I'm in my new area of Russellville and I'm basically obsessed with it!!!!!!!
I'm back to hearing the southern accents and dead animals on the road and I'm so happy.
The title of this email, "Believe and Expect" comes from a new motto that I am trying to live. I want to BELIEVE In MIRACLES and good things to happen and just expect that they will happen. I invite y'all to believe and expect as well with whatever individual trials y'all may be going through.
Rewind to transfers...
Sister Weekes is the SWEETEST person in the world and I am honestly learning more from her than she is from me. She has grown so much just these past couple of days and I just love seeing her become better every day!!!!
She just got done being trained and is a little nervous about being without her trainer, but all is well :)
First off, I will explain my area where I am serving... Russellville area covers A LOT of miles and we mainly work in Sheffield, AL where we live and the Elders take over Russellville. There was a new church built in Russellville which is the one we meet at and it is BEAUTIFUL!!!!! It's the prettiest LDS church I have ever been to. It smells really new too. Anyway.. to give you an idea of how big our area is, we have to drive 40 minutes to get to church and so does everyone else who lives in the middle of nowhere!!!! haha The town is a little bigger than Clanton, but the people are exactly the same and I'm seriously in love with it. I never want to leave. We have a ward of about 100 active members and over 200 that are less active. There is so much work to be doing here!!!!!
My first night here, there were severe Tornado warnings and in result, there was TONS of lightning and thundering. We didn't sleep for a good three hours which was really rough. Our Zone and District leaders kept calling us to see if we were safe. SO ROUGH. WE WERE FINE. I was a little cranky that night because all I wanted to do was sleep, but I kept getting woken up from the loud thunder. #lovethesouth
Oh, guess what? We only get 200 miles on our car for this month which is a really really small amount. We are used to getting 800 a month. haha so you know what that means? Sister Platt and Sister weekes went biking in the pouring rain last night!!!! WOOT WOOT. It was honestly really really fun and we just laughed the whole time. The members are really good about giving us rides which is great! We do team ups 3 times a week which is AWESOME!!! We don't get fed at all, but I would take rides over food. OH. We have this awesome ward missionary named Becky who takes us around a lot and LOVES her missionaries!!! I am going to start a #dailydoseofbecky because she is the funniest person in the world and is super southern and I'm just obsessed with her. Yesterday, during Conference, Becky sang "Lucky" by Britney Spears to her 1 month old niece. Becky also took us to KFC because she really wanted chicken before going to our coordination meeting on Friday night. #dailydoseofbecky. (Just wait... there will be MANY MORE in my next email.)
We were contacting people in the government housing area and met this lady named Regina who has met with the missionaries before. She told us that she couldn't talk because she was really sick. Regina then proceeded to talk to us for 40 minutes about her boyfriend named Pete who she is in love with, but Pete only wants to be friends. SHE DID NOT TAKE A BREATH FOR AIR. I kept trying to slide in gospel principles as we talked with her, but yikes, she told us her whole life story!!!!!! EVERYONE talks a lot in the South. It's just so funny. I love people so much :)
Then, we started to walk back to our place for dinner, but I am the type of person who just wants to do AT LEAST one more house/person before going home. I saw this man just coming out of his house and sitting on his porch. I just yelled at him from across the street and said, "HEY! We are missionaries! Can we come pray with you?" He said we could and we did. We then started to talk to him about the restoration and he interrupted us and asked us if we worshiped on Sunday or Saturday. We told him Sunday and his face got really serious as he said, "That is when the devil worships. Go read your bible and you will know it is on saturday." I then asked if he was 7th day adventist and he said he wasn't and that he has formed his own church online. Anyway, he kept talking and talking and told us that we are going to have the mark of the beast on us and blah blah blah. I just smiled and we gave him a
Mormon.org card and told him to watch the videos on there!!! YIKES.
We also tried to contact this lady named Cassandra, but she wasn't home. Her neighbor across the street started walking over to us and told us that she wasn't home because her daughter just had a baby. ANYWAY. I asked the man if he would be interested in our message and asked him if he had 10 minutes for us to share!!!! He said yes!!! I saw that he was wearing a Braves hat and asked him if he was a big fan. I started talking to him about how they choked this past season and he was impressed that I knew what I was talking about. haha (Props to dad and mom!!!!) We started to give him the lesson and right as we got to the Joseph Smith part, a homeless man walked up to us and asked us for food and then started to swear under his breath. DAH. AND THEN the guy that we were teaching had to leave because his son was calling for him. BLAHHHH. BUT. that's okay. We will meet with him again soon!!!!!!!!!
We are currently teaching an english class to some really really adorable people from Thailand! They are refugees from there and work on farms here. We teach them english twice a week and some of them have even gotten baptized! It is so much fun and I wish I could just hold all of the cute babies/kids that run around the trailer park where they live. GAH. We taught them how to say: mother, father, children, daughter, son. We have them repeat the words to each other and then show them pictures. It's so great. They all just laugh and giggle whenever they hear themselves talking in english. :)
Okay. Now for the spiritual stuff...
We met with this adorable lady named Terra who we met at Walmart and had the first lesson with her. She told us that she felt good and at peace when we taught the lesson to her. She wants to change and become better which is awesome! She is totally married and she has a cute son named Anthony who is 9.
We also met with this lady named Colleen who has taken the discussions from Elders a LONG time ago and She found the Sisters about a month ago and has been meeting with us since. She told us how she had prayed about the Book of Mormon and had a dream that it was true. She has a lot of health problems and so it's hard for her to make it to church, BUT she told us that having us coming over has helped her feel better and that her legs have swelled down because of it. WAHOO!! YAY FOR THE HOLY GHOST. I'm so grateful for it. It is the KEY to this work!!!!
We just got back from teaching this lady named Cindy! The sisters met her at wal-mart (where all the golden investigators are located) and we gave her a lesson at Burger King. She is married, and has 2 boys. We gave her the first lesson and then at the end, we asked her, "If God was in the room right now, what would you ask him based on what we have taught you?" She then said that she would ask about Joseph Smith. We then asked her to pray about it right there and she quietly said a prayer to herself. After she was finished, tears strolled down her face. We then asked her how she felt and she said she felt at peace and that she was praying for her cousin who just went to jail. Not too sure if she prayed about Joseph Smith or not, so I just invited her to pray about him before we met with her again. ha, people are so funny. We invited her to be baptized and she said she has already been baptized. She had to leave for work, but we are going to meet with her again soon! She told us that she thinks this is the right path for her which is awesome!!!!! PEOPLE ARE BEING PREPARED LEFT AND RIGHT.
Did y'all enjoy conference? Oh my. It was SO GOOD. I loved how simple the messages were and yet, they were each so profound. I loved how they emphasized a great deal on the basic beliefs of our church and on the Savior. I loved what Russell M. Nelson said about religion. Religion literally means to tie back to God. I LOVE THAT. What will we do this week to tie ourselves closer to God? How will we make a difference in the lives around us? How will we show our faith to those who we meet? I challenge y'all to make it known to EVERYONE that you believe in a loving Heavenly Father and His Beloved son, Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 6:18-20 is a great scripture that President Hanks mentioned in transfer meeting and is one of my new favorites.
In my personal study, I was reading Mosiah 29:10. It talks about bringing peace to people and that is what I want to do. I want people to feel that undeniable peace and joy that comes from living the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I am so grateful for the chance that I have to be serving here in such a beautiful part of Alabama full of beautiful people who are trying to do what's right.
I LOVE Y'ALL SO MUCH!!!!!!
This week...
# of dead squirrels I have seen on the road: 2
# of dead possums: 4
# of dead dogs.... :( : 1 (I biked right past it.. saddest thing ever)
# of slices of apple pie I ate during conference: 1 (Love me some southern baking)
# of snakes I've held: 1 (Don't worry. I took a picture)
# of times I've smiled because I'm really really happy: 832974819743891738917 times. God is good. Y'all are grand. Keep doing what y'all are doing and God will bless each of y'all so much!! HE WANTS TO BLESS US!!!!
MYKY,
Sister Platt
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