March 5m 2012

Hey everyone!

So today has been so crazy busy and we only have an hour left till an appointment tonight with an investigator so I've got to be kinda quick. We just ate at Crackle Barrel with our district and that was really yummy! Last week we went to a Boots store and I found a pair I think I'm going to get... they are kinda expensive so we'll see! I just know I want them as a reminder from Texas! :) I'll have to send you a picture.

It was so great to hear from you all. I'm glad everything is going well at home! Tell Dylan happy birthday in a few days.... and Alicia too! I really want to know how everyone is doing so keep me updated. :) For now though it sounds like everything is good. Dad how is work going? I pray for you! Mom, sorry work is slow... but I bet it is nice to be at home a little more right? There are 2 lots for sale in my neighborhood here and I wish you could move down here so we could do this missionary work together! :) That'd be fun!

I'm glad that lady called you all! She was very nice to us. We are going to go back and visit her because her poor son who was baptized doesn't even know who we are ( missionaries). :(

Last tuesday we had interviews with the mission president. Sister Atterton told me he was given the gift of knowing the thoughts of his missionaries in his blessing of getting set apart so I was worried about that. So I get into the interview and the first question he asks me is "So are you homesick?" haha I started crying a little bit cause I do miss you all lots! But he gave me good advice and I've been better this week. :)

This week has been good! I feel like I am starting to used to missionary work a little more, but still kinda feel like I am trying to drink out of a fire hydrant some days. haha We have some really great investigators. Erica and her son Ty are amazing. They are so receptive and they are getting baptized in 2 weeks. Erica came to church yesterday with us but Ty was with his grandma. We also had Thomas, an investigator of 8 months come to church too. I hope he gets baptized soon it's just hard because his girlfriend that is living with him is Jehovas Witness. So if you would keep him in your prayers that'd be great.

Guess what? I had to bare my testimony in church yesterday... I got called up. haha That is the 3rd sunday I've spoke in church in the last month. Something is wrong with that, don't you think? haha Atleast by time I get home I will be pro at public speaking. Oh and this lady in the ward came up to me after and said, " I would have thought you've been a Texan for a while... you were saying y'all up there." haha I didn't even realize it. :) The people in our ward down here are great! I love them already. They are so willing to help us with our missionary work and come to appointments with us. I didn't realize how important members are in missionary work. See if you guys can contact the missionaries in your area to go out with them to some appointments. It is really helpful for the investigators to have someone there that is a member and not a missionary. The members here feed us almost every night too. Last night we were at a dinner appointment with the Elmers. They are from Lehi, Utah and guess what? They adopted the ladies nephew from "Delivered by hope" the church movie. He is a cool kid. Their family is pretty big too... they have 10 kids!

Oh funny story.... so people here think that the sister missionaries are Nuns........ :/ Great! So you can now call me Nun Avery! haha

There are soo many churches here. I have never in my life heard of so many religions and see so many different churches all over. It is like Utah with churches on every corner except here there are different churches on every corner. Lots of people are Christian though so that is good. But the sad thing is that there are religions here that they go to church and have entertainment. It's a HUGE arena in Houston and the kids go to play on bouncy toys and eay cotton candy. Sad huh?

So the highlight of my week is meeting this girl named Shianne! She is 17 years old. We were out by our church one day OYMing (open your mouth)and we went up to her where she was walking and we started to talk to her. She was very nice! We got her contact info and went back to her house the next day to visit with her. She said she didn't have a church, but she did believe in God. We shared the Restoration with her and I extented the baptismal invitation. She accepted so quickly that I didn't know how to respond. (We are supposed to extend the baptismal invite the first meeting so they can know what the goal is.) We told her before we extended the invite to be baptized that she doesn't know everything now, but as we come back to visit with her she will develop her own testimony of this church. We asked her to pray and she was hesitant because she had NEVER prayed before. After we taught her how to pray we knelt in her backyard where we had been teaching her and she said the most sincere prayer! She told Heavenly father that she was sorry she had never talked to Him before and she told Him that she knew that she was lost in life, but that she was sooo grateful that she went out that day on a walk to run into us. She was crying. I'm not going to lie though... I was too. It was soo amazing to see the change in her in just 45 minutes. The spirit works instantly, it's not something that you have to wait for if you are ready! I'm praying like crazy for her. I wish we could just put our investigators in a glass box till we go visit them again cause I'm so worried about all they will hear about our church from other people or stuff they will find online. I can't imagine how God must feel.

Another big thing I learned this week is how important it is to do the small things to stay strong. Part of missionary work is bring back the "lost sheep". We try to visit a less active 3-4 times a week. This week we visited 4. And everyone of them are soo nice to us. They are all willing to let us come in and talk, but you can tell that they have lost something about them. Many of the less actives we visited have had big callings like Seminary teacher, primary president, sunday school president, elders quarm (sp?) president, and even stake mission leader. This one family in particular has 4 kids who are very into sports, and they decided to play sports on sundays rather than come to church. They still say they have testimonies, but in visiting with them you can just feel like something is missing. It's all about priorities and what's more important. I know that was hard for me to not play volleyball on sundays, but in seeing this family choose to miss just one sunday and it turning into going in-active made it reality for me that the small things are what matter.

Oh!! We got to ride our bikes almost every day this week! I love it! haha It's definetly an adventure in a skirt... :/ but It's fun! And we contact a lot more people! It's fun. I love the weather!

Oh and Mom don't worry about me. I told the mission president about how I'm feeling and he is allowing me to come take naps when needed and go to bed 30 minutes earlier. He knows how serious it is because some of his missionaries have gone home before because of it. I also am living with a nurse so that is good!

I love you all soo much! I'm grateful for your love and your support and I can't wait to hear from you next week! I wish I could write more. :)

Love,

Erianne