I'm grateful for the people in my life

AHHHH. I AM SO HAPPY. I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY Y'ALL!!!!!

So. Let's talk about transfer meeting for a sec.

President Hanks gave some amazing counsel (as always). Here are some things that stuck out to me:

-This mission has to be HAPPY. It's a time for happiness

-We represent the SAVIOR. Remember that. Put away childish things (1 cor. 13:11)

-Be a lifter. Not a catcher

-Tell people what is IN the Book of Mormon instead of just talking about it.

-YOU. ARE. SOMEBODY. You are bigger than your problems.

-"I am valuable! He died for me!"

-God don't make no junk

-obey, serve, teach=charity

-HE KNOWS. Everything you've ever been through!!!! (Hebrews 4:14-16) Christ knows our infirmities. He was tempted! Would we improve with others if we truly had the feeling of their infirmities?

-The Savior loves you and I should too. Why wait? LOVE NOW.

-When you're tired. WORK.

He then invited us to read The Book of Mormon as a mission :) He invited us to read all of it in one transfer!!!! SO EXCITED!!!!!

I am so grateful for him and all that he does for us missionaries. He is such a great leader and I love him so much! :)

 

NOW... FOR THE TRANSFER NEWS...

So. This is the way transfers go. Our picture pops up on the screen with our new companions picture and the area that we are going to serve at. I was waiting for what felt like FOREVER to see my picture on the screen. And then.. I saw it. I screamed and so did my new companion. I looked over at her and she was almost in tears. It was hilarious. Everyone was laughing at us because we were so excited. I AM WITH SISTER MADSEN!!!!!!!!!!! SO EXCITING. Sister Madsen is from Santa Cruz, California and we actually knew each other before our missions because she is best friends with Megan Bertha, Ty Holmes, Marie Santore, and Lauren Greenwood and they all hung out together in college. So fun. She is so crazy (in a good way) and is a hard worker. She has such a positive attitude about the work and we get along really REALLY well. I am serving in Leeds, Alabama which is 30 minutes outside of Birmingham. It is a smallish town with one main road that goes throughout the whole place.

GUESS WHAT???? THERE IS A CHICK FIL A HERE!!!!!!! DREAM=MADE. I AM SO HAPPY. We are living with a member in her adorable house in a cookie cutter neighborhood and I love it. Her name is Sister Fowler and she is an older single lady and she takes good care of us! There is a lot of work to do here and I'm so excited for all of it!!! Sister Madsen has only been here a transfer so we are both pretty fresh with everything. We are serving in a ward of about 120 people. Most of them are older couples and there are some cute families as well. I love it so much.

 

It was really hard for me to say goodbye to the people in West Point. Especially Tammy. Oh my goodness. The last lesson that I had with her was on enduring to the end. I just remember looking her straight in the eyes and saying, "This gospel is hard to live, but it's worth it. I hope and pray you stay strong and keep doing those things that bring you closer to our Savior." It was a very emotional experience for me because I felt like I was a parent leaving a child behind and letting them go. Ah. It was awful. I am so grateful for her and all that she has done for me. Heavenly Father is so good and knew I needed to be there for that short amount of time to learn a lot of life lessons.

Saying goodbye to Jalisa was hard as well. She gave me a cute make up bag and a card that she wrote in. She said, "The decision to learn about your church has been the best decision I have ever made in my life. God knew I needed you." SO PRECIOUS. I really hope that she progresses because she needs this gospel so much!!!! :)

 

Okay. Now back to the things that have happened this past week...

First off, I would like to say how grateful I am to be serving in this area. The people here are extremely nice, but they are also extremely set on the religion that they have. I honestly have gained such a strong testimony just in the past couple of days because we are CONSTANTLY getting questioned for our beliefs and I LOVE IT. It's so much different than West Point because people in West Point didn't know anything about mormons. I'm learning so much!

 

Wednesday:

I had to say goodbye to Sister Woomer who was going home and saying goodbye to her made me realize how amazing the people are here and how much I love and appreciate all of them. Sister Woomer was my first Sister Training Leader and she helped me out A LOT when I found out dad passed away. She was by my side every step of the way. LOVE HER.

After transfer meeting, I discovered that my bike tire was COMPLETELY FLAT. So, we showed our faith and knew that Heavenly Father had a plan for us to be on foot instead of biking. We walked around Leeds and met so many people! I am learning so much from Sister Madsen. She is such a stud. I am learning how to teach lessons on the spot more and I thank her for that. We went tracting and met this lady who told us she couldn't meet with us because she is busy with her job (which is throwing newspapers). We then began to ask her questions about God and she said she doesn't really believe in Him. It was the saddest thing! We have met a good 4 people the past few days who don't believe in God, but believe in a "force that connects us all together". Isn't that God? Anyway, we continued on with our conversation and started to talk about The Book of Mormon. Halfway through the lesson, her countenance changed and she was a completely different person. Then. Her "partner" opened the door and we asked her if she would like to join us for the lesson. Her partner then said, "No thanks. I'm actually really sick of you two talking to her. BYE." She then grabbed her "partner" who we were talking to and they went inside and slammed the door. It was so great. I love being rejected because it makes this cause of sharing the gospel way more important!!! God is good:)

We had a lesson with this man named Greg and taught him the Restoration. When we got to the part of talking about the apostasy, I said, "Greg! What do you think the word apostasy means?" He then went on and on and would not stop talking about slavery and catholics and how religion was forced on him when he was younger because of the civil war. It was so random and he told us at the end that he didn't have much time to meet with us and that he would give us a call if he wanted to meet with us again. (He ended up calling us on Sunday and told us that he read through the pamphlet and has questions for us!!! YAY. we are seeing him tomorrow :))

 

Thursday:

I prayed Thursday morning and asked Heavenly Father what my purpose was for serving in Leeds and he answered in the neatest way!!!!! We were walking through this apartment complex just contacting people and we both said hello to a man that was walking past us. He didn't say anything back, but started to sign. I began signing back to him and he told me he was deaf and asked me how I learned ASL and who we were. I signed back telling him that we were missionaries and that I learned ASL in High school, but he would have to be patient with me because I have forgotten a lot of it. He laughed and then asked me if we would follow him to his house. His name is Jerry!  Before we stepped inside his home, I asked him if a female was in the home. He said yes and then we stepped inside. He then motioned for us to go to his back room of the house. We walked in the room and saw an older lady lying down in bed. I then said hello to her and then Jerry looked at me and signed to me and told me that the lady in the bed was his mother and that she was deaf as well. Jerry then started to clasp his hands together and looked at me. I then realized that he wanted me to pray for his mom. I said a prayer and the spirit was so strong. They obviously couldn't hear anything I said in the prayer, but I KNOW for a fact that they felt it. ah. It was so neat. We then set a return appointment with him for Saturday!

ANSWERED PRAYER.

We had a lesson with this man named Curtis who the sisters met before I got there. He is such a humble man and really wants to change his life around. We taught him the first lesson and the spirit was very very strong. We invited him to be baptized and he said yes! We set a date with him for October 18. We asked him how he felt after teaching him and he said, "My mind is very clear. I don't know how to explain it. All of the things that I had been worrying about before are just gone." THE HOLY GHOST IS REAL.

We had 10 minutes left of the night and didn't have any appointments. We had no clue what to do and decided to go to a random parking lot and talk to the guys who were sitting outside. The 2 guys were wearing jordans (shoes) and so I asked them if they played basketball. Sister Madsen then said, "OH COOL. SISTER PLATT OVER HERE CAN BEAT Y'ALL IN BASKETBALL. When is a good time for y'all to play?" hahahhaha it was great.  We ended up teaching them the restoration using the pamphlet and it was great. We asked them to come to church and they both totally denied us! hahaha so great. Planted seed!!!!

 

Friday:

Oh man. This day was CRAZY. Holy cow. It started off with going to wal-mart to fix my bike tire and it was a 2 hour ordeal because the new tube that I bought from Wal-mart had a hole already in it! 2 nice southerners helped us fix it and spent a good hour with us figuring out what was wrong. We thought it was the tire and we were going crazy with trying to fix it. I love the South. I am so grateful for the people here. They are such good christian people. Oh. And wanna know a tender mercy that happened in Walmart? We got a call from a random number and answered the phone. The lady on the other line said, "hello! I am interpreting a phone call for Jerry. He was wondering if you could bring him a Book of Mormon?" SO EXCITING. WE WERE FREAKING OUT. We told her to tell him yes!!!!! God is so good. Anyway, we ended up getting it all figured out and focused our efforts of finding Less active members to see. We met this less active lady named Juanita who is the sweetest mexican lady in the world! She is so great. We asked her why she hasn't come to church and she explained the things she was going through and told us that she didn't feel comfortable coming to church. We felt inspired to share the mormon message called, "courage" and she loved it! The spirit was strong and we definitely were able to break through the wall that she had built up. So grateful for the spirit. We couldn't do this work without it. SHE CAME TO CHURCH YESTERDAY. :))

I am so grateful for Sister Madsen and all I am learning from her. She is so bold and I love it! We talked to these two teenage boys who didn't want anything to do with us because they were in a hurry to go to Sonic because it was happy hour. (I don't blame them. I love sonic happy hour). Anyway, Sister Madsen is so great because she just kept bugging them and asking to teach them. So great. hahah they gave us the dirtiest looks and went away. We kept biking and saw a yard sale going on. We met a lady named April who is super cute who was working at the yard sale! She was sitting outside with her 10 year old son Rio and her 19 year old daughter, corey. We started to ask her questions about her religious background and she really opened up to us and told us about her husband who died 2 years ago from a heart attack and how she is still grieving over it. I felt like I could really connect with this woman and I'm so glad I could! We taught all of them the Plan of Salvation right on the spot and they loved it!!!!!! They told us that we could come back this week!! YAY. 

We then biked over to this trailer park that people in the ward told us to go visit. hahaha love the south so much and man, I have missed Alabama. There is something different between here and Mississippi and I don't know why. Anyway, we met a less active lady there and her husband who isn't a member. We talked to both of them and they both said they didn't really believe in God. It was so sad. Her husband wouldn't even participate in our discussion, but was very nice. It was just the saddest thing in the world. agh. Honestly, why don't people believe in God? THERE IS EVIDENCE ALL AROUND US OF HIM. Look at something simple like a flower and you will know that God exists. K. I'm done with my rant. 

WE BIKED UP this HUGE hill going to have a new member lesson with this lady named Loretta who got baptized a week ago. It was hilarious. Sister Madsen is such a spaz and was singing the whole way going up the hill and I thought I was going to pass out. We didn't get off our bikes and it was quite the accomplishment. LET GOD EXPAND YOUR CAPACITY Y'ALL. 

Anyway, we had a new member lesson with Loretta and oh my, she is the sweetest lady ever. Love her so much. Her husband was less active, but has started to come to church ever since she started investigating. This gospel changes people. yay. 

In conclusion of this day, we definitely worked REALLY hard and biked 20 miles total. Oh. And we run 2 miles every morning so basically I am going to lose all the weight I gained on my mission. SO HAPPY. YAY FOR BEING HEALTHY AND LIVING THE WORD OF WISDOM. It feels great. I'm so grateful for Sister Madsen and  that she is a hard worker. It's so refreshing! 

 

Saturday:

We had a lesson with Jerry and watched The Restoration video which has a video of a man signing everything that happens. HE LOVED IT AND THE SPIRIT WAS STRONG. He kept signing, "wow" during the video. It was so cute. We showed him The Book of Mormon and told him about how Christ came to the America's. I used the pictures at the beginning of The BOM  to teach and signed asSister Madsen pointed. We invited him to read it and he said he would! We also invited him to church and he said he couldn't leave his mom this sunday, but he would be able to come next sunday!!! Not sure how it's going to work, but he will feel the spirit!!!!

Oh. It was hilarious because he looked at Sister Madsen and signed to her saying, "you are shy! You need to learn ASL please." hahhahah I just started laughing and told Sister Madsen what he was saying to her and she started cracking up and said, "man! That is the only time I have ever been called shy." hahahah so great. Jerry is the sweetest man ever. Love him!

We biked over to a festival that was happening on the "main street" of Leeds. People were cleaning up their booths and we went around asking if people needed help. Everyone refused except for one sweet couple who gave us BBQ sandwiches for a dollar instead of 5 dollars just because we asked them for help. They were so shocked that we were wanting to help. The lady kept saying, "no one has asked us for help this whole time. Bless you girls!" ah. It was the BEST BBQ sandwich of my life. It was a huge blessing because we didn't even have time to go home and eat dinner because of the appintment we had later that night so God blessed us with a BBQ sandwich.  #tendermercyfromthelord

 

Sunday:

This day was crazy!!!! Church was great. Love the ward. It was the primary program. Such precious children :) Our building is VERY small. Smaller than West Points church. We had to drive an hour away to give sleeping mats to the sisters in sylacagga and it's a long story, but it was just a crazy day. Anyway, We went to a single adult missionary fireside and helped do some roleplays. Ah. They were all so cute and excited to share the gospel! I love helping members understand the importance of this work!!!!! We ate dinner at a less active mans home named Jack. He is awesome. He and his step daughter named Courtney who is not a member was there. They made ribs, mac n' cheese, potato salad, beans, and biscuits. It was a classic southern meal. We washed it down with some yummy pecan pie!!! SO SO GOOD. We then talked to them about the importance of church attendance and Jack doesn't want to come until he gives up smoking because he doesn't feel comfortable coming if he doesn't partake of the Sacrament. We shared the story of Lehi having a vision of the tree of life and invited both of them to have a desire to change and realize that God's approval is way more important than others. They loved it! Courtney told us that she has met with missionaries and had the discussions a good 5 times, but she doesn't want to give up her sweet tea and doesn't understand why she has to. (She drinks a gallon a day). We testified to her the importance of putting faith into action and relying on Christ's atonement for help. I loved it! I love them!

Then, we had 30 minutes left of the night and decided to do a "drive thru" lesson. Now, what a drive thru lesson is is this: You literally go to a parking lot and drive up to random people outside walking/sitting in their car and just start teaching them. GUESS WHAT THE GUYS NAME WAS THAT WE DROVE UP TO???? HIS NAME WAS JOSEPH SMITH!!!!!!!!!!!!! TOTALLY MEANT TO BE. IT WAS SO FUNNY. WE WERE CRACKING UP SO MUCH. Joseph was a very awkward man and told us that he was catholic and never heard of our church. We then said, "well. we've got a great story for you about another man named Joseph Smith..." and then we taught him lesson 1!! So great. He wasn't interested afterwards, but he gave us 4 different people to go see! He gave us directions to where they lived and said, "Yeah. When you hit the 2nd dirt road. you will make a left and go all the way down until you hit the barn on your right." Oh the south. I love you so much :)

 

I am so grateful to be here. I'm grateful for the sisters in this zone that we will be working with!!!! GUESS WHAT??? SISTER CASPERSON AND SISTER CLARK ARE IN MY ZONE. Sister Casperson goes home after this transfer and she was the one that trained me and now we get to experience exchanges together! SO FUN. And Sister Clark is the one that I served with in a trio. LOVE her so much. She is one of my best friends. Heavenly Father knows exactly what we need. He is incredible.

I have so much to work on and I am grateful for God and His ability to shape us if we will only let him. We are working hard and I am loving every second of it!

 

This is a sweet email that I just received from President Hanks. Love this man so much. It was exactly what I needed to hear:

"Bless you.

What a GREAT LEADER you are going to be, Sister Platt.

If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you to stop and breathe for a minute. Lean back, maybe put your hands behind your head. Smile, and pretend you hear my voice in your ears saying, “Thank you.” “Thank you for deciding to come on a mission. Thank you for striving to be obedient. Thank you for honoring the trust that I have in you.” Missions are difficult at times, and you are succeeding!

I just wanted you to know how I feel.

Be well. Be wise. Be obedient.

With love and hope,

President Hanks
STEADFAST IN CHRIST"

 

He is the man!!!!!!

I am in good hands here.

Love y'alll so much and hope y'all have a great week! Be steadfast! Expand your capacity!!! LOVE EVERYONE!!!!!! BE BOLD!!!! INVITE PEOPLE TO LEARN MORE!!!!!!

 

Here's my new address :)

8400 Kirkby Circle

Leeds, AL 35094

 

MYKY,

Sister Platt

Once again, maybe one day I'll be in the same area for more than 3 months.

Hello everyone!!!!

yes. I am getting transferred AGAIN. Oh. and maybe one day I will have a companion for two transfers! Shout out to sister gustafson.. she is the only one STILL.

We were waiting for our transfer instructions for a good 2 hours and finally, at 10:28, President Hanks called us. (usually it's the assistants who do it.)

Well. Sister Drummond will be training a new sister in West Point and I have been assigned to be a Sister Training Leader! I AM SO EXCITED, BUT SO NERVOUS. I will be in a huge area again which will be weird, but good for me to challenge myself.

I am so excited to learn from all the other sisters by going on exchanges with them. It will be a good opportunity for me to really stretch myself, so it will be grand! Sister Drummond is going to be such a good trainer and I'm so happy for her!

The work is moving forward and I am loving every minute of it.

I will truly miss West Point and all of the crazy/amazing people here. Goodness. This place will always be something that I will smile back on.

I forgot my notes so this email is going to be everywhere again!!!!!

WE HAD ZONE CONFERENCE WITH ELDER ZWICK IN HUNTSVILLE.

IT WAS AMAZING!!!!!!

At the very beginning, Elder Zwick told us of an experience he had in the temple the week before coming to Alabama. He was talking to President Monson how he was going to Alabama and asked if he had anything he wanted to say to us missionaries. President Monson replied saying, "Remind the missionaries to be safe. And assure them so they know that they are the strongest missionary force the world has ever known." yes. I got chills. Oh my goodness. The spirit was SO strong as soon as Elder Zwick walked in the Chapel. 

He used the scripture found in Mosiah 18:30 and told us to replace "the waters of mormon" to "the alabama birmingham mission." It was really neat and made the scripture super personal. He then said that Alabama will be "holy ground" for us because we came to a knowledge of our Redeemer here. Ah. It is so true though. Whenever I think about where I am, I just smile. I am obsessed with this place. He also quoted Elder Scott who said, "You do all the work, you give others the credit and you will be happy every time." How true is that?

He then got very serious and talked about how we need to each be totally focused and sanctified so miracles can happen. He then invited us to ask ourselves this question at the start of every day: "Is my mind single to the glory of God?"

Sister Hanks talked about Alabama and how blessed we are for being able to serve such humble/christian people in a free country. She got very emotional and it was the sweetest thing in the world. I love her so much and she is totally right.

President Hanks gave an awesome lesson on "progress". He talked about the whole church uses the word "progress" and that we need to do the same with teaching our investigators. Our whole goal should be to make them progress closer to baptism. He then talked about getting lost in the work and truly just giving our mission everything we've got because the time we have out here is SUPER SHORT. He also said, "Perfect use of the Lord's time=Law of sacrifice as a missionary" I LOVE that!!!!

Sister Zwick talked about having a change of heart and how the only difference between Nephi and Laman and Lemuel was a change of heart that Nephi had. Laman and Lemuel did everything that the Lord commanded, but they murmured. She then talked about how we shouldn't limit ourselves to what we think our capacity is. AH! It was just the grandest meeting y'all!

There was so much more that was said, but I will run out of time if I tell y'all everything!

Oh. And Elder Zwick told us that we would be getting ipads sometime between sept and january! haha

OH. and guess who sat next to me during lunch? ELDER ZWICK. No big deal. We had a really good conversation about how he prepares for talks and also talked about the AMAZING talk he gave in the last general conference. He and Sister Zwick are ADORABLE. :)

Nothing too crazy has happened this past week. We have been just trying to find new people and it's been rough, but Heavenly Father is continuing to bless us each and every day.

For example, at the end of a super rough day of finding no new people to teach, Sister Drummond really wanted icecream so we went to McDonald's to get cones. The cashier who saw us said, "Hey! Do you ladies remember me? You said a prayer with me today!!!" (I honestly didn't recognize her until we started talking to her). Anyway, she then said, "Yeah. You ladies have no idea how much that prayer helped me. I was crying for an hour straight and was praying for help and then y'all just showed up so thank you." Tender mercies are the best. :) We ended up inviting her to learn more and she said her dad was a pastor, but it's all good!

We saw Jalisa and had an official "drop talk" with her and asked her if she still wanted to learn. She told us that she has been struggling a lot recently and needs our help and encouragement. We invited her to be baptized (again) and she said she would be baptized by the end of the year. We then said, "perfect. How about October 25?" She said YES! We will see what happens!!!! Jalisa is just having a hard time keeping commitments because of her Boyfriend who is not the best influence for her. It's so sad and I wish she could just see how HAPPY this gospel will make her be for the rest of her life!!!!

We were able to help Sister Swift clean her house this past week!!! I love this woman so much. Oh my goodness. We joke around so much and she makes fun of me all the time in a friendly way. hahah After working, Sister Swift says to me, "Sister Platt! Would you like some water?" Me: "Oh no, I'm..." Sis. Swift: (in her deep southern accent) "shut up" HAHHAHA WE WERE LAUGHING SO HARD. Oh goodness. The people here crack me up.

hahah we came up with a GENIUS idea of how to contact people and we did it!!!! SO. this is what we did. We got a poster and wrote the words, "STOP! A scripture a day will keep the devil away. Get your spiritual upliftment here!" Then we taped a picture of Jesus on it and wrote mormon.org on it as well. We then went to a busy intersection that had a stop sign and Sister Drummond held the poster while I got my scriptures out. IT WAS HILARIOUS. We looked so awkward there, but it totally worked!!!! We did it for 30 minutes and made a good 20 contacts!!!!!!! Some people pointed and laughed at us, but most were very nice and rolled down their window as I read them a scripture. Lots of people said, "yes. Thank you Jesus!" after I read a scripture. hahah I love the south so much. There was a random girl who walked up to us and gave us a hug and then just walked away. Oh west Point. How I will miss you.

I have grown so much on my mission and I am so GRATEFUL for Heavenly Father and all He does for us missionaries every single day we are out here working. He is so amazing!!!!!!!!

I am really going to miss Tammy and her whole family the most. They have taught me so much and more than I have taught them. I know that I was supposed to be here for her and her sweet family. Actually. No. I came here so that they could be there for ME.

I love y'all so much and I am grateful for all the support!!!!!! Sorry. I can't remember anything else that happened this past week!!!!

-The peaches are officially out of season and I am so upset. They are my favorite fruit!!!!

-I found 10 pieces of hair on the ground this week. (braids on braids on braids)

-Chantel made me fried wings for a "going away" party. #dailydoseofchantel She also made fun of the way I talk and told Sister Drummond and I that we talk too slow. 

-We walked past a HUGE dead bird on the road and naturally took a picture with it. A girl we know saw it and put one of her cigarettes in it's mouth

MYKY,

Sister Platt

Did service helping someone clean out their chicken coup.

I love our District

The Henderson's, he has an awesome conversion story.

Going to miss this family so much,

The Givens. from the Branch

Louie, I love him, he is one of the sweetest people in the world.

Oh how I love Sister Drummond.

So determined to find Progressing Contacts on this street, only found one.

We can't direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails - President Thomas S. Monson

Hello hello!!! k. HOw is it already September? It just hit me today.MERE! I hope you're birthday was the best!!! Jenna! You are next :) Oh my goodness y'all. Time is FLYING!!!!

This past week has been a little rough, but I have been learning what Heavenly Father intended for me to learn and for that, I am grateful :)

I won't go through everyday, but I will talk about the rough times and then the wonderful BLESSINGS that have occured as well.

-Jalisa totally blocked us on her phone. So awkward. We think she may have gotten anti-ed, but aren't too sure. We sended her a text on Monday night to see if we could stop by and we got a text back that said, "The person at this phone number has chosen to not receive messages from you." When we got the text, Sister Drummond and I were almost in tears as we looked at each other, but all that could come out of my mouth at that time was laughter. I think that is how I have learned to cope with trials on the mission. I seriously just think to myself, "okay really? THIS WOULD HAPPEN." and then I just laugh. hahah We really don't have too many promising investigators at the moment, but just like the quote in the title of this email, WE CAN ADJUST THE SAILS and CHOOSE to be happy!!!! 3 days later, Sister Drummond and I both felt the desire to go over to Jalisa's house and embrace the awkward and just knock on her door. She had just pulled up in her car as soon as we got there and she was acting SUPER uncomfortable, but let us in. She started to tell us how she is going to move to Columbus and how she wants to live there with her boyfriend and yadayada. I think she was trying to hint at us that she doesn't want us back :( SO SAD. OH WELL. Missionaries will find her again when she is ready!

-A blessing that happened that night was while we were planning. Sister Drummond and I felt super down about the whole situation and then we randomly get a text from our investigator Mitch, asking us when he can meet with us again :)!!!! It definitely lifted our spirits!!!

-I received a letter from Sister Gustafson and she told me how the people that we were working with in Clanton are NOW getting baptized!!!! Sister Lutz's daughter, Sara just got baptized (we think) and Nick (who is one of my favorite people on this earth) has a baptismal date!!!!!!!!! :) I am so happy for them!!!!!!!!

-I had a really neat experience while on exchanges this past week. Sister Drummond and Sister Smith knew a lady that was getting endowed, so they had the opportunity to go to the temple while Sister Klein and I stayed in Columbus. We were at this members house and teaching them a lesson/trying to get them excited about member missionary work. The family that we were visiting consisted of a wife and husband who were both returned missionaries and their two 3 and 1 year old girls. The wife turned to her little 3 year old and asked, "Afton, what do missionaries do?" Afton excitingly looked at her mom and said with the cutest lisp ever, "Missionaries help others come unto Christ!!!" I got chills. It was a very spiritual experience for me and honestly has changed my life. It was so simple, and yet, exactly what I needed to hear. After hearing her say that, I couldn't stop smiling as I thought to myself, "One day, I want that. I want my kids to grow up knowing the importance of missionary work. I want my house to be a place of peace and refuge for everyone. I want my kids to know the importance of coming unto Christ." Goodness, I am so grateful for this mission. #blessing

-Another blessing was the chance that we got to teach Tammy how to hold a Family Home evening. As soon as we walked through the door, they all screamed as they said, "Yay!!!!!! The missionaries are here!!!!" It made us feel really famous like miranda sings. But really, it was a simple tender mercy to know that we are doing our part here in West Point. We had a fun time teaching them all about "putting on the armour of God" and Chantelle dressed Jonathan up in the "armour" using alluminum foil.

-We were tracting one day and this lady answered the door as I said, "hello! We are missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and we are going around today leaving prayers with people." This lady nervously kept looking back and forth at Sister Drummond and I and then kept studdering as she said, "okay. okay. okay." She let us in and we were able to say a prayer with her. After the prayer, she started to cry and then said, "You have no idea how much I needed that prayer. My son is sick in the hospital and I just found out that I have MS. God sent you ladies to me and I really appreciate it." Ah. It was the best. It makes me so happy to pray with people here. They are all so full of love here in the South. My goodness.

-We had an AMAZING lesson with Mitch on the Restoration outside on his porch. Oh Mitch... He is so funny. He is 38 years old and lives with his parents and loves video games. He is the sweetest guy ever. The spirit was really strong in the lesson and we asked him if he felt the message was true. He said, "Well. yeah. I can totally believe it! Especially hearing y'all bear testimony of it. Y'all are very sincere unlike the Jehovah's witnesses." hahahah it was great. We invited him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon and he said he would! At the end, we asked him to say a pray outloud and he got super nervous and refused to do it. We didn't take no for an answer so I grabbed a sticky note and wrote down a prayer for him that he could read and say. I gave the note to him and he reviewed it a good ten times. He then started his prayer which was WAY better than what I had written down. He didn't even look at the note that I had written :) It was amazing!!! He said, "Dear Heavenly Father. I thank you for sending Sister Drummond and Sister Platt to me today. I am learning a lot and I feel very peaceful. Please help me know about the Book of Mormon. I am going through a lot in my life and Lord, you know my heart, please help me. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen." SO PRECIOUS. I have said it before and I will say it again, I love hearing investigators pray!!!! We asked him how he felt and he jokingly said, "I feel all dizzy, but I know that must be God and not some drug that y'all gave me." We explained to him that he was feeling the spirit :) Mitch still has a lot to learn, but we were able to clear up a lot of concerns about our church that he had heard from talking to his friends.

-We had ANOTHER AMAZING lesson with Mitch 2 days later at the church with Brother and Sister Wilson who are an adorable older couple in our branch. He loved them and I feel like he could really relate to Sister Wilson because she is a convert and used to be Southern Baptist like Mitch. It was perfect. We focused a lot on Joseph Smith and praying about the Book of Mormon with Mitch. We asked him how he felt as we have been teaching him (my favorite question to ask) and he said, "I have never talked about religion so comfortably in my life with anyone. I usually get all defensive so it's nice that y'all listen and help me." We invited him to be baptized and he said he would still have to pray about it. He expressed his fear of attending church on sunday and kept saying, "I can't make any promises that I will be there, but I will try." Usually, when people say that, it means they aren't coming. haha it's funny to decode what people say. (He ended up not coming yesterday:( ) I personally think he is scared to come and socialize with new people, but the branch would be perfect for him!

-OH! I forgot to mention that we did a scavenger hunt one night with the STL's and wrote down different people we wanted to find and get contact information/return appts from! We split up into companionships and had two hours to find everything on the list. For example, on our list, it had:

-Someone with a batman shirt on

-Someone with a green house

-Someone who likes zombies

-A baptist preacher

-A black girl wearing a neon shirt

-A man with a cross tattoo

-Someone who has met with missionaries before

Oh my, It was HILARIOUS!!!!!!! We found a lady sitting outside on her porch and her house was green. We started talking with her and asking her the typical questions (what church do you go to? How long have you lived here? etc.) and about 5 mins later, her husband rolls up on his bike and tries to get off his bike and almost falls. He was completely drunk. His name is Barry. The poor lady we were talking to had no idea and kept saying, "What's wrong baby?" It was so sad. We then asked the lady when a good time would be for us to come back and her husband looks at us and in a slurred voice says, "NEVER. maybe next year." We ignore him and just smile as we get her information. Then, Barry looks at me and yells, "WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS SMILING? STOP SMILING. IT'S CREEPY." hahahahhahahahahaha oh man. It was funny. I just laughed and said, "oh. sorry sir! I just love being a missionary and talking about Jesus Christ." Good times. Good times.

Good news, we found everyone on our list except the guy with a batman shirt on. We had 5 minutes before it was time to go inside for the night and we were SO desperate to find the man with batman on him. I saw a guy sitting in a car and he had tattoos all over. I awkwardly asked him if he had a batman tattoo and he said NO :'((((

-There was a cute boy that sister Van Komen and I met when I first got to West Point. He is about 8 years old. He was riding his bike as we saw him again and he said, "HEY!! DO YOU REMEMBER ME????" and when we said yes, he got SO EXCITED. It was the cutest thing ever. He then told us to go see his mom and so we did, but she didn't answer the door. He then asked us to come back and see him every day. Oh my. It was the best. He was with his two other friends and they were all riding bikes and it reminded me of a classic southern movie that you would watch like forrest gump or something. They were all wearing cowboy boots with their pants and had camo hats on with white tank tops. So adorable.

It's the little things here in the south that make me so happy!!! Like yesterday, while tracting, I just had to stop and look around me as I saw green all over the place. It's so beautiful here! I love the huge letters that people put on their front porches. Basically everyone has them here. I want a letter to put on my door when I get home! MOM! Put a cute decorated "p" on our door please!!!! I also love how everyone says, "have a blessed day". It's the best and I say it all the time. I love the lady in wal mart who we were trying to contact who then invited us to her church and promised us that we would have a "hallelujah good time" and feel the spirit as we "jump up and clap for Jesus." I even love the creepy men that smile and wave at us and ask us to be their girlfriend.

Even though the "winds" may be a little crazy here and it's a tough area, I KNOW that as long as Sister Drummond and I "adjust our sails" and think positively, things will happen here!!!!

I love y'all so much and I am truly happy. This work is hard, but that's how we GROW.

-I ate Chick Fil A to celebrate my year mark. #tendermercy #chickfilaisn'tinwestpointbutitsincolumbus

-Yesterday, we hear a guy with dreads yell, "happy sunday everyone!" and then he turned on his atrocious rap music as loud as he could. Sister Drummond and I just shook our heads #notkeepingthesabbathholy

-We didn't get proposed to this past week, but a man did pull over his car as we were walking and asked us both out on a date. We just said, "no thanks! but you should check out mormon.org! It's a great website that helps people come unto Christ"

-President Hanks has encouraged us to carry around the Book of Mormon in our hands as we are walking everywhere. We went to a gas station to contact one night and we did just that. We walked up to this man waiting in his truck and he had the window rolled down. I then said! "hello sir! If Jesus came up to you and told you that he wanted you to read another book about him and his life, would you read it?" He then gave me the WEIRDEST look and said, "Uh. I guess." We then said, "GREAT! Here it is! It's called The Book of Mormon. Will you read it?" He then said NO. REALLY RUDE. We refused no for an answer and asked his son in the passenger seat if he would like it. HE SAID YES. hahhaha little children are the best. Oh. How I love being awkward. It's the best.

-Our windows vibrate EVERY morning as we are studying from the loud music that people play in their cars as they drive by our apartment.

-We are having another conference type thing with one of the 70!!! Elder Zwick will be here to speak with us missionaries and we have the opportunity to go to Huntsville this tuesday!! !SO STOKED!!!!! Tonight, we are going to drive to Hamilton which is halfway to huntsville from here and meet with the other sisters in our zone and have a sleepover/make a music video! STOKED. I love the sisters here in this mission!!!!!!!

Now, I would like to invite y'all to go out and serve the Lord! Help someone in need! Recognize the little things in life and adjust your sails!!!!!!!!!!!

MYKY,

Sister Platt

I love farming!

Hello y'all!!!! Just warning y'all now, I don't have too much time today because we are using a members computer and they only have one!

Anyway, this past week has been pretty good, but we had some rocky points. I get so frustrated sometimes with the people we are teaching because they aren't keeping their commitments!!!

Monday: Taught Tammy and Jonathan lesson 3. They both loved it! It started to POUR during the lesson and the lights went out in Sister Edward's apartment. I LOVE THE WEATHER HERE. IT WAS SO EXCITING!!!! We had a lesson with Jalisa and talked about her baptism. She told us that she hasn't been reading as much as she should and that she wasn't ready to be baptized yet. I am so grateful that she was honest with us though! yay!

Tuesday: We did A LOT of walking this day. We met this guy named Arman who was hilarious and asked us what we were doing. We told him that we were missionaries and teaching a message that changes peoples lives. He agreed to have a lesson with us and we walked under a tree so we could have shade and started teaching him. He was half listening as he was looking for his friend who was supposed to pick him up. He told us at the end how he had been to prison and found Jesus there. Anyway, he really wasn't too interested in the message, but hey, PLANTED SEED. WAHOO. I LOVE FARMING!!!!!! We tracted into this lady and asked to say a prayer with her. She then told us that she wanted to say a prayer for us.... we told her she could and then she started to shake our hands as she said, "Jesus. Please watch over these followers of you. PLEASE WIPE YOUR BLOOD ON THEM." She then continued on with the prayer and the spirit definitely was not there at all. haha she then started to say something in a completely different language aka she spoke in tongues. yeah. It freaked us out, but she was super nice :)

As we were walking to our next appointment, Sister Drummond screamed and started pointing at this DEAD POSSUM ON THE GROUND. sooooo gross. We thought at first that it might have been playing dead, but nope. It was dead.

We had a lesson with our investigator Ashley :) We taught her The Gospel of Jesus Christ and she loved it and said all of it made sense :) Sister Swift came to the lesson as well. I love having members present at the lessons. We then went to see a less active lady named Sister Scott with Sister Swift and they talked for a good 15 minutes about this DISGUSTING food called "souce" that they are obsessed with. It's basically a pig's head soaked in vinegar and mashed up into thin slices of meat. SO GROSS. They told us that we had to try it and Sister Swift told us that she was going to buy some for us to try the next night. YIKES.

Wednesday: We had district meeting and then went on exchanges with our STL's!!!! Sister Smith went with me to West Point and oh my, miracles just always seem to happen on exchanges! We had an AWESOME day!!!! We went over to this lady Yalunka's house and knocked on her door. She didn't answer so we walked away and as we were walking down the street, we saw her driving towards her house! We waved and she totally avoided eye contact with us as she was driving!!!! Sister Smith and I looked at each other as we said, TOAST!!!! (thrive on awkward situations today). Yup. So we turned around and went straight up to her door and knocked again. She answered!!!! It was super awkward at first because we could tell that she didn't want us there. We taught her the first lesson anyway and she told us that she would call us if she had any questions about The Book of Mormon and refused to set up a time for us to come back. FARMING IS THE BEST Y'ALL. WE WILL PLANT AND PLANT AND PLANT.

We then went over to see Carl who we met the week before. Carl just recently had a stroke and has a hard time speaking. His 20 year old nephew Hakeem was there as well! We taught them the Restoration and they both loved it!! Ah. One of my favorite parts of the lesson was when we invited Carl to read the account of Joseph Smith's first vision. He read super slow which was amazing because it totally brought the spirit in!! At the end, we asked them if they each would pray about something they had learned from the lesson. Carl's question was about Joseph Smith and Hakeem's question was so precious. He asked, "How can I have more sincere prayers?" They both prayed individually in front of us and the spirit was SO STRONG!!!! Oh my goodness. The innocence in their prayer was AWESOME!!!! They said the most child-like prayer and yet, it was the most beautiful.

We got a text from Sister Edwards asking if we could come over to her place and comfort Tammy because Tammy just got fired from her job at McDonalds :( We went straight over and shared a scripture with her from when Joseph Smith was suffering in Carthage Jail. Tammy started crying as she told us about the whole situation with her getting fired and she said, "last week, I was praying and asking Heavenly Father about my job. I told Him to let me know if I should keep working there." God answers prayers in mysterious ways. I started to cry as I tried to comfort her as best I could. It's amazing to me to see how much love we can have towards people that we have only known for a couple of months.

We had an AWESOME lesson with Jalisa and read from 3 nephi. 11 with her which is one of my favorite chapters to read with investigators! When we read the part about Nephi receiving the Priesthood, Jalisa looked up at me and said, "OH! I get it now!!!!" ah so great. We then talked about when Jesus let each of the people go forth one by one and feel the prints in His hands, feet, and side :) It was a very spiritual lesson and I am so grateful for the power of the scriptures!

We contacted people the rest of the night and within only 1 hour, we contacted 18 people outside!!!! That is A LOT for West point!!! haha we talked to people sitting in their cars. We talked to workers at stores. We talked to EVERYONE we saw. So great. I love being a missionary :) haah Sister Smith said the funniest thing to a guy we were contacting in the store who was working there... We see a man stacking gatorade on a shelf. I ask him if he enjoys that job. He replies yes and then asks Sister Smith what she did to her hand (she has a cast around it). She explains and then asks him if he has ever broken anything. He explains that he has broken his wrist before. She then says, "Oh! I'm sorry to hear this. Well. You should check out this website called Mormon.org. It may not fix your broken wrist, but it can fix your broken soul." HAHAHHAAHHAHAH I LOVE SISTER SMITH. SHE IS SO AWKWARD BUT IT'S A GOOD AWKWARD!! :) We laughed about that for quite a bit. oh man.

Thursday: We had a lesson with this lady named Kim who we tracted into. She was making pancakes, he wasn't really listening and really didn't have that strong of a desire, so we planted another seed!!!! YAY! We contacted most of the day and no one was really answering. It was rough. We did have a tender mercy! As we were walking down this one street, we heard this man start whistling at us. We looked behind us and saw him motion for us to come over. We walked over and the man started to explain to us that he really really respects what we do and told us that he sees us walking around everywhere and always feels bad for us. We explained to him what we do and then he called his wife over to come meet us. Anyway, we had a really good discussion with them and they invited us over for BBQ dinner sometime this September! They told us they would call us so yay!!!! :) Southern hospitality is the BEST. I LOVE IT HERE :)

Sister Drummond and I went to a high school football game. hahaha oh boy. That was interesting. Tammy and Sister Edwards had invited us because Josh is on the football team and Brandon is in the band. We only stayed for a little bit, but oh my, it was all so hilarious to be back in high school.

Friday: This was a day of meeting lots of creepy men. We went tracting and said a prayer with a 70 year old man. We asked him if we could do anything for him and he said, "Find me a girlfriend." We then said, "Okay! we will try!" Then he said, "No. Actually. I want her." (he then pointed to Sister Drummond). ahhahahahah I was cracking up so much. Oh. Such good times y'all! We helped decorate for Jalisa's birthday party and we felt honored because her close family and friends were there and then she invited us. yup. We are considered her close friends y'all!!! :) It was such a cute party and we ate cake and took pictures! I love her so much!!!! We went over to Sister Swift's house and tried SOUCE. Yes. It was disgusting and tasted like vinegar. j

Saturday: The prairie arts festival was today!!! It's a HUGE street fair that they do once a year in West Point and people from all over come to it. It was a really rough day. We contacted people at the arts festival, but none were from West Point! We went tracting with no luck and it started to POUR down and thunder. We were drenched. Sister Drummond started running to the car and I said, "NO! One more house!" We then went to one more house and started knocking. The thunder made a HUGE cracking noise and lightning was present. We both looked at each other and started laughing hysterically because we were both drenched and had mascara running down our cheeks. haha we looked awful. We went home and changed and then went back out and tried to contact some less actives whom we had never met before! All were home, but wouldn't answer their door :( So frustrating. We then decided to say a prayer and ask for guidance. When Sister Drummond ended the prayer, I said, "I thought of a funnel cake!!!" She started to laugh as she said, "what? okay." So yes. God sometimes answers our prayers through food. So we put that prompting to the test and headed back to the festival and started to go towards the funnel cake stand. The guy who gave us the funnel cake said it was $4, but we only had 2. (we thought we had more money with us). Then, the lady next to us in line said, "here you go!" and then gave us 2 dollars! IT WAS THE SWEETEST THING. We ended up having a super good conversation with her and left her with our card. She unfortunately wasn't from west Point, but hey, PLANTED SEED AGAIN. I still felt like we needed to be there and that the lady who gave us the 2 dollars was only part of the answer to our prayer. We decided to go ask if anyone needed help cleaning up their booths because it started to rain again. So, here we are, in the pouring rain, drenched AGAIN, asking people if they needed help. We were able to help one man pick up trash, but the rest wouldn't let us help them! We then waved at this random kid as he said, "hey missionaries!!" we then said, "wait. who are you????" He then started to tell us that he was a member of our branch! WHAT? This kids name is Will coggins and he is 17 years old and members in the branch have been trying to contact him  for the longest time because he was on parole for drugs. WE FOUND HIM. We ended up pulling him aside and had a lesson with him on the Book of Mormon and invited him to come back to church!!! He told us that he wanted our help to quit smoking! MIRACLE. HEAVENLY FAITHER IS SO GRAND :)

Sunday: Sister Drummond and I spoke in church and it went REALLY well. I am getting so much better at giving talks and speaking in front of people! It is the coolest thing! I talked about member missionary work and related it to the Atonement. I talked about my experience with coming out on my mission and about dad. It was wonderful. I love being a missionary :) Jalisa didn't come to church and she won't respond back to our texts/calls. :( mah. I don't understand!!!! We are basically empty with our teaching pool and are going to do lots of finding!!!!!! YAY.

# of life-size posters of obama I have seen in peoples homes: 5

us to 14 year old boys: "hey! do y'all want a picture of Jesus?"

them: "No. We want a picture of y'all." #k #no

Sister Henderson told me that I use "y'all" very naturally and better than any missionary she has heard say it. #success

There was a drug deal that took place during one of our lessons this week. We see a car drive up to the house... stop... then look at us and drove around the neighborhood again. Finally, the car comes back around and stops and sees that we are still there. A guy gets out of the car and I excitingly asked him to join the lesson. He replies saying, "no. I'm drunk." then he proceeded to go inside the house and then back out. SO SKETCH.

Well. I love y'all so much. I love this gospel. I love being a missionary. It is so hard and frustrating sometimes, but God always will give us tender mercies and little miracles. :) I love Him so much :)

MYKY,

Sister Platt