I AM SO HAPPY TO BE A MISSIONARY. This is the most amazingest thing i ever experienced. I invited our investigator who has been investigating for 9 years to be baptized and he said he would pray about it! He didn't say no.. which he has been saying for 9 years! My companion said this is the most progress she has seen in him ever. I am so happy i was able to be an instrument in Gods hand to bring my investigator closer to Christ. It was truly and amazing experience that i cant quite explain over email. It rained for 12 hours straight and i didnt know what a thunderstorm was until i came here. So cool, like lighting and thunder so close to me. Dont worry i didnt get struck by lighting unfortunately. Can u imagine that headline "girl named "sister" found dead with a book of mormon and preach my gospel in her bag and thats all." id be famous. Next, im sweating gallons of sweat. Its great. Good thing i got my hydro flask to keep my hydrated #coldwater. humidity is like being in a pool but your not floating and your not cooling down and your not enjoying it. Kinda like a hot tub i guess. Lastly. Be THANKFUL for everything you have. I have met some pretty amazing people. And they have close to nothing. But they are so happy. WE ARE SO BLESSED. In so many ways!!!!!! Missouri is dope. The people are doper. But being a missionary is the dopest. Also, shoutout to my girl anne bum for getting her call to washington dc ASL speaking (or should i say signing *smirk face*) i love u all. Love Sis Folk
Ps a funny story real quick. We were at dinner at a members and her phone went off and HER RINGTONE WAS THE HARRY POTTER THEME SONG YALL I WAS BOUTTA JUMP OUTTA MY CHAIR THEY HAD TO HOLD ME DOWN. Nah im just kiddin.. i just sat there and secretly replayed my death jump in my head. Rip kank. Anyways,enjoy your monday. And this picture of corn and a water tower because thats what missouri has to offer.
Mom note: Anna jumped off her second story deck on a broomstick (wearing a robe) at college so she could be Harry Potter and fly for a funny video. Needless to say, she didn't fly, but she did injure her ankle (aka Kank) pretty badly. Geez...haha!
hello all. thank you for all your support and emails that mean everything. this week has been a total week of ups and downs. i prayed for charity. i studied charity. i did everything possible to have charity for my companion and the people i am serving. it has been roughhhhh. but this is sorta a weekly log. which i hate when people do so bear with me because miracles happened this week. so tuesday was a GREAT day considering how the other days had been going. it was so awesome. we didnt waste our time and we taught 2 lessons! one to katie a 14 year old and one to jim who is like 60ish i think. we taught katie the plan of salvation and it was so awesome to see how much she loved it! however jims lesson was the one that changed me. we only had 30 min to plan and we had no idea which way to go with the lesson because he has been investigating and coming to church for 9 years so he knows A LOT. we decided to go with the atonement. we both felt really strongly that this is what he needed to hear, however he has said no to baptism a million times. but i had the strongest feeling i have ever had to invite him to be baptized on august 11th. it felt so right. and so we taught the lesson and i testified of Crist and his atonement SO strongly the spirit in the room was amazing. and then i invited him to pray about being baptized on that date. he said he would which is as much progress he has had in a long time my companion said. he usually just says no. me and jim really connected. i got a little emotional as a asked and testified because i knew how right it was. jim even cried!! which was as much emotion as he has ever showed! it was an amazing experience. we teach him this thursday again so we will find out about the baptism then. i really hope he says yes but if he says no there is a reason why and i am ready to help. anyways so that was a good day and me and my companion actually were speaking and having fun haha. Heavenly father answered my prayer this day as well because i just started to love my companion and we were getting along and working together. then wednesday was good as well. same with thursday. well sorta not really. the whole week i have an internal struggle with feeling like we are wasting the Lords time. my companion is one of the most unmotivated people i have ever met. i have been praying for strength to tell her we need to be spending our time better because we set goals at the beginning of the day and then dont look at them or accomplish them. so i tell her we should go try some people from the area book and literally 4 different times we drive to the house and she turns around and is like we will come back later. ughhh it is so frustrating because i want to make the most of the time we have and accomplish our goals but she is so hard to work with. i get up everyday and exercise by myself and eat breakfast while she lays on the ground and sleeps. it is SO frustrating. we taught lessons and visited some less actives. and then friday is when it went really good. we had weekly planning. and our goal of the past week was to be standard of excellence missionaries. which means you need to get one new investigator, one with a baptism date, and one at church. and we had all but the new investigator. and so i was so done and i had been asking heavenly father for strength to tell her what we needed to change and he gave me it and i told her "we are not making the most out of our time we havent knocked on one door this entire week, we are not going to get any investigators by staying inside members houses, i know that is where we are most comfortable but we need to get out and get to work." and she just broke down. and i gave her the pep talk of all pep talks and told her that we could do this. together we could. Its hard because she talks bad about literally every single on of her companions except for one. like no good things come out of her mouth. but granted they told her things like "you just need to fix yourself" and stuff like that. but i told her that i am not like that . im not going to drag her along and force her to be obedient. i am going to help her have her own desire. i want us to change together. to become a united companionship. and i told her we were together for a reason and that we were going to help each other. anyways it was a long talk but i basically said im not going to drag you along for 12 weeks i want to work together and grow together. and she agreed that we could use our time better and we spent the rest of the day knocking on doors trying to find a new investigator because i was determined to be a standard of excellence missionary. although we didnt find one friday i went to bed feeling accomplished because 1. i had said what we needed to fix. 2. we didnt waste our time. then saturday it went downhill again. and i was like alright awesome. so we woke up and i exercised by myself again, btw i think i am losing weight so im pretty proud of that. and she came out and we daily planned. then she said i could study first and she was going to get ready first ( the usual and then she goes and sleeps lol ) and she said she wasnt feeling good. so i was like ok go take a 20 min nap and see if u feel better. then she sleeps for 4 HOURSSSS. she did not get out of bed until 11:30. i was SO frustrated. and during those 4 hours i wasnt going to force her out of bed and be her mom. but i asked her if she needed anything or if she was feeling better and then she went back to sleep and said "i dont know" and so i basically studied for 3 hours saturday morning while she slept because i wasnt going to waste the lords time and this was all i could do because i couldnt leave her. so she finally gets out of bed and sits on the couch and i am fuming. i am about to lose my mind . and this whole time i have been praying for how i could help her, and what does she need? and so she says "im sorry i wasted our morning" and i sat there for a second and i said, "im just frustrated because you not only wasted my time and your time but you wasted the lords time. you could have gotten out of bed and eaten something to see if that would have helped but you stayed in bed for 4 hours." i probably shouldnt of attacked her but i was mad. anyways so she said "im sorry im a terrible missionary and cant think when im sick" and then stormed off and went into the bathroom. and then i was crying at that point. (first i had a little flashback of when i used to say i was a terrible daughter to you mom.. so sorry i did that ever, I now regret it) so i was standing in the kitchen crying so mad at her that she said that and ran off. and i pleaded to heavenly father and just said. heavenly father what do i need to do. i dont know how to handle her or myself right now. and i had first said to myself "she cannot have my happiness that is mine and i will not let her take that away from me. then i had the impression that i should just swallow my pride and apologize. so i walked into our room and said "im sorry i didnt mean to call you a terrible missionary if thats what it came across as. im sorry i dont think that." and she said " i know you didnt mean that" and so then she continued to get ready for an hour... while i continued to study. i learned a lot that day haha. but finally she said lets go on a walk . so we did . and we sat on a bench and she said "i have wanted to go home for the last 10 months,, every day i have wanted to go home... no one has ever told me besides my mom that i could do something hard. i have never finished anything hard" and then i realized EXACTLY why i was her companion. because she didnt believe in herself. she didnt love herself. and heavenly father put me with her because he knew i could change her. so again i gave her an even better pep talk. i felt like a motivational speaker honestly. i told her that at the end of our companionship that if she didnt believe in herself that i will have failed. so i told her everything. i told her she needs to let go of all the negative things she is holding onto and truly give them to Christ and put all her trust in God. i told her a lot of things. and i realized that i truly know who i am and i believe in myself and i am grateful everyday for the things i have gone through in my life that have made me have self confidence so that in this time i can be the strong one and i can push her to do her best. and so i said lets go and lets take on this day and change this area. and we GOT A NEW INVESTIGATOR. i knew that all we had to do was try and put our trust in God and have faith. i had fatih that we would find someone. this email is kind of all over the place and kind of depressing but i have learned so much about myself this past week. i am strong. i can do ANYTHING with Christ. anything. and i have left out a lot of the good. me and her talk a lot more now and laugh and get along. mornings are the hardest like today she slept until 9:30 and i cleaned the whole apartment by myself. ahah yipee. anyways it was a week of learning and growing but although the email makes it sound like i am having an awful time, im not. i love being a missionary and i love missouri and the people here. and although it takes all the patience in my human being to live with my companion Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are blessing me with strength. dont worry about me, just keep praying because i am doing great. no matter what, i stay happy and positive and try my hardest to uplift my companion even when sometimes i wanna scream haha. read your scriptures and pray everyday folks!!! the second coming is near and we want to be prepared!!!! have a fabulous week and please keep emailing me haha!! love anna
" in your daily walks and conversations you will be tolerant patient kind forgiving not easily offended and wear the mantle of charity" a line from my patriarchal blessing that i swear i have never read until 3 days ago. Crazy how that happens. I just read that over and over when i want to yell or get angry. It helps. But ya its been an adventure haha!
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