I love farming!

Hello y'all!!!! Just warning y'all now, I don't have too much time today because we are using a members computer and they only have one!

Anyway, this past week has been pretty good, but we had some rocky points. I get so frustrated sometimes with the people we are teaching because they aren't keeping their commitments!!!

Monday: Taught Tammy and Jonathan lesson 3. They both loved it! It started to POUR during the lesson and the lights went out in Sister Edward's apartment. I LOVE THE WEATHER HERE. IT WAS SO EXCITING!!!! We had a lesson with Jalisa and talked about her baptism. She told us that she hasn't been reading as much as she should and that she wasn't ready to be baptized yet. I am so grateful that she was honest with us though! yay!

Tuesday: We did A LOT of walking this day. We met this guy named Arman who was hilarious and asked us what we were doing. We told him that we were missionaries and teaching a message that changes peoples lives. He agreed to have a lesson with us and we walked under a tree so we could have shade and started teaching him. He was half listening as he was looking for his friend who was supposed to pick him up. He told us at the end how he had been to prison and found Jesus there. Anyway, he really wasn't too interested in the message, but hey, PLANTED SEED. WAHOO. I LOVE FARMING!!!!!! We tracted into this lady and asked to say a prayer with her. She then told us that she wanted to say a prayer for us.... we told her she could and then she started to shake our hands as she said, "Jesus. Please watch over these followers of you. PLEASE WIPE YOUR BLOOD ON THEM." She then continued on with the prayer and the spirit definitely was not there at all. haha she then started to say something in a completely different language aka she spoke in tongues. yeah. It freaked us out, but she was super nice :)

As we were walking to our next appointment, Sister Drummond screamed and started pointing at this DEAD POSSUM ON THE GROUND. sooooo gross. We thought at first that it might have been playing dead, but nope. It was dead.

We had a lesson with our investigator Ashley :) We taught her The Gospel of Jesus Christ and she loved it and said all of it made sense :) Sister Swift came to the lesson as well. I love having members present at the lessons. We then went to see a less active lady named Sister Scott with Sister Swift and they talked for a good 15 minutes about this DISGUSTING food called "souce" that they are obsessed with. It's basically a pig's head soaked in vinegar and mashed up into thin slices of meat. SO GROSS. They told us that we had to try it and Sister Swift told us that she was going to buy some for us to try the next night. YIKES.

Wednesday: We had district meeting and then went on exchanges with our STL's!!!! Sister Smith went with me to West Point and oh my, miracles just always seem to happen on exchanges! We had an AWESOME day!!!! We went over to this lady Yalunka's house and knocked on her door. She didn't answer so we walked away and as we were walking down the street, we saw her driving towards her house! We waved and she totally avoided eye contact with us as she was driving!!!! Sister Smith and I looked at each other as we said, TOAST!!!! (thrive on awkward situations today). Yup. So we turned around and went straight up to her door and knocked again. She answered!!!! It was super awkward at first because we could tell that she didn't want us there. We taught her the first lesson anyway and she told us that she would call us if she had any questions about The Book of Mormon and refused to set up a time for us to come back. FARMING IS THE BEST Y'ALL. WE WILL PLANT AND PLANT AND PLANT.

We then went over to see Carl who we met the week before. Carl just recently had a stroke and has a hard time speaking. His 20 year old nephew Hakeem was there as well! We taught them the Restoration and they both loved it!! Ah. One of my favorite parts of the lesson was when we invited Carl to read the account of Joseph Smith's first vision. He read super slow which was amazing because it totally brought the spirit in!! At the end, we asked them if they each would pray about something they had learned from the lesson. Carl's question was about Joseph Smith and Hakeem's question was so precious. He asked, "How can I have more sincere prayers?" They both prayed individually in front of us and the spirit was SO STRONG!!!! Oh my goodness. The innocence in their prayer was AWESOME!!!! They said the most child-like prayer and yet, it was the most beautiful.

We got a text from Sister Edwards asking if we could come over to her place and comfort Tammy because Tammy just got fired from her job at McDonalds :( We went straight over and shared a scripture with her from when Joseph Smith was suffering in Carthage Jail. Tammy started crying as she told us about the whole situation with her getting fired and she said, "last week, I was praying and asking Heavenly Father about my job. I told Him to let me know if I should keep working there." God answers prayers in mysterious ways. I started to cry as I tried to comfort her as best I could. It's amazing to me to see how much love we can have towards people that we have only known for a couple of months.

We had an AWESOME lesson with Jalisa and read from 3 nephi. 11 with her which is one of my favorite chapters to read with investigators! When we read the part about Nephi receiving the Priesthood, Jalisa looked up at me and said, "OH! I get it now!!!!" ah so great. We then talked about when Jesus let each of the people go forth one by one and feel the prints in His hands, feet, and side :) It was a very spiritual lesson and I am so grateful for the power of the scriptures!

We contacted people the rest of the night and within only 1 hour, we contacted 18 people outside!!!! That is A LOT for West point!!! haha we talked to people sitting in their cars. We talked to workers at stores. We talked to EVERYONE we saw. So great. I love being a missionary :) haah Sister Smith said the funniest thing to a guy we were contacting in the store who was working there... We see a man stacking gatorade on a shelf. I ask him if he enjoys that job. He replies yes and then asks Sister Smith what she did to her hand (she has a cast around it). She explains and then asks him if he has ever broken anything. He explains that he has broken his wrist before. She then says, "Oh! I'm sorry to hear this. Well. You should check out this website called Mormon.org. It may not fix your broken wrist, but it can fix your broken soul." HAHAHHAAHHAHAH I LOVE SISTER SMITH. SHE IS SO AWKWARD BUT IT'S A GOOD AWKWARD!! :) We laughed about that for quite a bit. oh man.

Thursday: We had a lesson with this lady named Kim who we tracted into. She was making pancakes, he wasn't really listening and really didn't have that strong of a desire, so we planted another seed!!!! YAY! We contacted most of the day and no one was really answering. It was rough. We did have a tender mercy! As we were walking down this one street, we heard this man start whistling at us. We looked behind us and saw him motion for us to come over. We walked over and the man started to explain to us that he really really respects what we do and told us that he sees us walking around everywhere and always feels bad for us. We explained to him what we do and then he called his wife over to come meet us. Anyway, we had a really good discussion with them and they invited us over for BBQ dinner sometime this September! They told us they would call us so yay!!!! :) Southern hospitality is the BEST. I LOVE IT HERE :)

Sister Drummond and I went to a high school football game. hahaha oh boy. That was interesting. Tammy and Sister Edwards had invited us because Josh is on the football team and Brandon is in the band. We only stayed for a little bit, but oh my, it was all so hilarious to be back in high school.

Friday: This was a day of meeting lots of creepy men. We went tracting and said a prayer with a 70 year old man. We asked him if we could do anything for him and he said, "Find me a girlfriend." We then said, "Okay! we will try!" Then he said, "No. Actually. I want her." (he then pointed to Sister Drummond). ahhahahahah I was cracking up so much. Oh. Such good times y'all! We helped decorate for Jalisa's birthday party and we felt honored because her close family and friends were there and then she invited us. yup. We are considered her close friends y'all!!! :) It was such a cute party and we ate cake and took pictures! I love her so much!!!! We went over to Sister Swift's house and tried SOUCE. Yes. It was disgusting and tasted like vinegar. j

Saturday: The prairie arts festival was today!!! It's a HUGE street fair that they do once a year in West Point and people from all over come to it. It was a really rough day. We contacted people at the arts festival, but none were from West Point! We went tracting with no luck and it started to POUR down and thunder. We were drenched. Sister Drummond started running to the car and I said, "NO! One more house!" We then went to one more house and started knocking. The thunder made a HUGE cracking noise and lightning was present. We both looked at each other and started laughing hysterically because we were both drenched and had mascara running down our cheeks. haha we looked awful. We went home and changed and then went back out and tried to contact some less actives whom we had never met before! All were home, but wouldn't answer their door :( So frustrating. We then decided to say a prayer and ask for guidance. When Sister Drummond ended the prayer, I said, "I thought of a funnel cake!!!" She started to laugh as she said, "what? okay." So yes. God sometimes answers our prayers through food. So we put that prompting to the test and headed back to the festival and started to go towards the funnel cake stand. The guy who gave us the funnel cake said it was $4, but we only had 2. (we thought we had more money with us). Then, the lady next to us in line said, "here you go!" and then gave us 2 dollars! IT WAS THE SWEETEST THING. We ended up having a super good conversation with her and left her with our card. She unfortunately wasn't from west Point, but hey, PLANTED SEED AGAIN. I still felt like we needed to be there and that the lady who gave us the 2 dollars was only part of the answer to our prayer. We decided to go ask if anyone needed help cleaning up their booths because it started to rain again. So, here we are, in the pouring rain, drenched AGAIN, asking people if they needed help. We were able to help one man pick up trash, but the rest wouldn't let us help them! We then waved at this random kid as he said, "hey missionaries!!" we then said, "wait. who are you????" He then started to tell us that he was a member of our branch! WHAT? This kids name is Will coggins and he is 17 years old and members in the branch have been trying to contact him  for the longest time because he was on parole for drugs. WE FOUND HIM. We ended up pulling him aside and had a lesson with him on the Book of Mormon and invited him to come back to church!!! He told us that he wanted our help to quit smoking! MIRACLE. HEAVENLY FAITHER IS SO GRAND :)

Sunday: Sister Drummond and I spoke in church and it went REALLY well. I am getting so much better at giving talks and speaking in front of people! It is the coolest thing! I talked about member missionary work and related it to the Atonement. I talked about my experience with coming out on my mission and about dad. It was wonderful. I love being a missionary :) Jalisa didn't come to church and she won't respond back to our texts/calls. :( mah. I don't understand!!!! We are basically empty with our teaching pool and are going to do lots of finding!!!!!! YAY.

# of life-size posters of obama I have seen in peoples homes: 5

us to 14 year old boys: "hey! do y'all want a picture of Jesus?"

them: "No. We want a picture of y'all." #k #no

Sister Henderson told me that I use "y'all" very naturally and better than any missionary she has heard say it. #success

There was a drug deal that took place during one of our lessons this week. We see a car drive up to the house... stop... then look at us and drove around the neighborhood again. Finally, the car comes back around and stops and sees that we are still there. A guy gets out of the car and I excitingly asked him to join the lesson. He replies saying, "no. I'm drunk." then he proceeded to go inside the house and then back out. SO SKETCH.

Well. I love y'all so much. I love this gospel. I love being a missionary. It is so hard and frustrating sometimes, but God always will give us tender mercies and little miracles. :) I love Him so much :)

MYKY,

Sister Platt