!! 

We woke up Sunday morning with this list of things to accomplish: 

Get an investigator to church 

Find 3 new investigators

1 LIMP

4 baptismal invites

Prepare and Teach the relief society lesson (we found out about that morning)

Bake cookies

Contact 2 referrals (with cookies)

Attend Ward Council and correlation

All without eating! We had a zone fast to give us the faith and strength to accomplish our goal. 

That morning all of our set lessons with the potential investigators who were to become new investigators cancelled and we just had a bunch of finding to do. But we knew the Lords promise was true, and He was going to help us accomplish our goals. We worked SUPER hard all day long and prayed more than we ever had. Here are the results:

Our 9 year old investigator came to church by himself

The relief society lesson went GREAT! We had a wonderful discussion going. 

We decided to stop in on some former investigators whose whole family was home. They invited us right in. We had a great lesson with them and by the end, one of our potentials (who had cancelled that day) showed up and asked to be taught a lesson. Invited 2 of them to be baptized. They said yes! 

Baked and delivered the cookies to the referral our bishop gave us. They invited us right in and we had a great lesson with them. 

On our way home (8:45pm) we decided to stop by another one of the potentials home who had called and cancelled that morning. She and her family had invited us in we had a powerful lesson on the restoration with them. Resulting in two baptismal invites and two yeses! 

We were able to accomplish everything we needed to do that day! Heavenly Father is so good to us! And we know that his promises are true! We are able to perform miracles!! "There is a power to make things happen that need to happen. Faith is power!" 

Other than that our week has been full of interesting things. 

For example. We met a 64 year old black man named Melvin about 9 weeks ago. We have been teaching him off and on every couple of weeks or so, but he doesn't seem to want to keep commitments so we had dropped him. Saturday night we decide to call him with the intent to invite him to church. As the conversation went on, he asked if I would like to meet him for lunch at Olive Garden that week. Who says no to Olive Garden?! So of course i say yes! He then proceeds to say.. "oh that will be great. Me and you and a nice dinner at Olive Garden." Realizing that he wasn't asking me AND my companion out to lunch, but just ME i said., "Oh! Melvin, my companion has to come too!" Resulting in "Well she has to pay for herself!" As me and my companion are trying not to laugh uncontrollably he then has the nerve to ask if I am infatuated with him. But because I'm not the brightest crayon in the box I think he is asking if I'm intoxicated. To which I reply.. "NO!" ...a little insensitive. but still. Overall, it was just an awkward conversation and we will NOT be going to Olive Garden with Melvin.  #NowWeBothHaveToPayForOurselves

But I hope everyone's week is going well with lots of fun memories of your own! I look forward to hearing from you soon! 

Love, Sister Merritt 

Some of my favorite Sisters ❤️

Blessings from above

Hey yall!

Can I just tell you that I am beyond amazed at the love of our Heavenly Father? He loves us so much and because he loves us, He is constantly pouring blessings upon us. Blessings that, I'm sure, we don't necessarily deserve.

We have seen so many blessings and tender mercies this week. We worked hard, biking a lot (and sweating a lot), knocking on doors and talking with everyone we saw. But for some reason, we were not finding anyone to teach.

Saturday evening we realized he hadn't had a single new investigator that week. We were talking with everyone and finding a bunch of potentials but no new. We were a little worried but during our dinner hour we said a prayer asking Heavenly Father to guide us to those who were waiting for us and starting going through our potential investigator list. A few names stuck out to us of people we hadn’t talked to since the first week we had gotten to the area. We called them and both said they would love to learn more about us and asked if we could meet Sunday night!! We had great lessons with both of them, making sure we started with HTBT and invited both to be baptized, resulting in two "YESSES!"

During Sacrament Meeting, Sunday, my companion and I were a little bit disappointed because  none of our investigators who had said they would come had shown up. At the end of the meeting, however, a member walks up to us introducing us to his friends who have been coming off and on for awhile now and wants to learn more about our church. We are looking forward to meeting with them this week!  Then, as we were walking out a former investigator, who was the LAST person we expected to be at church, walks by with her member friend. Realizing that Heavenly Father has yet again blessed us with someone at church we snuck in a quick grateful prayer before heading off to our next class.

Sunday was full of grateful prayers. Heavenly Father blesses us so much. Most of the time I feel so undeserving of the blessings and miracles that He so readily pours out upon us. But I'm grateful for the opportunity to witness them firsthand and be so close to our Heavenly Father as we work to help those around us receive the restored gospel.

I feel like Ammon in the Book of Mormon when he talks about everything he has been able to accomplish with the Lords help and he says:

"Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore, I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in His strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles have we wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever."

Overall, this week has been one of my favorite weeks of my mission. Not because we accomplished a lot or anything like that, but because this week I have truly been able to see Heavenly Father lead us in His work. The lessons that we had were so spirit-led and we have been able to find the greatest people to teach because of Him.

I hope y'all are able to see the hand of God in your life this week as well! I love y'all!

Love, Sister Merritt

Pictures from last week I didn't send... Oops (:

God is Good

Hello hello! 🍑

This week I have learned how much our Heavenly Father just needs us to put forth a little effort and he will pour down is blessings so abundantly upon us.

We have really been needing to do more community service. So we scheduled in our plans one morning to go service hunting. We went everywhere, the library, City Hall, the Courthouse, and the fire station, asking everyone if they knew of community service opportunities. There was a lot going on, but it was all out of our area.. Of course. As soon as we thought we were done, we get a phone call from one of our members asking us to help with this huge project. We were able to find our service! It was just funny to us, because nothing actually came from our efforts, but Heavenly Father saw we were trying the best we could and was able to place this project in

our hands.

Also, we have been praying to be able to find new people to teach. We have put in a lot of time for finding this past week and didn't see very many results from our efforts. But once again, Heavenly Father keeps His promises and He was able to give us two solid referrals that we are beginning to teach. God is good.

My testimony has grown on HTBT (how to begin teaching) this week, specifically the very last point. "How to begin Teaching" is a guide for missionaries to begin their lessons so the investigator/less-active knows our purpose for being there and what we are expecting from them. The last point says:

 •      As you accept our message, you will learn how to make covenants, or promises, with God. You will learn how to make changes to bring your lives in closer harmony with His teachings. You will want to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and be baptized by proper authority

We had a potential investigator named Bill who we had gotten into contact with and set up an appointment. We met him at a park and started HTBT ending with the last point stating that eventually he will WANT to be baptized. The lesson went really well and he had some really good questions! At the end we committed him to read the Book of Mormon and pray to know if it's true, and completely forgot to invite him to be baptized! But he was the one who reminded us, as he asked "do you have baptism classes that I need to take? I'm thinking I want to be baptized in your church." It was so amazing to see that the promise in that last bullet point was true. He WANTED to be baptized, if we wouldn't have brought it up in HTBT he probably wouldn't have ever asked about it. I'm so grateful for the tools that our Heavenly Father has given us to truly succeed in His work.

That's all for me this week! I love y'all!

Love, Sister Merritt

#TheSouth

CHURCH

Hello 🍑 

How are yall? I can't believe how fast time has flown by. I have 9 weeks left 😳  NINE.  I haven't been counting down, but my lovely companion likes to remind me. 

Speaking of companion. I have a new one! Yep. There has been an ET in the mission and I am now companions with Sister Kinser. She is the cutest little thing and a hard worker. I'm lucky to be with her! Can y'all believe I have had 5 companions the last two transfers? Hopefully I don't get any more. I'll stick with Sister Kinser. I do miss my Sister Gifford though. Goodness, why do I have to love my companions so much! It makes it hard when they leave me.

So, the summer here in Georgia has been incredibly hot and humid. They're saying that it has been a record of 60 consecutive days that it has been over 90 degrees. But I think it's starting to cool down! We just have to stick it out till September (: 

We have been doing service for a lady named Miss Jane. She's the cutest old lady and we love her a lot. In fact, we love her so much that we want her to be a member of the church! BUT, she loves her church so much! It's one of those mega churches, called 12 Stone. Everyone goes to this church. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone! So we decided we would go with her to see what it's like. We actually loved it a lot! But it was a lot different. 

Differences: 

- They had a rock band. We have an organ. 

- Everyone came in street clothes. We wear our church clothes.

- They gave away doughnuts. We take the sacrament.

- The children are in a separate class the whole service. We like the children with us.

- They accept Christ publicly to be saved. We know we are already saved.

- They have lots of truth. We have the whole truth.

Those are just a couple I thought of. Haha we had lots of fun though. And because we went with her this week, she is coming with us next Sunday! #hallelujah. 

Being in the Bible Belt I have been able to attend lots of different churches! It's really interesting, and really fun to learn what other people believe. But there is something that I have noticed is missing from them all. The Spirit isn't as strong as it should be at church. I love coming to church each Sunday and feeling recharged. Feeling as though I have received direction and inspiration for the next thing I need to do in my life, or that week, or even that day. And of course, partaking of the sacrament each Sunday. It's so important to do this, to renew our covenants, and remember our Savior and His Atonement. How grateful I am to be in His true church and to help other people find their way home too. 

Love y'all! 

Love, Sister Merritt 

Sisters P-Day

The Mormon-Do

Hey y'all!

Monday? Already? I swear I was just typing this email. Time just seems to be going faster and faster and sometimes I just wish I would stop and we could all breathe for a second. But I know time flies when you're on the Lords errand.

We have had such a successful week. A little stressful, not going to lie. But also a lot of fun. We had two zone trainings this week all on finding! Something the zone has been struggling with. Like I said last week, our mission president wants us to be more creative in our finding so we brainstormed some ideas as a zone, tried to build each other's faith, went to work and then came back the next day to share success stories. It was so fun, and goodness, some people are creative! We tried a lot of things!! But the lemonade stand is still the most successful 🍋

Mike, Nadia, and Ben are doing so well!! We are just so proud of them. Mike had some shaggy hair the first time we met him and this week as we went over to shave a lesson he had cut it!! He called it the "Mormon do!" Lol. They all came to church again this week and the ward members were all inviting them to dinners (:

The other week we met Steve, a neighbor of Mike, Nadia and Ben. We started talking to him about who we are and what we teach. He was really curious, but didn't really have a solid belief in God or Jesus Christ. He was so nice though and always told us to come back because he was busy whenever we would go over. Well, he finally let us set up a solid return appointment for Saturday night. We went over, and his wife, who we had never met, opened the door. She saw our name tags and hurriedly invited us into her home, gave us big hugs, pulled up a couple of chairs and sat down to listen to us. She told us that Steve has been talking a lot about us and she has been talking to Mike, Nadia and Ben about us as well. She even went to Mormon.org and watched the videos AND started reading the Book of Mormon. She wants to get her family into church and she knows that her and her husband need to be the examples. We taught a brief lesson and invited her to come to church which both Steve and Vicki said "Of course!" Sunday morning, they all show up to church and absolutely love it! They were only able to stay for sacrament meeting but told us they wanted so badly to see how the other meetings were like. I know it is so important to talk to everyone we see. Just open your mouth and God will place what needs to be said in them. If we wouldn't have done that, we would never had met Steve and his wonderful family! We are so excited to start teaching this family and watch them progress in the gospel!

I'm so grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ and the love he has for each of us. I'm grateful to be teaching Gods children here in Georgia. And I absolutely know, without a doubt, that because of our Savior, Jesus Christ, we can all be better. We can all change and have a better life. And that's what the gospel is all about. Becoming better. I've seen it in those Ive taught and I've seen it in myself. Nothing is better (:

Stay good. Love y'all!

Love, Sister Merritt

Oh! We moved again. We switched apartments with the elders because our old apartment was a lot closer to civilization than they were, and they're on bikes. So we thought we would be nice to them.

New address is:

1809 Franklin Circle

Dacula, GA 30019

FINDING!

Hey y'all,

What another incredible week! Summer is over for the kids here. School started TODAY. It's so crazy how fast the summer flew by. Before we know it, it'll be time for school to be out.

We have been trying to think of more creative ways to contact people, because tracting is not the ideal thing to do. We have been counseled to "go where the people are." Do you know where they are? We do! They're all playing Pokemon Go! This game has actually been a bit of a tender mercy for us because we are able to go to the parks where EVERYONE is "catching Pokemon" and do free lemonade stands. We have been able to contact so many people this way! Also, because school started, Walmart was a madhouse. But a wonderful place for us to contact 😅👌🏼 we are trying to think of other creative ways to contact so if you know any, please let me know!

This week we were able to find, teach, commit to a baptism date, and get to church three amazing investigators. Last Sunday as we were tracting we saw three people, Mike, Nadia, and Ben, outside walking down the street. Although we had just come from that direction we felt like we needed to go talk to them. Nadia and Ben didn't know much about the church but Mike expressed how he hates Mormons and everything they believe. When we asked why he couldn't give us a straight answer so he said he would listen to what we had to say. None of them have a strong relationship with God and feel like God isn’t there at all because of their rough past. We did HTBT right then and there, promising them that the message we share will help to improve the quality of their lives and we began teaching them about Gods love for each of them. They agreed to meet with us the next day.

The next day, we meet all three of them again and to be honest it started off really rough. We taught the plan of salvation but they were all so distracted the whole time, asking really off-the-wall questions, and just swearing all the time. But we were patient with them. Toward the end of the lesson, they calmed down and began to focus asking us how in the world we stayed so patient and kind with them. We were surprised to find out that they understood and retained everything we had talked with them about during the lesson and they wanted to meet again the next day! We said a prayer at the end and they thanked us for coming.

The next day as we go over to their house and...they cancel on us. So we followed our mission presidents counsel to stay in the area and contact people who are there. We meet their neighbor Steve, who is so kind and wants to learn more about God. We have a good discussion with him and set up a time the next day to visit him. We visit him at our appointed time and try to have a lesson with him, but he was taking care of 5 crazy kids, apologized and asked to reschedule. As we walk outside, there is Mike, Nadia and Ben! They sit down on the curb and

ask to learn more about how our church started. We didn't really have anywhere to sit other than the road, so that's what we did. The spirit was so strong as we taught and testified of the restoration and the Book of Mormon. They were focused the whole time, which is a miracle in and of itself! Halfway through the lesson, Steve steps outside,sees that we are sitting on the ground and grabs us two chairs and has his kids bring us some water (tender mercy), there are people looking gout for us everywhere. We invite Mike, Nadia, and Ben to be baptized and they all say YES! At the end of the lesson Nadia was the one asking if we could end with a prayer and Mike was the one who wanted to say it. It was the most beautiful prayer we had ever heard as he asked if God is there, and if He was, if he could guide them to truth and light. The spirit was undeniable.

Sunday, they all show up to church and absolutely love it. Especially the members, making them feel so welcome, inviting them into their homes for dinner and lessons. The gospel has completely changed them in just the short week we have known them. We can't wait to see their lives continue to change!!

There are people being prepared everywhere we go! We just have to open our mouths (: I hope y'all have a great week!

Love, Sister Merritt

#DaculaSquad

Hey y'all!

August 1st

Wow, what a week it has been. I feel like it has just flown by! I was so so so sad to leave my Monroe Ward. It has truly been heaven. I haven't been out of the Athens stake since the beginning of my mission and I was a little scared to leave that too. But here I am in the Lilburn stake in the Dacula 1st ward and I'm as happy as ever. It’s just as wonderful over here!

I have a new companion! Sister Gifford is amazing! She has such a wonderful understanding of the gospel and her first day she was teaching and starting door approaches. She has really been able to help a lot of people here already. I know she was sent to this area for a reason. The ward needs her! I'm so grateful to be with her and to have the opportunity to learn from her.

So it was a little sad to me to go from having a full and thriving area book, full of progressing investigators to absolutely nothing. But the work has already picked up here a lot!

On our first day here we were going around to less actives, getting to know them and tracking around their homes. As we were walking down the street we notice a woman sitting on her porch. Knowing we need to talk to everyone we start a conversation with her and teach about the Book of Mormon. She listens to us openly and we set up a return appointment for the next day, leaving her a chapter in the Book of Mormon to read before we come back. The next morning we text Imani to confirm our appointment and she replies telling us that she is no longer interested but we are more than welcome to come take the Book of Mormon back. We knew we never wanted to do that, but we saw this as an in to still go over and see her and understand why she wasn’t interested anymore. At our set time to see Imani, she wasn't home. We were disappointed but started to try some potentials that lived around her. All of a sudden we had the strongest impression that we needed to go back to our car and get the phone. So that's what we did. Right afterward we look up and see Imani sitting on her porch with the Book of Mormon in her hands. She tried to hand the Book of Mormon back to us but we just asked her questions to try to know what happened. She the began asking us questions about what we believed, specifically the questions of the soul, "Where did we come from? Where do we go after we die?" We teach and testify of the plan of salvation and she begins to agree with everything we say. The spirit was so strong and tears begin to well up in her eyes. By the end of the lesson, she asks if she could hold onto the Book of Mormon for awhile.

I truly believe that the spirit has touched her. My testimony has grown on our purpose as missionaries. I know that part of our purpose is helping these people feel the spirit, we aren't doing our job if the spirit isn't present. And if the spirit is there, they are able to understand and learn what Heavenly Father wants to teach them. I know that myself, as an individual, is completely inadequate to do the Lords work. But I'm so grateful that He gives me the opportunity to try to help the best I can and I know with the Spirits help, we can touch the heart of the individuals we teach.

There are many other amazing people that we have found in the short time that we have been here. Heavenly Father has been blessing us so much with the amount of kindness that has been shown to us. I love this work. There is nothing like it. It has completely changed my life forever.

Love, Sister Merritt

Etched into the sidewalk randomly. The church is true. Heavenly Father

is providing signs for people everywhere (;