Sweet Home Alabama: This is where I'm supposed to be

Ah. I don't even know where to start!!! I will be completely honest, it was REALLY hard for me to leave Russellville. That place will always have a special piece of my heart. The ward members there amaze me and I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to serve there!!!!

Now onto transfers.... Transfer meeting was GREAT. I love President Hanks. I look up to that man so much. President always gives us awesome training that always just makes me excited to keep moving forward and improving!! He talked a lot about doing the Savior's works AND words. He talked about the idea of glorifying our Father in Heaven as we are on this mission. (Matthew 5:16) He said a quote that I just love: "You can count the seeds in an apple, but you can't count the apples in a seed!" SO TRUE. Which brings me to some exciting news that I found out at transfers... Do y'all remember the story of Sister Downs, Clark, and I in Madison and how we found Jade and Matt at Petco and started teaching them the first few lessons and then I got transferred??? WELL, MATT GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!!! AND THEY ARE BOTH SO EXCITED ABOUT BEING SEALED IN THE TEMPLE IN ONE YEAR :))) GAH. It is seriously a miracle!!!!! I am sooooo happy!!! I have just begun to realize how I am the planter on this mission and I'm totally fine with it. Our effort as missionaries does NOT go wasted :)

AHHHHhHHHhhh!!! I AM WITH SISTER VAN KOMEN!!!!!! I LOVE HER SO MUCH AND I'M SO HAPPY TO BE HERE WITH HER. She is from Utah and has been out for a year and is such a gorgeous human being. Basically, from the side, she looks like Taylor Swift and it freaks me out everytime I look at her side profile. bahahahh We have the same mindset when it comes to working hard and just getting out the door and I love it. She is super easy going and is hilarious. We teach really well together which is great also! We are perfect together and have super good talks in between appointments. She lost her mom during her senior year of high school to cancer so we can relate A LOT. It's such a comfort and I KNOW that President was inspired when he put us together!!!!

Ohhhh West Point, Mississippi... hahhha this place is so great, I'm obsessed!!!!! I am really struggling with understanding some of the DEEP accents here. It's a whole different world here and I'm just in love with everything about it. It's a super small town, but I do think it's slightly bigger than Clanton. I have never gotten honked at so much in my life. Everyone apparently knows the missionaries here so it's super funny. We are the only missionaries serving here which is weird. There are no elders. There is this religion called "menonite" here and there are a lot of people who practice it. They are always at walmart and they won't look at us in the face. The ladies and men wear white or black hats to cover their hair and they don't cut their hair and the women have to wear dresses. It is SO INTERESTING. Can someone please search that religion for me and let me know what they believe? They won't talk to us at all.

My first official day in West Point was awesome!!! We taught a crowd of 6 men and 2 women sitting outside who may or may not have been really drunk. We didn't know it until we approached them and it was honestly super funny, but sad. There was one man who just kept talking to us about how good Job is. Another guy wanted me to look up Jeremiah 8:9 and he told me that was his favorite... I read it and afterwards, I said, "are you sure that's the one that's your favorite?" hahah it was a really random scripture and everyone just started laughing. We were so confused. We went tracting and had some super good lessons with people. People here in the South are so funny. Whenever we knock on a door, we hear a voice that says, "COME IN" um. I always just think to myself, "Are you sure you just want us to come in?" We do anyway and they don't seem surprised to see us! haha As we were walking back to our car, we saw a group of super cute little boys who yelled saying, "Hey y'all! What's yo digits? Y'all are some fine lookin' girls." The boy yelling that to us was like 5 years old. Don't know where he learned that from, but we couldn't stop laughing. He kept asking for our "digits" and we just kept walking away. He then started to yell out, "My number is.. 662-358...." OH MY. SO FUNNY. There is seriously entertainment every day here. It's the best.

We have a youth basketball night every Friday night and it is just so much fun to see the joy on the kids faces as they all play together in the small half court room full of carpet flooring. Friday morning, Sister Vankomen and I were out contacting and we saw a girl (Carmen) dribbling a basketball down the street. She was with her other friend who was a boy (Kaelon). We invited them to come play later on that night and GUESS WHAT? THEY TOTALLY SHOWED UP WITH ANOTHER FRIEND. There was about 20 kids there and they all had so much fun! There is a sweet Recent Convert named Sister Givens who bought little caesars pizza for all of them and Sister Van Komen and I shared a Mormon Message video with all of them while they ate. THEY LOVED IT. I sat down and talked with Carmen and Kaelon for a bit and asked them all about West Point and what they liked to do. It was hilarious because they were telling me ALL of the ins and outs of this place and what streets we shouldn't go down because we would be robbed if we did. haha it was grand! They thought I was so funny (I totally am not) but they thought I was because I didn't know what half of the words that they were saying meant. I asked them what the best restaurant is here and they mentioned a hole in the wall BBQ place and we are all totally going on Wednesday and we are going to teach them a lesson there!!! WOOT WOOT.

There is another Recent Convert lady in the church named Sister Edwards. SHE IS AWESOME. She loves to help us out and she basically wants us to convert everyone in her family which we are working on. We are currently teaching her nephew, Jonathan who is 9 years old. Jonathan's mom at first didn't want him to get baptized, but her heart has softened up and we are going to hopefully start teaching her as well!!!! Jonathan's brother, Brandon is already a member of the church and he is 14!!! Jonathan comes every sunday which is great! He wants to get baptized so badly. There is no other youth in the Branch so me and Sister Van Komen have a goal to get more youth in the branch so Brandon and Jonathan can have some friends!!!!

The craziest thing happened yesterday... So we have been trying to see this lady who is related to Sister Edwards as well and her name is Melisa (pronounced Melisha). She answered the door once out of the three times that we saw her and she was busy the one time that we did see her so we thought about possibly dropping her. I'm talking to one of the guys in the branch and Sister Van Komen taps me and says, "UM. IS THAT MELISA?" I glance over and see Melisa walking in with her FOUR kids AND HER HUSBAND. WHAT? It was nuts!!! Apparently her husband has never shown interest in the church until now. Crazy, right? They all sat in the back and I think they enjoyed themselves... They left after Sacrament meeting because her baby was hungry, but her husband said they would come back next week. MIRACLES HAPPEN. I also was called up to give my testimony in Sacrament meeting and I just loved it because Sister Edwards and Sister Givens just nodded their heads at everything I said and kept saying, "mmmhmmm. yes. AMEN" and then when I said Amen at the end, Sister Givens shouted, "yes. Jesus! Amen!!!!" They seriously made me feel like a million bucks. It was great. There was about 30 people at church yesterday which was good!

We found some new people to teach!!! We found a lady named Afrika (pronounced Afreekeeya) who was just sitting in a chair, waiting for her laundry to be done. We bonbarded her because she had no where else to go because she had to wait for her laundry. heheheh it was perfect. We have an appointment with her this week!!! We also met a girl who was delivering pizza and got her phone # and address to see her! She is super cute and our age and her name is Shayla!!! YAY FOR NEW PEOPLE!! We are continually trying to find and I know that people here are in desperate need for this gospel!!!!

One day, it was SUPER DUPER hot and the clouds started to get super dark. We decided to go contacting at the Kroger down the street. We talked to everyone in that store and no one really seemed too interested. We had to get at least one more contact to reach our goal. We saw a lady picking out cases of beer and Sister Van Komen and I looked at each other and said, "yup. She's the one!!!" The lady's name was Susan and she ended up talking to us about balogne and egg sandwiches for a good 20 minutes straight. We mentioned to her how we were mormon and she totally acted all nervous after that and we just left her with our card. We dashed out of that store super quick after that. Good times. Oh susan..

I have been studying a lot about Charity this past week in Preach My Gospel. SOO GOOD!!! I love the scripture in Moroni 7:48 that talks about praying for charity and being filled with HIS LOVE. I want to have the same type of love that Christ shows in 1 Nephi 19:9. He suffered everything so that we wouldn't have to. I want to let people know that I am striving to be a disciple of Jesus Christ because of the charity I am trying to develop. "By this shall men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." How do we get to that point of fully loving someone who has offended us? I think the first step is DESIRE; then we have to pray for help to do so. Now, let us all let our hearts EXPAND and show charity towards EVERYONE. See everyone with a potential of becoming like God and you will never be the same because of it. I know that is true. I have seen it so much on my mission! God has definitely given all of us the power to love everyone~!! Everything in life is in favor for us to become more like Jesus Christ. We just have to apply everything to our lives and it takes lots of practice. I'm so happy that I have this mission to work on these Christ-like attributes.

Well, that is about it for this past week!!!!! We are working hard and I'm excited to see what will happen this transfer!!!! I am so so so blessed to be a part of this work :) I AM OBSESSED WITH BEING HERE IN MISSISSIPPI. I HAVE WANTED TO SERVE HERE MY WHOLE MISSION. YAYAYYAYA :) hahha it really isn't that different from Alabama, but still. It's so much cooler to say that I have served in MS. haha

I hope y'all have a great week ahead! God is good and LOVES all of us so so so much!!! This area is perfect for me and I received an undeniable spiritual confirmation as we drove into West Point. It was a really neat experience for me. People are super nice and friendly here and I just love it.

MYKY,

Sister Platt