Sweet Home Alabama: Best Time of My Life

Hey y'all!!!! Ah. Okay. I just love being a missionary SO SO SO MUCH!!!!! I am obsessed with this area and I am just so happy every single day!

I have been thinking a lot this week about how much Heavenly Father is AWARE of us and KNOWS where to put us on our missions. Seriously, I couldn't see myself anywhere else. Hearing people talk here with their southern accents is so soothing to me and I'm so used to it now! haha we were sitting in the back of the car one day while Becky and her mom got super super "southern" as they talked back and forth and I was just obsessed with their voices! haha I really just never want to leave! God is good.

This week was pretty grand! Full of ups and downs like usual, but I honestly can only remember the GOOD most of the time.

Monday, "Singin' in the Rain": GUESS WHAT??? WE TOTALLY JOINED A METHODIST/PRESBYTERIAN/BAPTIST CHOIR!!!!! SO SO SO FUN!!!! All three churches (including 2 mormon missionaries) are going to perform one night in July for some special presentation. Not sure about the details. We met this lady (Brooke) at the river who invited us to it and she ended up living super close to us so she picked us up and took us down to the local Episcopal church where all the cute old ladies practiced. The church looked super pretty inside and reminded me of a small cathedral in europe. I sat next to this baptist lady named Jan who started asking me lots of questions about my mission. Turns out, her son is LIVING IN CARLSBAD RIGHT NOW and is teaching high school there!!! I asked her what school and she couldn't remember. Small world, eh? Everyone was super welcoming to us and they were so excited to see young people in their choir. hahhaha We sang songs that involved some clapping and one of the songs, we had to sing, "dee do dibbidy dee do" really really fast. I WAS AWFUL. I couldn't wipe the smile off of my face though. I just kept thinking to myself, "yup. I just love this place. I love the south. I wish my family could experience this with me." After we were done practicing, Brooke asked us a lot of questions about the church and said, "OH! I LOVE the Mormon Tabernacle Choir! I want to become a mormon just so I can join it!!! ...but, I don't want to move to utah. I could never do that." hahahhaha I just thought, "hm. we could help you." We ended up inviting her to our church, but she can't go because she is the choir director in her methodist church. Oh well. Now everyone there knows that we are NORMAL and believe in Jesus Christ! Woot Woot! After that, we had a lesson with Tom and started to read the scriptures with him. We had to sit outside because we didn't have a member with us. We sat on his doorstep and the cool air started to blow as we all looked up at the DARK BLACK sky. Tom looked at us with a serious look on his face and said, "Uh. Laaadddiiiesss. It is about to rain in about one minute. How far away do you live? How fast can you run?" Sure enough, it started to POUR. IT WAS NUTS. I couldn't even see in front of me as we were running home. No, it wasn't even a run, it was a sprint home. Luckily we live down the street. It was hilarious. I have never laughed so hard in my life. Sister Crandall and I looked ridiculous as our clothes were drenched and had make up running down our faces. I LOVE IT HERE.

Tuesday, "Temple Tuesday!!!": AHHHH. We got to go to the temple this day!!!!!!!! I am obsessed with that place so much. It is so grand because all of my worries/stresses were completely gone and I just had time to focus on the eternal things of life and just meditate for a little while. I was able to receive some answers to prayer and I am so glad for a loving Heavenly Father who has given us these temples to worship. I also loved how HAPPY everyone looked there. It was truly peaceful and much needed. We went to Chick Fil A afterwards so basically it was the best day ever.

Wednesday, "Tender Mercies": Remember how in my last email, I stated my concern about Amber maybe getting anti-ed? Well, SHE ISN'T!!! She has just been super busy and overwhelmed with everything going on in her life. We decided to just check up on her and went over to the gas station where she was working. She was so excited to see us and she told us that she has read the first 7 chapters of the Book of Mormon!!!! WOOT WOOT!!!!! We set an appt up to see her the next day! Sister Vandiver (the relief society president) took us on a team up and we tried to visit with the less active women in the ward. Sister Crandall and I have been trying to focus on the less actives here because there are SO MANY!!!! More than half of the ward is less active, so we have a lot of work to do! Anyway, we visited with this one lady named Sister Maddox. She never lets us into her home, so we talked with her outside. (SIDENOTE: 80% of the lessons that I teach here are outside. Porches are the best thing ever invented. Mosquitoes are NOT.) Anyway, she basically talked and talked to us about all of her problems and family drama going on and I felt so bad for her and all three of us just kept thinking, "Well. Going to church can solve most of this problems and if it doesn't solve these problems, it will AT LEAST solve your attitude!!!" So we just listened and listened and shared a scripture with her.

We visited with Samuel!!! The less active man who we found at Aldi!!! He was finally home!!!! He kept expressing his desire to come back to church and was just sobbing. He is so precious. I shared the scripture in Alma 7:11 with him and tried to relate everything he was going through back to the Atonement of Jesus Christ. A fountain of tears just started to pour out as he said, "Thank you. Leaving this church has been the worst decision I have ever made in my life. I need all of your help to get me back. Please. I stay inside all day to avoid the people that I used to be friends with. I feel so lost. I need Heavenly Father back in my life." The spirit was so strong in that humble home that he lived in. I KNOW God is aware of each of His children; no matter how far away they have strayed. Jesus Christ always beckons us to come unto Him. How beautiful is that? This truth is CRITICAL. I have learned so much from Samuel. He has brought me strength. He has taught me that you can get through ANYTHING in life as long as you rely on Heavenly Father and humbly pray for help.

Later on this day, we went on another team up with Meagan! I LOVE MEAGAN!!!! She is in her 20's and loves to take us out on team ups to meet all of her friends. She is that member in the ward that every missionary dreams of having. haha She took us to see her friend Stacey who is this super cute girl who lives by herself in a trailer in the middle of nowhere. Meagan had already given her a Book of Mormon and Stacey has even come to church once before!!!! Stacey was raised Catholic, but doesn't really go to church anymore because of work. We had a really good lesson with her on the Restoration. I have been trying to focus a lot on the spirit more in the lessons that we teach. I testified to her that I was feeling the spirit after we read the account of Joseph Smith's first vision. Stacey then replied saying, "That is so neat that you are feeling it. I feel it too." We then invited her to pray at the end. We all knelt down as Stacey prayed and asked Heavenly Father if the message was true. She was so nervous to pray aloud, but she did it and told us that she felt super happy afterwards!!!! Like I said, she is super busy with working an hour away at a construction job so she is never usually at home. I hope we will be able to see her soon :)

Thursday, "Two prayers are better than one": This day was super hectic, but full of miracles and tender mercies. I love being an instrument in the hands of the Lord. I am grateful for the trust that He has in me and I hope that His trust will continually be there as I go throughout my life. We were just about to start Weekly Planning (which is a 3 hour planning session that we do every Thursday morning to help us focus on/discuss the needs of our investigators and also set personal/companionship goals). Just as we were about to start, Bobbie Jo texts us and asks us if we could help her move. UH YES WE CAN. I DON'T THINK Y'ALL REALIZE THIS, BUT I'M OBSESSED WITH HELPING PEOPLE MOVE FURNITURE. I'm not being sarcastic, I really am. It is so much fun :)) So we spent the next 2 hours of our morning helping her move her couch, bed, dresser, and clothes to a different apartment. Aviya, Bobbie Jo's 9 year old daughter was trying to give me all of her random toys in the room that I was cleaning up. So funny. We made a "trash" pile and all of the things that she still needed went into another bag. Aviya wanted to keep everything! It was hilarious and totally reminded me of how I was when I was little. I picked up this bottle of dried up nail polish and said, "Aviya. You don't need this." She then replied saying, "Sister Platt! I do need it! What if I wanted to use it for Halloween or something?" hahahaha Little kids are my favorite.

After helping them move, we ran back to our home to quickly change and eat and then went to Amber's home for a lesson with her. She grabbed a cigarette out of her box and she said, "I promised God that this would be the last pack I would smoke. I have been reading the Book of Mormon and I don't think I should be smoking." UM. WHAT. GUYS!!! We haven't even taught her about the word of wisdom and she wants to quit smoking :))))))))) AND her "husband/ex-husband" called her and she kept interrupting him and said, "stop swearing!!!" Then, when she hung up the phone she said to us, "Oh yeah. And I'm trying to stop cussing." MIRACLES HAPPEN. We then taught her the Plan of Salvation and she loved it and said it made sense! We had to explain the 3 kingdoms of glory to her like 3 times, but she eventually understood it and told us that God helped her understand it better. YEAH HE DID.

We then went back home to do our weekly planning and I just felt like I was going to explode because planning is honestly the hardest thing for me to do because I just want to be outside talking to people, but I know that weekly planning is important. I was feeling discouraged for some reason after that and just said a little personal prayer and asked Heavenly Father to help me understand my purpose. We went to contact a less active in Sheffield whom I have never met. We knocked on the door of her home. A lady answered the door after the first knock and asked us who we were. We told her that we were missionaries and asked her if she was Sister Prattus. She told us that she didn't know who that was and that she had just moved into that home. We started to then talk to her (her name was Debra). We found out that she was part of the Holiness church which is basically like the Pentecostal church. Debra started to cry as she avoided eye contact with us and said, "I'm sorry. I can't look at either of you in the face. Y'all are just SHINING with God's light and I feel uncomfortable looking at y'all in the eyes. Your spirits are so strong. How did you know that I needed you? It's so crazy because I have been really depressed today because I just found out that I am getting kicked out of my house and I just prayed to God that people would come to me today. Then, I saw you ladies walking down the street and I could literally feel your spirit through the door and I KNEW that you were going to knock on my door before y'all even approached my house." WHOA. Crazy, right? It was definitely an "Emmaus" Experience for me. We asked her if we could say a prayer with her and she asked me to say it. I started to say the prayer and Debra started to say her own prayer vocally at the same time that I was praying. She got louder and louder as she prayed and I honestly could not focus for the life of me and stumbled through the prayer as I said, "please bless debra that she will... be good." yeah. It was literally like that and was the most awkward prayer I have ever said. Oh well. I love it here. We asked her if we could share our message with her and she declined, but she said we could stop by whenever and pray with her!!! YAY. Two prayers are better than one?

Friday, "cops": We tried to contact more less actives this day in Tuscumbia. We had zero luck as most of them had moved or wanted their records removed. It felt nice to clear up the ward roster though!! WAHOO. We went over to Tom's, but saw that their was a police car at his house. We just thought to ourselves, "Uhhhh.. what the heck could Tom even do?" The answer is: NOTHING. Tom a very righteous person. We called him and he explained to us that the people who were living with him left and stole his $750 guitar! He was SO MAD and told us that he didn't want any company. :*( Some people are just plain cruel. Anyway, we then visited a less active man named Brother Hasha. We found out that his 12 year old daughter is NOT baptized so we will hopefully be working with her soon!!!! :) He is a super nice guy and we invited him to come to church and he said he would! (He didn't show up). He explained to us that he was honestly just lazy and didn't have an excuse for not coming to church. I love it when people are honest like that. It makes things so much easier!

We also visited with this old lady named Bonnie in a nursing home who I have never met. She is less active as well, but I think it's just because of her health. She was hilarious!!! I don't know if she's all there, but she told us how to make biscuits and wants us to bring her some the next time we come over! YAY for a new biscuit recipe!!!!! :) We met 3 old ladies who were Jehovah's witnesses. We asked them what they believed in and they quickly got out their bibles and showed us a random scripture in psalms that they interpreted completely wrong about how God is actually called Jehovah, not Jesus. baha and then they gave us a bunch of pamphlets and asked us to join them at church. They were such adorable old ladies and just kept smiling at us. I just thought to myself, "well. This is how it feels to be attacked by us missionaries huh?" I got a taste of my own medicine. So fun. :)

Saturday, "Oh. I know it's true.": We contacted and found most of this day and it was super super hot outside. We went to a flea market to contact and we found a new investigator there and ended up sharing a scripture with her!!! WOOT WOOT! We are going to see her today!!! We helped the Stienke's paint their house more and we actually got to paint a TAN color on the wall!!! Yay for color!!!!! I almost fell into the bath tub a million times as I leaned over it to paint the wall. Painting is so relaxing to me. LOVE IT. Okay. Now I just want to talk about the amazing lesson that we had with Tom!!!!! Sister Crandall and I both had inspired studies that morning and both felt the prompting to just "lay the hammer" down on Tom and truly see where he was at. Sister Stevens took us to see him and we started off with showing him a mormon message that involved a man's testimony of the Book of Mormon. It was completely silent by the end of the video and we asked Tom if he knew the Book of Mormon was true. He then said, "Yes. I KNOW it's true. It goes along perfectly with my Bible!" Then, we asked him if he knew that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. He paused and then said, "YES. I know he is a prophet. I know he couldn't of written this book." We then asked him if he would be baptized and he said, "Yes. I will, but I want to finish the whole Book of Mormon before I do. That way, if my neighbor asks me why I'm getting baptized into your church, I will be able to tell him all about the Book of Mormon. I don't want to only read half of it." I told him how proud I was of him for his desires and a thought ran through my mind to ask him if he would want to "compete" with us to get the Book of Mormon read all the way through. He agreed and then said, "You know the show Jeopardy? We should create questions to ask each other about what we have been reading!!!" GENIUS TOM. GENIUS. So we told him that we would read the next two chapters if he would do it as well by the next day. He agreed!!! AHHHH! Guys, I feel like Tom is the reason I am on this mission. He is so ready and he is going to STAY in the church after he is baptized. Wanna know something crazy? There have been over 10 convert baptisms in this area and NONE of them have come back to church since they got baptized. How sad is that? So the ward is really starting to trust us because we are trying to find the elect who will STAY ACTIVE. Tom is one of them.

Sunday, "If I only had a heart": TOM CAME TO CHURCH AGAIN. wahoooooo!!!!!!! Sister Crandall beautifully sang in Sacrament meeting. A 16 year old boy gave a talk about his dad and he just cried and cried through the whole thing. It was so great. Of course, I cried. I miss my dad so much, but during that sacrament meeting, I felt his presence SO strongly. I felt like he was sitting right next to me. Tom loved church and just walked in and started to go around and talk with everyone. He wasn't attached at our hip like some investigators are when they come to church. Tom is basically a mormon, he just isn't one. hahaha :) He participated in Gospel principles and loved it!!!!! After Relief Society was over, I didn't see tom anywhere, but I wasn't even worried about getting him because I knew he was just off socializing with everyone. YAY.

We had a rough team up with Sister Stark after church because no one was home/answering their door. We did have one appointment with a lady named Donna. We knocked on her door and her mom answered the door and told us that Donna was a couple houses down, visiting the neighbors. Turns out, she was visiting with Abel and Abels son, Ricardo. Do y'all remember the story I told about Abel? He was the man who could barely speak any english and was crying for help because he wanted to quit drinking. Anyway, Abel ended up being super drunk and we taught Donna, her boyfriend, and Ricardo. Mosquitoes ATE THE LIFE OUT OF ME. I forgot to put on the "terra shield" mom!!! BUT, I put it on the rest of the week and had no bites!!! Anyway, as we were teaching, Ricardo was the only one who was answering the questions and Donna was shaking like crazy and I think has some anxiety issues or something. She and her bf ended up randomly leaving during the lesson and Ricardo stayed the whole time and was super interested!!!!! He was so excited to get the Book of Mormon and he prayed about it right in front of us :) He kept telling us thank you and said that he had no idea that we believed in the Bible and that he had heard about the Book of Mormon, but didn't know that it was another testament of Jesus Christ. :) He unfortunately is going back to N. Carolina for the army, but we will hopefully contact the missionaries there!!!!

Sunday night, we were planning on heart attacking the Vandiver family's door. We made cookies and cut out a bunch of cute hearts with good quotes on them. We got lost trying to find her house and we were just really stressed and tired. We got their home and I got out the tape and scissors and said, "Please tell me we brought the hearts with us." Um. No. We didn't. We left them at the house!!! UGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH. It was very frustrating, but we ended up laughing about it the whole drive home. Sometimes, as a missionary, you get really tired and just can't think straight anymore.

Well. This week was amazing and this gospel is amazing!!!!!! I am grateful for Jesus Christ and His atonement that enables us to become more like Him. I am grateful for a loving Heavenly Father. Yesterday, as I was reflecting on Fathers day, I thought to myself, "Heavenly Father should be thought of as well on this day." Think about how He felt when He had to watch His only Begotten Son suffer. He is such a perfect dad! He sent Him down here because He LOVES all of us so much!! How neat is that? It is such a simple thing, but when you really think about it, it's amazing!!!!!

Mom, I gave Becky the book mark and SHE LOVED IT! She wanted me to tell you "Thank you" :)

I love my family so much. Seriously, I have the best family in the world and I am reminded of it every day :)

THANKS FOR EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!

MYKY,

Sister Platt or Sister Pratt. EVERYONE seems to call me that here.