Sick week, not in a good way

This week was WAY slow. Sister Andrus was sick and that slowed down the work. What happened was she would rest for a bit then we would go work, but it wasn't working. We called the STLs to see what their thoughts were because we were supposed to go on exchanges with them, they told us to take at least one day off. We ended up needing two off, but Sister Andrus is feeling much better. The bad thing is that my throat started hurting and my nose has been a little stuffy. Hahaha. I'm hoping to pump myself with good stuff today and getting to bed as soon as possible (after planning of course) and then hopefully I won't get sick. We plan on working hard this next week because of how slow it's been. 

We do have a cool story though. Wednesday night we had dinner with this lady, Sister Vann, whose son is the guy that introduced us to Dayjah, and she invited Dayjah over to have dinner and a lesson. It was soooooo good! We got to connect with Dayjah on a real level and get to know her and she got to know us and who we are. It was so awesome to do that. I've always loved Dayjah, but it was just so much better to just sit and talk. Then we had a lesson. We were planning on teaching her the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but Sister Vann said she had the Restoration video and we felt that Dayjah needed it. It's been a while since we've been able to teach her so we thought it would be good to recap. We also got to show her how to navigate on mormon.org and watched the Alex Boye video. When we watched the Restoration video she was so calm. She said that it answered a lot of her questions. She just nodded and told us, "I just want to learn. I just want to know what I can know and get really involved." BAH! So awesome. She was afraid of transfers because she really likes us, but I forgot to tell y'all that we're both staying, so all is well. 

Honestly, that was the highlight of the week for us. On Saturday Sister Andrus was feeling better so we worked really hard that day. We had a really great tracting experience as well. We met this lady and we talked to her for a good, solid 30 minutes, which some can be longer, but there was just a good feeling--the Spirit--- while we were talking to her. I love getting to know people here. Contacts are incredibly meaningful when we just learn more about the person and their life and concerns, etc. The gospel can apply to everyone's life, we just have to find it. 

Oh fun fact, we had Elder Richard G. Scott in our sacrament meeting. Other not-so-fun fact, he didn't speak. His brother is in our ward and his wife died, so Elder Scott came for the funeral and was there. Because he didn't say anything to the congregation I'm so curious to know his overall impression of the ward and its needs. I'm sure he'll tell his brother. But that was cool to see him. I love the chance to see the apostles because they really are just normal human beings, they are just special witnesses of Jesus Christ and they carry His work forward. So cool. 

I don't really know what else to write about this week. I know that sounds terrible, but we were in for two days and basically resting on the other days because of Sister Andrus. Oh, since she was sleeping I had the chance to do an awesome yoga session with myself and that was great. It reminded me of how the Holy Ghost speaks to me. Definitely through the mind-body-spirit connection and for me I obtain that when I do yoga. It also increased my desire to be a yoga instructor when I get back, but that's for another time. But yeah, it's cool because each person is different and communicates differently and God speaks to us in our own unique ways. He cares about us and he knows how we can hear Him. I love how different each person is, and I'm sure God loves watching His children and seeing their individuality flourish. 

Well, Have a blessed day

love y'all

Sister Smith

January 6 2014 Happy New Year Still in Roswell

To start off, this week was a hard week. I can honestly say that I hope it means that something wonderful will come. I will start off with the hard stuff and end with the blessings. Best to end on a good note right?

So we were having a normal tracting experience and then we knocked on this one lady's door. She seemed genuinely nice and just said, "I'm just not interested and really don't want to talk about religion." And she said it nicely. And Sister Andrus began saying, "Okay we're just here to share a message about Jesus Christ. Have a blessed day." She didn't get through it because the woman's husband came around the corner. He was tall, skinny, had yellowing teeth and weathered skin. Something looked shifty in his eyes, and I promise this is not all in hindsight. I remember standing there and as soon as I looked at him I knew something was off. Well he said, before Sister Andrus could finish, "She said she doesn't want to talk!" He came closer to the door opening, "Don't be rude!"  (Which he said very rudely). And we started to back up and say "Okay have a blessed day." And he came out of the door and stood right in front of us while saying "You are a cult! I dont' want anything to do with your cult religion!"... He said a few choice words. All I could think was "This man is actually mad at us for no reason." It was so strange. FINALLY, we got away. Well, he wasn't finished. As we were walking across the street up the next driveway he opened his door again and just yelled at us. It echoed and he sounded so angry. In the moment we kept our cool, were really polite and just kept going. But once it sunk in, I was a little put off.

Then later on this week we had more experiences with people being surprisingly unpleasant to us. I don't want to go into detail, but I will say it's the most opposition I've experienced in a whole week and it all piled up. I cannot imagine what Christ went through with all the persecution he experienced. Definitely appreciate all that He did. It was hard for me and we didn't get half as much as He did when He was on earth. I can only imagine. 

Anyway. After that first awful experience we knocked on this old lady's door and she said, "I'm a by-the-Bible Baptist." And I have no idea why I asked her this, but I replied but saying, "That's great. Can we sing you a song?"   !.... Um. Random. So she said yes and let us in her home and we sang her "I Believe in Christ." She closed her eyes while we were singing and I'm pretty sure she liked it because she asked us if we would sing "Amazing Grace." Of course! But, for some odd reason it's not in our hymn book so we went to her music room and she got it for us. We sang for her and then we talked. Turns out, when she was younger, she was in a traveling quartet and they would go around and sing in all sorts of churches and stuff. She loves music. And she had a ukulele which I got to play. I seriously seriously miss my ukulele! I can't wait to play it when I get back. But this experience just showed how much God knows His children and what they need. She's a lonely little old lady and her husband died only about a year ago. I'm sure she needed company.  We're always at these three different nursing homes to visit some ladies in the ward that can't come. It's so adorable and great.  Anyway, I love serving them because they're so sweet and they're always so complimentary. 

We finally had a lesson with our Persian. It was good. But we need to start from ground zero. Needless to say, I will gain a deep understand of God and His characteristics because His understanding of God is so different from ours. So it's going to be a great experience. I dont' really know what else to say this week... It was good, but it was hard so it's not too fun to reflect on. I'm seriously hope it means we'll meet someone wonderful and prepared soon. 

Love y'all 

Jocelyn

Dec 30th 2013

It was a wonderful Christmas week. It began with our zone pday which was awesome! This really rich family, the Bothwell's, have a huge house and they invited all of us missionaries into their home for a Christmas zone pday! They have a pool table, an air hockey table and a fuse ball table, so they had all these tournaments set up and a taco bar. It was so much fun and so nice of them! Me and one of the Spanish Sisters, Hermana Garcia Valle, were teamed up for pool and we were actually the best sisters. So I have a new found talent hahah. 

Christmas Eve was awesome! We had the usual district meeting and lunch and we went to a Methodist church's family Christmas service which was awesome. And we went and visited Sister Ashworth and spoke with her for a while. Her son really likes us, and he respects us, which is good because he's completely less active and needs more direction in his life. 

Then we had dinner at the McArthur's which was craziness but so much fun! And after that we walked next door to the Quispe's, who LOVE the elders, and we met up with the elders so our district could all go caroling. I wish we had gone caroling more often! People were WAY more receptive to us and it definitely brightened their nights. One person said, "I've never actually seen Christmas carolers!" Funny. So that was awesome. Oh and I opened my Christmas pjs and those were awesome. 

Then was Christmas. The highlight was being able to skype the family. Loved it. It was so awesome to have Briggs and Whitney and Erica along with all the nieces singing! That was definitely one of my favorite things. Thank you Aunt Mary! 

We visited the old folk's home on Christmas and gave them all beanies that this lady gave to us. It was really sweet. 

The next day was crazy. We went to this community center to see if there was service we could do, but they are closed until January 2. So we'll be back there this week. And then we went to a different, much nicer, nursing home to visit this lady in the ward. It was so sad. I'm pretty sure she has Parkinson's disease which was sad to see and she does not like being in the nursing home. The sweet thing is that she loves birds, she has all of these beautiful glass bird figurines and two bird feeders outside of her window. I hope we brighten her day some. She can't talk too much, it's a struggle. But we sang for her and she smiled a little. 

We tracted for days. Oh and I contacted in Spanish three different times. It was a struggle, that's all I have to say. And probably really embarrassing... Oh well, at least I tried. We finished the night with our english class for the Persians. Shahrad's English is slow going, but we told him to label all of the appliances in the house. We're finally having a lesson with his family this week! Wish us luck.

On Friday we met this wonderful lady. She fell asleep reading her bible and we knocked on her door. She didn't answer, she just called through the door and asked who it was, and we said "We're missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ..." She swung the door open and said, "Come in, come in!" She's this TINY little black lady from Liberia who looked so cute and open. We talked to her for a bit, getting to know her. She asked if we fasted and prayed in our church and answered  and she asked us other questions etc. Well we set up an appointment with her again on Saturday because one of the recent converts in the ward is also from Liberia so we'd thought we'd come back with her. 

So we went back to Tus's house (that's her name) with Annie, the lady in our ward and it went so well! Annie's testimony was so unbelievable sincere and heartfelt. Her conversion story is cool. The only issue is that Tus is getting baptized in another church on January 14th... We told her to read the Book of the Mormon. I have faith that if she keeps her commitments then she will indeed feel the Holy Ghost testify of truth. 

That's all that was really wonderful this. 

Love y'all

Jocelyn