HOly cow. This mission is teaching me soooo much!!!! Ah. This work is so hard, but SO GOOD!!!!!!
This transfer is coming to a close; can y'all believe it??? IT FLEW BY!!!!!!! TRANSFER CALLS ARE THIS SATURDAY.
This past week was wonderful. The people here amaze me and I am humbled by their examples.
There have been some ups and downs, but that is where growth begins. Right?
Here are some of the experiences that I will just jot down because I'm terrible at organizing my emails:
-Brother Dean: We met with a less active man named Brother Dean who is the sweetest man I have ever met!!! He takes care of foster children for a living Brother Dean is also an inspiration to me. We could just tell from the way the house looked that he just adores the foster kids he takes care of and is really selfless!
-Brother Perry: Brother Perry hasn't been to church in a while because he is taking care of his wife. We met him for the first time last week and oh my goodness, he is an inspiration!!!! His wife is in her 60's and recently had a stroke and also has a severe case of dementia. He simply adores her and expressed to us how much he loves her and knows that God has a plan for them. ETERNAL PERSPECTIVE!!!! We sang her the song, "I stand all amazed" and wow, the spirit was very strong. I know she could hear us and I know that she was aware of us at that moment. It was precious. Heavenly Father is so aware of her and I could just feel the love that He has for her.
-Our mission has created this AMAZING/GENIUS idea that has literally changed our mission as a whole. Wanna hear it? It's called "HOUR OF POWER". Every day, at 5 pm, we have been invited to INVITE people to baptism for a whole hour!!!! ITS SO MUCH FUN!!!!!! Sister Cooper and I have been able to invite 53 people to baptism just by tracting!!!!! AND 2 HAVE ACCEPTED. The two that accepted are very sweet people who we are handing over to the Elders because they are single men living at home. WAHOO. We had a really neat experience one of the nights. We had 2 minutes left of the hour of power and were literally running from house to house, waiting for people to answer their doors. We saw house number 216 and felt really good about knocking there for the last 2 minutes we had left. Before knocking, Sister Cooper and I both agreed that the person on the other side really needed the gospel. A guy named Nathan answered the door and warmly welcomed us with a handshake and acted like he knew us. He explained to us that he had met with missionaries before, but lost contact because his work schedule got crazy. AND THAT HE HADN'T SEEN ANY MISSIONARIES IN 8 MONTHS. SO COOL. He then said, "Can y'all come see me on Monday?" (um. yeah we can.) No one ever sets their own times to see us so it was definitely a miracle!!! He also said, "Here's my number! Just text me and remind me and I will be home." CARAZY. We are seeing him tonight y'all!!!!!!!
Average number of baptismal invites as a mission per week: 214
Number we had this past week because of hour of power: 1,530!!!!!! Isn't that CRAZY???? A vision makes us way more motivated!!!!!!!!!!!!
-A less active man who we have been working with CAME TO CHURCH YESTERDAY FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 9 MONTHS. It was AWESOME and everyone welcomed him with open arms. Ah. It was beautiful and I just wanted to give him a big hug, but no. That doesn't work in missionary work.
-Our car had some major problems so we went in to get it fixed. The man told us that the car wouldn't be ready for another 2 days. So. We were on foot. AND it was 20-30 degrees outside. The coldness here is worse than out west. The humidity makes it so that the coldness literally reaches your bones. It was awful. We went tracting around the surrounding areas and no one let us in/people told us to go home because it was too cold to be out. NO. WE WON'T GO HOME. After many attempts, we decided to go store contacting instead. On our way to the local grocery store (NOT WALMART. THANK GOODNESS), we saw the less active lady that I mentioned in my last email Sister H!!!! She saw us and asked us why our faces were all red and why we were out in the cold. We explained to her our situation and then she said, "Oh my goodness!!! Do y'all wanna come over to my place for some chili? I'm fixin' to make it as soon as I get home!" MIRACLE. AH. SO. GRAND. Without hesitation, we agreed and she drove us over to her home. While eating dinner, she said something I will never forget, "ah. If I wasn't working tomorrow, I would drive you girls over to whatever appointments you had!" UM WHAT. Her heart has softened soooooo much and it's the best thing ever. She told us all about how she used to attend early morning seminary and how she had missionaries over when she was little. It was great to hear her stories because she had a big smile on her face as she was reminiscing. Even though she has decided to go to the Catholic church, it was cool to see that she still has good feelings toward the church and will always defend it :)
-Because of our car being in the shop, we decided to turn the situation into a positive one and make sure that all the members in the ward knew so that they would help us with our missionary efforts. haha. Sister Bennett (aka my favorite person ever/she acts just like my mom and even uses a wheat grinder) came out with us on a team up. We saw our investigator Amber and her mom Alice. It was a tender mercy that we were able to be there for them. We also had a lesson with this kid named Jaylin and the spirit was really strong. At the end of the lesson as we were walking out, Sister Bennett looked at us and exclaimed, "man. Y'all are great at teaching! You just act like everything about the Restoration is normal and exciting! You don't let them doubt any of it!" Her comment made me think. It is so true. We teach some pretty bold doctrine about how Joseph Smith SAW Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. We teach that Peter, James, and John came as resurrected beings to Joseph Smith and gave him the Priesthood keys. We teach that there is ANOTHER set of scripture that is a helpmeet to the Bible. It does sound a little crazy huh? BUT IT'S TRUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-We were invited over to dinner at Juan and Maritza's home. The other sisters are teaching them. They attend a Spanish branch in Birmingham and have been investigating the church for over 6 months. At the end of dinner, Juan bore his testimony to us in Spanish and I was the only one in the room who didn't know Spanish. Tears started to form from his eyes and I looked over at the sisters who had a HUGE smile on their faces. Sister Latu looked at me and mouthed, "He wants to be baptized!" Ah. The spirit was so strong!!!! The missionaries have been trying to get Juan into the waters of baptism for a long time!!! SO COOL. He is so ready and the sweetest man ever. He and his wife are both getting baptized this Saturday!!!!! His reason for finally wanting to get baptized??? He wants his kids to go on a mission and be mature and educated like all of the missionaries who he has seen come over to his home. SO EXCITING!!!!!
-Yesterday was amazing! We taught these cute teenagers named Kyla and DJ. They were step siblings. We asked them what they had a strong testimony of and they both shared inspiring stories of strength and faith. DJ explained to us how he has been bullied his whole life and how God has strengthened him. The scripture found in Jacob 3:1 came to my mind and so we read it to them. It was quiet for a bit after we read it and both of their eyes got really big as they said, "WHOA! That is such a cool scripture!!!!! Do you have any other cool ones?" haha it was awesome! The Book of Mormon can apply to us today y'all!!!!! We set a return appointment with them for this upcoming week and we are getting frozen yogurt with them! STOKED.
In other news...
-Only in the south AND Utah are roads completely empty on Sunday
-Little kid to his mom: "Mom! what are those girls doing knocking on the doors?"
Mom: "Honey. They are saving people by teaching them about Jesus" #precious
I love y'all and I love the work going on here in Alabama. We are continuing to preach the gospel to everyone that will listen! It's hard, but it's so worth it. Not everyone will listen to us and a lot won't even look at us as we wave or say hello, but Jesus Christ knows what we go through. We are constantly trying our hardest to find people and everyone gets anti-ed, but hey, I'm grateful that this mission isn't easy. We are learning SO MUCH!!!!!! Have a fabulous week ahead and know that life is supposed to be hard or else we wouldn't progress.
MYKY,
Sister Platt
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