We Love Dogs!!

Okay so first of all, this week has been so good! We have felt so blessed from meeting new people who are just amazing. I have come to find that tracting just doesn't work all that much. What's better is just street contacting, that way they can't slam the door in your face and if they run away, we can run after them. (.... Not that we've done that. Oops) but we have been able to find 6 new investigators this week from just walking around outside. Of course we have to have the courage to talk to them, but something wonderful always takes place as we have enough faith and courage to talk with everyone that we see. Also EVERYONE in Georgia and their dog--- has a dog, so bringing up how cute their dog is, is always a wonderful conversation starter.

Us: Oh my goodness, what a cute dog!

Them: thank you!

Us: what kind of dog is it?

Them: chihuahua mixed with a Great Dane

Us: wow! I have a dog back home.

Them: where's home?

Us: Utah

Them: wow, you're a ways from home

Us: yeah, we are on our missions for the Church of...

See it works! And it doesn't only work for people on the streets, it also works for less actives we don't know about! This week as we were visiting a referral and we felt like we needed to park at the beginning of the neighborhood and walk to her home. As we were walking we met this lady named Dez who was walking from a neighbors house. we were able to teach the four minute restoration, set a return appointment and make really good friends with her. She's a sweetheart. We said goodbye and headed back toward the referral and then saw the cutest dog. We started the conversation again "oh my goodness, what a cute dog!" The owner, Trevor, started talking to us about his dog and how special she is to him and his wife, and then he's all "so I went on my mission to California." And we're all like, "what?!" Haha HE’S A MEMBER. He is less active right now, but would like us to meet with his wife, who loves sister missionaries but who is not a member.. They had just moved into the area so his records weren't here yet, but it was such a miracle finding him. If it wasn't for the dog, we would've never talked with him. So shout-out to dogs.

An update on our dear friend Herman: he is currently living in a tent, hopefully not for long. But, he knows the church is true, and is planning on being baptized this month (: he is good friends with a less active, Jesse, and Herman is already being a little missionary and trying to reactivate Jesse. Yes! We love when this happens!

Thursday night we had our ward trunk or treat which was super fun! All us missionaries were able to hand out candy to the little kids and it was great for us to invite many less actives and investigators. There was a great turn out.  Halloween night we had to be in by five to do our weekly planning and then anything we really wanted. So, we decided to have a sleepover with the UGA sisters, and of course to carve pumpkins. They turned out awful. We blamed it on the fact that we didn't have Pinterest to give us cute ideas, it was still fun though (:

I hope y'all had a wonderful Halloween. (: thank you for all your love and support.

-Sister Merritt

Tender Mercies

Hello (:

This week has been just full of getting to know everybody. All our investigators, less actives and members. Since I'm still new in the Ward and my new greenie, Sister Dowdle is new, it gives us a good excuse to stop in on everybody. So, my new companion is Sister Dowdle. She is from Alabama and she's absolutely the cutest. We get along great and I'm pretty sure we need to be companions forever. (: The Ward has been awesome and have been helping us so much. These little tender mercies and miracles have been taking place here in Athens and I know that as we continue to work hard we will see more and more.

1: A recent convert, Pam, took us to dinner at Wendy's one night. As soon as we arrived the lady working the counter asked us if we had a Mormon Bible. I took one out of my bag and handed it to her. She handed it straight back, telling us to sign it and put our phone number in it. She is searching for a church and has been hearing a lot about the Mormon church. She told asked us when she would be able to come to church. She was just so prepared and ready. We definitely weren't expecting that response

2: As we said goodbye to Pam and was about to exit, One Directions "Ready to Run" comes on the radio and so obviously we had to stay until the song was over. It was definitely a tender mercy. (:

3: So because I am training again all of a sudden, we were able to go to the follow up meeting for all the new missionaries. My favorite people (missionaries) from Shallowford are also training! ... We were missing one. But it was sooo wonderful to see Sister Barben and Elder Poulsen. Plus, the follow up meeting is always good. It always pumps us up and gets us ready to talk to everyone that we see!

4: So our investigator is really struggling with trying to find a place to live and he doesn't have any money for food, so we decided to talk to some members about getting him some food to eat. All of a sudden a less active calls us, telling us he has a bunch of food that he doesn't want and was wondering if we could use it. Of course we took and and was able to get it to our investigator. He was so appreciative. (:

5: As we were completely out of a lesson one afternoon we saw this lady walking her dog. We were able to talk to her for a little bit and we found out SHES A MEMBER. She hasn't been to church since she was a teenager and she wasn't on our records at all. It was such a blessing to find her and she wants us to come back this week and visit with her. She says she needs to come back to church, she's just a little nervous.

I am so grateful for all these tender mercies that happen each and every day. I know that if we look for the Lords hand more fully in our lives we will be able to see that he is highly aware of us and is giving us blessings and miracles that we wouldn't have seen otherwise. We just need to look for them (:

I love y'all (: have the most wonderful week.

Love, Sister Merritt

#Change

Hey y'all,

Zone conference was awesome this week, it was focused on the Christlike attributes, which I LOVED because we usually talk about how we can better help others, but I liked the focus on how I can become a better missionary and person in general. It was a great zone conference, everyone was asked to prepare a four minute talk on a Christlike attribute of their choice and present it in front of the zone. Literally ALL the elders picked "love/charity"... We are thinking that they're all struggling with that. Haha. (: But I was able to learn a lot from everyone's short talks and testimonies. It was an eye opener for me to see that I have so much to work on. President Bennion than spoke on pride, using the Ezra Taft Benson talk "Beware of Pride" which, if you haven't read, please read! It's sooo great. Wow. Loved zone conference..even if it was 9 hours long.

This week, again, has been crazy busy. Lots of lessons and lots of new potentials. Let me tell you about our wonderful investigator, Herman. Herman is really quiet. He's had a hard life growing up, he has lived in a tent for 6 years and had long hair and a long beard. He doesn't really look at us when we talk to him but he feels he spirit and gains a lot from our lessons. He is coming to church every week now, trying to change his life around, cleaned himself up and is now on date to be baptized in November (: we are so excited for him. He's our favorite. We love to tell him we love him and see his expression on his face. Haha (:

Saturday we had the Georgia vs Missouri game so we helped the UGA Sisters make rice Krispy treats to pass out and work the booth. I love game days. <3 we were able to get really good contacts and I was able to be with Chelsea. I'm way too spoiled here. Haha!  The other night the UGA sisters came over and spent the night, it was probably a bad idea because we got absolutely no sleep! 

After having such a fun night we got a call from president this morning telling us that Sister Tuitea is getting emergency transferred and I'm getting another newbie. I'm so extremely sad that I won't be with Sister T anymore, but I'm excited to be with this new sister (: I know it's who I need to be with at this time. Missions are great, but if you don't like change, be prepared to have a lot of it and the most unexpected times. Anyways, I love and miss y'all. 

Thanks for all your love and support <3

Love, Sister Merritt

Sabbath Day and Miracles

Hey y'all!

This week has been extremely busy! We have had lesson on top of lesson on top of lesson. Which is fabulous, but also exhausting. Tuesday we had a zone meeting, centered all on the Sabbath day and how we can become better at teaching it. It's so true that when a person's Sabbath activities become just like any other day all aspects of their lives are negatively affected.  We made a commitment to teach a short Sabbath Day lesson at the end of every lesson we had. Sister Tuitea and I forgot to teach it sometimes..oops. But we got at least 22 lessons on the sabbath in there.

I went on exchange in Greensboro which is THE cutest little town. Picket fences around the cute little cottage style houses with huge porches and tons of open fields. It's like, total country. I don't know how you get more country. But when we were tracting a little lady opened the door and it looked like she was packing. We asked her where she was moving to and she said "the country." ...okay. What's more country than this? Haha but I loved it there. The people also spoke a different language I think.. Like I could not understand their southern accents at all. Sister Johns and I definitely had help from our Heavenly Father. The gift of interpretation of tongues is definitely real. Also, Sister Johns is a HUGE one direction fan. Yay to that, because we automatically bonded. (:

There is a lot of work to be done in Athens though. (: And I love it here. There are people ready to hear the gospel and here in the south, the work is definitely hastening. The other day we felt like we needed to visit a referral we had received. We parked a couple houses down for whatever reason and started walking. As we were walking to our referrals home we saw this man named Matthew just sitting on his porch so we go and talk to him. Turns out he has talked with missionaries before. We asked him if he was able to read from the Book of Mormon and he told us he didn't have a copy to read from. So, we did a short restoration lesson and gave him the Book of Mormon AND put him on date to be baptized. He was really excited and super elect.

We were also able to stop by a less active, but it turns out she moved. The lady who was there however, was super interested in the Book of Mormon and asked us to please call her and to stop by anytime. She just really really wanted to learn more. She said she had been praying for truth when we knocked on her door. Little miracles are happening all around us, and I'm so grateful to witness them first-hand (:

Anyway, I love y'all <3

Love, Sister Merritt

Chelsea took us out to eat the other night. Goodness am I glad that I was able to come to UGA with her.

Back to School

HEY YALL.

This week has been INSANELY busy. We had transfers! I am now in Athens (University of Georgia) with my wonderfully hilarious Samoan companion Sister Tuitea. Just in time for game season! Yes, the Bulldogs lost this weekend. Yes, everyone is grumpy. We don't talk about it. I will miss Shallowford tremendously, but I know I'm meant to be in Athens at this time. And I'm so excited to be here!

New address:

4315 Lexington Rd apt #6c

Brighton park apartments

Athens , GA 30605

As we were driving from the mission office to Athens Wednesday morning we start hearing these awful noises. So we decide to take the car to the shop Thursday morning to get it fixed. We find out that they'll have to order special parts for it so we have to leave our car there. Great. So now we are 30 minutes away from home and we don't have a car. So we start calling like, every member we can to give us a ride. Unfortunately every member works so it was hard. And since I just got to the area I didn't know who anybody was, I was just calling them. Haha so finally we got a ride home. But it's been kind of difficult finding rides for every appointment. And we can't walk or ride bikes because our area is GIANT, all busy roads with no shoulder and all our investigators live forever away. But it's been going okay so far (: hopefully our car will be fixed soon.

Saturday was conference. We went to the UGA institute building to watch it with our investigator Shirley, who is in her 70s, has one arm and a balding dog. But she's a sweetheart. She definitely didn't belong in the institute building with all the 20-30 year olds, but she still loved conference nonetheless. In between sessions we set up a booth outside in the pouring rain and handed out hot chocolate and contacted as people were walking to the big game. The YSA branch wanted hot chocolate too. They could only have some if they gave away a Mormon.org card. Pretty soon we had a bunch of the branch out trying to hand out cards. Lol. (: we were all able to get the YSA sisters a lot of potentials.

Conference was absolutely amazing. I loved loved loved the counsel we were able to receive from our wonderful leaders. We were watching Conference with a bunch of our sister recent converts. They all love Uchtdorf. When I asked them why, they said it was his accent. Haha. Oh dear. But I absolutely can't wait until I can read and go over them again. Maybe I'll "ponderize" some of em (; I hope y'all loved it as much as me.

Sunday night, we were walking over to a members apartment to use their wifi as we put our numbers into our iPads and we see this man sitting on the curb. We decided to talk to him. We sit down next to him and start talking. His name is Rafael and he tells us he's seen us around everywhere, but didn't know who we were. He isn't currently going to a church, but looking for the truth. We didn't have much time, because we were going over curfew. But we testified of how much our Heavenly Father loves and is aware of him. We showed him the 'Because of Him' video, after which he tells us he'd like us to come back and meet his wife and teach them more. It was a perfect end to the day. Even though we went over curfew, I think it was worth it.

Anyways. Athens is great. It's a college town and full of people willing to share their fried chicken. Pray for my weight, oh dear.

Love y'all <3

Love, Sister Merritt

My greenie Sister Holmgren- me- and my trainer Sister Barben. Love these sisters!

Merritt Farm

Hello my favorites <3

It's fall!! I absolutely love fall and it's beginning to feel more and more like it here. The weather this week has been mostly rain and pretty cool compared to the summer haha. We have had fun though. This Saturday our Ward was doing a BYU alumni fun run for children's cancer and they asked us to help pass out waters about halfway through the race. Of course we said yes and they dropped us off on a pretty busy corner with a table, some water, and cups and then took off. It was raining pretty hard, but it was okay because we had some raincoats. When the race ended a bunch of men from the Ward came and picked up the cones and asked if we wanted a ride back. We told them yes, but we would need a woman to come pick us up so they said they would pass the word along. ... We waited 45 minutes on a corner in the rain with a table and some water. We looked like we were trying to sell some lemonade on this street corner. It was pretty funny. I'm just glad they remembered us eventually. Lol. 

This week was fall break, so not very many people were home. We had only two set dinners for the week and one of them we had no idea who they were at all. However, we felt prompted to ask the Boggs (the members we didn't know too well) if Jody (our investigator who needs friends) could join us for dinner. Of course they said yes and Jody was excited. We met them at a nearby restaurant and Jody and the Boggs instantly clicked and became fast friends. Turns out the Boggs are converts of three years and they belonged to the church that Jody is going to at the moment. The Boggs took over and taught about eternal families, the plan of salvation and pretty much the whole gospel, bearing testimony and answering ALL of Jody's questions. Sister Boggs and Jody are going to lunch this week and she has already invited Jody to watch conference with them. It's so amazing to see the members get involved in the work, i know having friends in the Ward is so crucial to a persons conversion and they have been such a huge help already!

While we were tracting Thursday afternoon we came across an old house with a giant yard. There were "no trespassing" signs at the beginning of the driveway so of course we began our long trek up, past the signs and to the house. We knocked on the old, rickety, spider-webbed door twice and nobody answered. As we were leaving, an old lady came out of her garage door and asked what we wanted. We told her we were missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and to our amazement she had never heard of us before! We were able to talk to her about the Book of Mormon but to be honest she really wasn't interested. She just liked to talk and talk and talk about her family growing up right here in Marietta, Georgia. She talked about her father who was a farmer and she told us she named her younger sister. Stella Merritt.... I was like what was the last name? "Merritt. M E R R I T T." I looked at her and then showed her my name tag. "WE'RE COUSINS!" She yelled. Hahaha. Turns out a bunch of the land in my area used to be a farm called "Merritt Farm" we were able to share with her about family search and we are going to do some family history together so we know how we're related somehow. It was just a funny coincidence. (:

Anyway, after being in the Shallowford area for 4.5 months it's time for me to go. Im going to Athens! Im so excited (: but I'll get y'all the address real soon. Have a great week, remember that I love you.

Love, Sister Merritt

Busy Week!

Hello <3

So this week has been so great. We have been able to have so many lessons this week and we found four new investigators and lots of potentials. Yay! We also went on exchanges, had interviews with President, and went to a one month follow up meeting for Sister Holmgren. Yes, we have been extremely busy this week.

The new family we are teaching are from Australia. Yes, I love their accents. Yes, sometimes I try to copy them. They are a part-member family and the mother (member) has been wanting their kids to be taught for so long. We are so excited for them to start coming to church and progressing towards baptism.

I went on exchange with another greenie, Sister Fuller. I wanted to show her how amazing the Shallowford area was so we stopped in on as many people as we could and got in with every single one of them, which just doesn't happen. Since we got in with so many people and had WONDERFUL lessons, we didn't have much time to tract, hallelujah, but we felt impressed to do at least one street. We prayerfully chose three houses that we could tract and we had good meaningful contacts and was able to teach the four minute restoration on all three doorsteps. The last home, the lady just moved here and was looking for a church to go to. She asked to have a copy of the Book of Mormon and said we could come back in a week to teach her more! Miracles.

Saturday before dinner we had about a half hour to kill and had already gone through all our plans. We looked through our area books and found a former investigator who lived close by and we felt prompted we needed to go to her home. She answered the door and was super friendly and open. We were able to answer all her questions she had about the Book of Mormon and life after death. She told us she would like to know more about what we believe. We gave her a reading assignment out of the Book of Mormon and she wants us to come back and follow up with her on her reading and to teach her more. It just goes to show how the spirit works in our lives. If we hadn't of acted on that prompting we probably would've never had gone to her.

I'm so grateful for the opportunity that I have to serve our Heavenly Father for 18 months and for the things that I am able to learn. I feel like I have a greater understanding of how the Holy Ghost works in our lives and I'm so grateful to have it as my constant companion as long as I'm worthy. I love the Shallowford Ward. Im convinced it's the best. What would make it even better is if all ya'll were here too! I miss ya'll. I'm grateful for all your support and love. <3

Love, Sister Merritt