Well y'all it's been another rough week! But a great one at the same time! Also... I'm cruisin! Week 5 is here and that means this week and then next week I'll have made it to my first transfer! :O how weird!!!! But I hope y'all had a great Thanksgiving this week! I haven't heard yet but I'm guessing it's snowing in Utah? So now it's really feeling like Christmas and us as missionaries are excited for this holiday season!! :) Even though there's no snow here so it really doesn't feel like December... ha Anyway!
Monday night we had dinner with one of my favorite families in the ward!! The McKenna's! They are just great, and are actually a really crazy family but I love it! They are the ones that introduced me to the Whoopie Pies, which was a terrible thing cuz I crave them all the time and they are seriously soooo delicious! So we made them again that night while listening to Thanksgiving music... who knew there was such a thing right?! Cuz I didn't ;)
Tuesday we had district meeting in the morning. It was one of the most spiritual ones I've been to so far. As a district we've really been slacking in people to teach. We wanted to make a district goal and see if we'd be able to meet that goal that week. We put all of our companion goals together for how many investigators we wanted that week and came up with the number 16. We all had faith that with help, The Lord would be able to provide 16 people for us to teach and get as a new investigator. We all kneeled down and prayed as a district and just sat there after, letting the Spirit tell us if that was the number we should have as our goal and if we should go about that goal. We all felt very strongly about it. One Elder even mentioned that after the prayer a scripture came to mind and it was the one about the Brother of Jared who asked the Lord to light the 16 stones and He does with His finger. Ether 15:1 I believe... but we thought that was pretty cool, and ironic? Ha and so... just letting you know now that that goal did not happen this week :/ but we do know that we felt the spirit and that if we keep having faith and trying to find those people that are prepared, we will get those 16 people to come unto Christ! After district meeting I went on exchanges for my first time! :) I went with Sister Bradford and she is in the Sugar Hill ward area. It was really awesome, we stopped in on some less-actives and tracted a little bit and then for our dinner appointment, we had it with the ward relief society president and she had a whole bunch of food leftover from a funeral tat day. So she put a dinner together from all that food and wanted to deliver it to people who had surgery or was sick recently. So it was cool cuz I got to meet some really nice people in their ward! :) And then after we delivered all the dinners, she took us out to Chili's. Haha It was a good day!
Wednesday was a little different because, with exchanges usually it's supposed to be for 24 hours. But me and Sister Perrins had an appointment with the food bank set up already for that morning at 8:00am. So we had to cut it short but that's okay. As I've mentioned before we volunteer at a local food bank every Thursday but since it was Thanksgiving, it wasn't opened that Thursday. So the manager lady wanted us to come help on Wednesday morning. It was really neat, usually we are in the back stocking up the food but this time we were actually interacting with the people getting food and we were outside helping and handing them desserts and breads. Seeing the people that came to get food was a very humbling experience and some people recognized that we were missionaries for the Church and a lot of them were very friendly and nice! One lady who came though has left an impact on me. She came up to get her breads and she looked at my badge and she said, "I love how His name is so big on your badges." And I was thinking wow, yeah His name is really big cuz I hadn't thought of it that way before. so she starts going in to get her other box but turns around and says to me, "Ya know it really makes me choke up...." And she started tearing up and then left. But then when she came back out to put her stuff in her car, she comes back up to us and says, "I love what you do. I had met some missionaries before and at that time, they literally saved my life. You are beautiful people." And we didn't really have time to talk with her much cuz she was in a hurry and hurried and got in her car and left. But after that happened it just got me thinking... How awesome it is to have Jesus Christ's name right next to ours as missionaries. I take it for granted sometimes but it is really an awesome experience to literally be representatives of Christ. And it gave me a feel of how He was with people and how much love He has for each of us. I've really come to grasp how important this time is for me, to not only help Christ with His work but how Christ is helping me and strengthening me through this whole process. :) So anyway, after we did some tracting and talked with a couple of people that we are going to contact later this week who we hope will let us come by and teach them! So that's exciting! And then that night we had dinner with a member, a pre-thanksgiving dinner so technically I had it twice this year. ;) haha and then did another member stop in to practice teaching on them!
Thursday was Thanksgiving!! :) We were trying to figure out what to do before our Thanksgiving lunch/dinner at 1pm so we decided to go briefly take over some leftover pie and cupcakes that we had and make a little card and take it to a lady who lives alone and has cancer. She isn't in the ward but has been investigating and wants to get baptized but has been too sick to get to it :/ But she is going through a rough time and so we briefly took her those things and she lit up! We felt good afterward :) Then we had our Thanksgiving over at the Olson's with their whole family and it was wonderful! The food was all delicious! Then we had a message with them and each shared something that we're grateful for and even sang some Christmas songs! Haha So we had some other appointments later that night but we really didn't want to go tracting door to door cuz it isn't really effective and people got mad for coming on Thanksgiving Ha so we got creative and went to Suwanee's Town Square to see if anyone was out and about. People can't get mad at us for coming up to talk to them cuz they are already outside of their home not doing anything.... ;) It was actually really cold that day so we drove there and stayed in our car until we saw someone outside walking around. Basically we called this "ambushing people" haha cuz we would get out of our warm car and sprint to people we would see but try to look normal. Missionaries are awkward angels :) and it was actually very effective! We talked to lots of people, gave out a Book of Mormon, and gave out pass along cards!! After that we went to our other appointments and practiced teaching on some members and visited and had desserts!
Friday was kinda basic. We just tracted and tried to follow up on some former investigators but that didn't really work. We talked with that one girl I talked about last week who was crying in front of us but basically she did a lot of research and read the chapter in the BOM but then was comparing it to her baptist church and felt like she knew where she stood but said we could come by if we were in the neighborhood to talk to her more but it wasn't really an invite to teach her the lessons. :P she was super nice and we had hope but maybe some day she'll realize that she is prepared to go on this path. But what can you do? People have their agency and so you just keep on keepin on :)
Saturday we tracted some more and tried to visit formers. The other thing now that we're doing as missionaries is trying to give out the pass along cards for the "He Is The Gift" initiative that the church is doing. If you don't know about this, go look up christmas.mormon.org and check out the video and research a little about it :) It is sooooo wonderful and we're hoping for some very positive results from this! So we need to pass out a certain of number of cards a day and people are actually pretty receptive to it and open to it and it's been a good success so far! But Saturday was basic, nothing too exciting.
Yesterday I had correlation with our ward mission leader and P.E.C. and church. Then we tracted and again, tried to contact some former investigators. We're hoping that we can find someone who might be prepared now, because they weren't in the past. That's the beauty about formers is that sometime they could change and we can follow up with them to see if they want to finally be taught again! :) But then we did practice lessons on some members again. So our numbers weren't very high this week cuz we didn't meet with our investigators cuz they were out of town for the holiday :( but we definitely talked to a lot of people this week and tracted a bunch!!
This week is the beginning of December! :) I hope y'all make this Christmas one to remember. Remember what the true meaning is and check out that "He Is The Gift" video and share it share it share it!!!! It is so incredible, I cry every time I see it. Haha But I hope everyone has a great week and let the Christmas season begin! :) I love you all!
Love, Sister Davenport
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