CAN I PLEASE JUST SAY THAT I LOVE MY FAMILY??? I love y'all a lot. Thanks for always sending photos. It makes my day!!! Seriously, I'm so so blessed with the best family in the world. Why are we so lucky???? It is so crazy to see how messed up the families are here and it truly just makes you grateful. I'M GRATEFUL THAT WE ALL GET ALONG SO WELL. WE WORK LIKE A TEAM and love one another at the end of the day. I thank Heavenly Father every day for y'all. Keep being you.
Leaving Gardendale was super weird after only being there for 6 weeks. I think one of the major reasons I was there was definitely to gain a stronger testimony of this gospel that we are so blessed to have by constantly having my beliefs challenged. Another reason was to meet the Bishops wife, Sister Bennett who totally reminds me of YOU mom!!!!! She is the most selfless person in Alabama and taught me so much through her example. I strive to be like her one day. She always made us yummy cookies and was always the first one to volunteer to pick someone up who needed a ride to church. She has been teaching seminary for the past 10 YEARS!!!! It's amazing to see what people Heavenly Father places in your life to learn from.
Let's start off with talking about Transfer Meeting. I loved this past transfer meeting A LOT. President Hanks is so awesome.
-Disciple: LOYAL to the Savior. Don't be a missionary. Be a disciple.
-How would you behave if you were alone on your mission?
-Love God by obedience Love people through service.
-Fast. REALLY FAST. Fast until your knees are weak.
-Sometimes God blesses us in "x" while we work our guts out in "y"
-Involve the Savior in everything you do and you will be happy
-Don't count the days. Make the days count.
-Satan can't stop you. CRUSH HIS HEAD. If we could see Satan, we would see a wimpy guy. (2 Nephi 24: 12-16)
-Have self mastery. Gain control of your behavior, feelings, thoughts, and actions
-BE STEADFAST IN CHRIST.
I always come out of transfer meeting feeling invigorated and ready to go. Ah. It is so refreshing every single time!!!!!
I AM BACK IN A SMALL TOWN!!!!! :) <3. I LITERALLY THRIVE OFF OF PLACES LIKE THIS :)))
The ward is great here! yes. It's a ward and it's huge!!! Everyone is related here which makes it fun and everyone is willing to help with team ups and dinners!!!! YES. ACTUAL DINNER APPOINTMENTS Y'ALL!!!!!
On our way here, we totally drove through Clanton which is only 30 minutes away from here. So crazy. My heart ached as I wanted to visit everyone there so badly, but I had to keep driving. :(
Okay. Let me just talk about my AWESOME companion for a sec. SISTER CALAMITY. She totally reminds me of Jeanette Broberg. She is quiet, but when you get her talking, she is absolutely hilarious. She is from Cedar City, Utah and has been out for 7 months. She is half navajo, quarter paiute, and quarter white! SO COOL. She is a very hard worker which is such a blessing. We work really hard together and I'm grateful for Heavenly Father and Him answering prayer. Ah. We have been working soooo hard this past week and have seen so many blessings :) AND while tracting the other day, a lady who we knew was home didn't answer the door and so I naturally/jokingly said in my miranda voice, "haters back off!" and Sister Calamity got really excited and said, "You sounded like Miranda!" UM YEAH. SHE KNOWS MIRANDA SO WE HAVE BEEN BASICALLY TALKING LIKE MIRANDA FOR THE PAST TWO DAYS. She and Sister Gustafson have been my only TWO companions who know who miranda is. (s/o to Sista G-U).
Our most promising investigators right now is an ADORABLE family!!! They live 30 minutes away from us so it's hard to see them a lot, but they came to church last week and loved it! They weren't able to come this sunday because they don't have a car and no members were available to give them a ride. SHAOOT. BUT we were able to teach them the Ten commandments, Word of Wisdom, and keeping the Sabbath day holy. It was awesome. The family consists of a single mom named Sonja and her 4 beautiful kids: Tatyana (14), Lorenzo (10), Tyasia (9), and Ja'kavion (3). Ah. I'm obsessed with them. They are so cute and were all so excited to try to live the word of wisdom and give up their sweet tea which was the only problem for them. So grand. :)
We went on a team up with this cute 30 year old member who isn't married, but loves coming out with the missionaries. All of our appointments fell through, so we asked her if she would like to go tracting. SHE TOTALLY DID IT!!!! And guess what? She was our good luck charm because 3 out of 4 people let us inside!!! We would knock on the door and the people on the other side would just say, "come in" without even opening the door to see who it was. People are so trusting here! We taught this one older lady who was absolutely hilarious! She was showing us all of her Bibles and pictures of her family. We were talking with her about how great Heavenly Father is. The people here just make me smile and uplift me everyday.
We were able to pray with lots of people while store contacting. It's just amazing to see how aware Heavenly Father is of all of His beautiful children. We met a lady in the thrift store who we felt like we needed to talk with. We asked her if she needed a prayer and she just started to break down and cry. She told us how she lost her daughter last year and how she is still going through the grieving process. We said a prayer with her and afterwards, she said, "God bless you angels" and then she gave us a huge hug. Man. This work is amazing. People here are wonderful.
Yesterday, we visited with this less active lady named Dana. She is such a great example to the WORLD of strength. In 2011, she was in a tornado and her daughter and granddaughter passed away from it. Dana survived and her house was destroyed. Because of her brain being injured in the process, she went from having a deep southern accent to now having a BRITISH accent. It is the craziest thing!!!! She shared her testimony with us and it was simply very humbling. She told us, "I am a survivor and God is good to me and I want to let the whole world know about it. I'm not ashamed of my scars." She is the most giving person as well. She went through her closet and just started to throw clothes at us to take home. :) SO PRECIOUS.
There was a lady in our ward who passed away this past Friday named Sister Enselin. Her husband is the main judge in the town of Wetumpka and was a stake President for 8 years so basically the whole town and their dogs know who this lady is. There was a viewing last night at the church for her and we, as missionaries, were in charge of making sure everything ran smoothly and that people knew what way to enter and exit the church building. I am not exaggerating when I say this: There as a good 1,000 people who showed up. So yes. half of the town showed up. Looking at the photos of Sister Enselin gave me chills. You could just tell by looking at her photos that she was a beautiful woman inside and out. She was just SO classy!!!! It was amazing to see a whole community come together to celebrate her life. GUESS WHAT???? I SAW THE GRAYS AND QUINCY'S WHO CAME FROM CLANTON!!!!! AH THEY REMEMBERED ME THANK GOODNESS OR ELSE THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN SUPER AWKWARD. Brother Gray told me that I would have a place to stay whenever I wanted to come back to Clanton. Oh. The south is just wonderful. People are soooooooo nice here!!!!!!!
This brings me to my next point: The topic of pride. I was reading in Alma 5 which is an awesome chapter in The Book of Mormon. Verse 28 really caught my eye and made me think... "Behold, are ye stripped of pride? I say unto you, if ye are not ye are not prepared to meet God." WHOAH. Talk about a BOLD scripture!!! Well, are we stripped of pride?
So I was studying the talk that my mom sent me a couple months ago via mail. The talk is entitled, "Beware of Pride" by Ezra Taft Benson. GO READ IT IF YOU HAVEN'T YET.
It talks about how pride is a very misunderstood sin and how everyone basically sins in ignorance when it comes to pride. Pride is a result of comparing ourselves, not trusting God, wishing God would agree with you, etc. Humility is something that we need as missionaries every single day, but pride always tries to creep in. I have learned that true miracles come when we put everything on the table and show Heavenly Father our willingness to follow Him and DO HIS WILL.
SO LET'S ALL GO OUT AND DO HIS WILL AND CRUSH SATAN'S HEAD. DO IT. OKAY? OKAY. PERFECT!
In other news...
-ANOTHER person told me I looked like one of the Duggars off of 19 kids and counting.
-We saw a guy with a huge plate of Cheeto's puffs in his hands and stopped our car to talk with him. This is how the convo went:
us: "Hey! we know the guy who created the cheetah for cheeto's!!! (pres. hanks)
guy: (laughing awkwardly) "cool. what you girls doin?"
us: "Sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. Do you know anyone that could use a prayer?"
guy: "I could use a wife!"
us: "Great! We will look around for one! Do you know anyone that could use a prayer though?"
guy: "Is you married? We could talk about the gospel on a date."
us: "Have a GREAT day sir!!!"
We then drove off. #lifeiswonderful.
-This past week, I made a personal goal to truly see people as Heavenly Father sees them. It has helped a lot!!!! For example, I looked at the old man who could barely speak in the assistant living home as an apostle. haha it sounds weird, but it helps so much to just see peoples full potential and love them no matter what. TRY IT. YOU'LL LIKE IT.
-S/O to Sister Amelia Knuth. There are TWO ensign articles on potatoes this month. #servingamishinidaho
-MIKKI AND BRAYDON! We traced into photographers and I told them about y'all and even gave them y'alls website. wahoo. Y'ALL ARE FAMOUS. THEY LOVED Y'ALLS WORK. Y'ALL HAVE FANS IN WETUMPKA, ALABAMA!!!!!!!
-But really, what does the word "wetumpka" mean? I keep asking everyone and they all respond by saying, "I have no idea sweetheart."
-We tracted into a teenager who told us we were weird because we smiled too much. :D :D :D :D IT'S OKAY TO BE HAPPY Y'ALL. JUST SMILE.
I cannot even believe that this is my last transfer. I really dislike it and it makes me want to throw up, but this mission is so grand and I'm grateful for the time I have left. Heavenly Father is so great! He loves each of us! He knows us! He REALLY REALLY DOES. Trust Him and you will see His hand in your life!!!!!
Goodness, these emails never make sense. Just know we are happy missionaries and we are working hard! Love y'all and have a grand week ahead! Go watch a miranda sings video for me.
ROLL TIDE ROOOOOOOLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!
MYKY,
Sister Platt
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