Family dear,
Hello! How is life? Man do I miss the cool Utah weather! it's not too hot yet, but it's starting to get worse. It's so funny because everyone we meet (that isn't a member) just tells us "just stay inside with the air conditioning and you'll be fine" unfortunately that is not something we can do. Hopefully we won't scare people when we knock on their door and they see two melting young girls on their front porch. Maybe they will have more sympathy... or maybe they will still not open the door :)
This week was incredible! I have so much to say! Me and Sister Schellhous saw so many amazing miracles!
At the beginning of the week we had our interviews with the President! He is amazing. He told me everything that I needed to hear! He's so funny. He told me that he put me and Sister Schellhous together because we both have such pure hearts. He said the only thing he was worried about with us is that we'd get translated and wouldn't be here anymore. I had a good laugh at that! He kept repeating that he felt strongly that the Lord is so happy with the work that we've been doing which is something we needed to hear. He knew that me and Sister Schellhous had been a little discouraged because we've been working SO hard and not really seeing much success. But he made me read a part in Preach My Gospel that says, "your success as a missionary is measured by you commitment..." It was something I needed to be reminded of. He was so kind and expressed so much love and confidence in us. He told me he's already seen a lot of growth in me, apparently I'm a lot more confident haha! I'm so grateful for him and all that he does for our mission. I'm lucky to get to be a missionary under his counsel.
In that same meeting the AP's did a lot of work with us on how to contact and also how to involve members. Elder Myers (AP) watched both of our practice teachings and afterwards came up to us and gave us some really kind compliments. He said we teach as if we are seasoned missionaries and he said he can tell that we're out here for the right reasons and we love the people we teach. Were were so grateful for the things he said.
Like I said a lot of our prayers were answered that day. We were so worried that we were doing something wrong or that we weren't very good missionaries even though we'd been putting all our efforts in the work and it was humbling to have those things said to us. It made us want to work harder to live up to the kind things they said about us.
One of the challenges the AP's left us with was to contact 10 people a day outside of tracting and use a list of questions they gave us which has some really great ideas! We've been doing it as best we can everyday since and we've seen many miracles! We've been able to teach the first lesson to so many people outside of our investigators because of it! I always thought it would be so scary just to walk up to people but it's incredible how easy it really is! The Lord makes us the servants he needs us to be.
One of our favorite moments this week we were out contacting and in our neighborhood there is this huge bayou and there's a trail that goes around it that's probably about a mile around and as we were walking back to our house this woman was coming from the bayou trail and coming towards us on the side walk. As soon as she saw us she stopped and turned around to go back around the bayou again! haha can you believe that. She didn't want to talk to us so much that she straight up turned around and walked around it again. Well at least we can say we helped her live the work of wisdom a little better by forcing her to walk another mile around the bayou. At least her dog was happy :) She kept looking back to make sure we weren't following her. We had a good chuckle about that.
She's missing out!
This week we've started to see some of the fruits of our labors!
First we got to teach Melissa the first lesson in more detail. I don't know if you remember me talking about her but we tracked into her a few weeks ago and she was the first person we met that was willing to let us teach her right there and then on the porch. She's fairly young and has one daughter who is probably about 6, and she also has a few foster children. She is active in her church and has great faith. We found out (long after we met her) as we were looking through our area book that her husband met with missionaries back in 2010! coincidence? I think not! definitely a miracle! He didn't progress because he struggled to understand why there is a need for a modern day prophet, and Melissa has had some of the same questions but she is really open to it all. It's amazing that she is the one the Lord is working through this time and it's a miracle that she was the one who opened the door and not her husband. They are amazing though! It seems as though they are already members of the church! We can't wait to go back and teach her more! What was cool about our visit with her that day though is that we stopped by at random to see if she was home and she mentioned how that morning she actually had picked up the pamphlet we left with her that morning! coincidence? I think not! She's awesome and y'all would love the way she decorates her house! I plan on taking pictures so you can see!
We also got to FINALLY teach Dolores! and it was great! She was really receptive to the first lesson and she wants us to come back. She's really impressed that we would leave our homes for 18 months to be here and it made me realize just how crazy I am! :) She is wonderful though. She said she loves us because we remind her of her daughters! We are so excited to go back and teach her more!
Joan is doing great as well, she wants to get baptized! So we're going to do all we can to get her ready! We're still not sure that she understands everything quite yet, even when we are pretty direct, but we'll keep working on it!
What's cool about these three investigators is that we found them all through tracting! So like I've said before, anyone who says you don't see much success with tracting Joan, Dolores, and Melissa are your proof that you can! What President Pingree told us at the beginning of them mission (that tens of thousands are ready) has been proven to be true. We've met quite a few people who we know are ready, it's just a matter of them choosing to accept the message!
We taught Jerry again on Sunday and he is so great! He knows the Book of Mormon is true and he wants to be baptized but like I mentioned before he has a few things to take care of before he will be able to so we're doing everything we can to help him. What's great about Jerry though is that we can be pretty blunt with him when we need to be and he takes it so well. He knows what he needs to do.
I don't remember if i told you about Amador already but he is a referral we received from some of the Elders who basically stopped him in the parking lot and asked for his address so he really had no idea who they were or what they were all about so when we visited him the first time he wasn't even really sure why they wanted to send us there. But he is really cool he was willing to let us come back and the first time we talked with him we saw so much potential in him. Sister Schellhous actually envisioned him getting baptized, sealed, and coming to church with is family in the few short minutes we met with him. We felt such promise with him but when we tried to visit him the next week he didn't answer the door and we knew he was home because his car was there. We tried back again a few days later and same thing he was home but he didn't open the door. We were so sad. That was one of the things that happened that made us discouraged. So we went back last week and he opened his door! We straight up (but in a loving way) asked him if he really was interested to know more of if we were just going to be a bother to him and he stopped us pretty quick and said he really was interested he's just had a rough week. So we get to go see him this week and we are really excited!
We've seen a lot of blessings and our prayers have been answered. We're starting to realize the miracles that have happened and are happening and people are finally opening up to us! I guess the trick is to not give up on them when you see that promise in them. It might take them a while to see that they need what we have to share, but many of them do see it!
This week has been really fun because me and Sister Schellhous have been trying to implement family history in our tracting and contacting and it's amazing how many people get really excited about talking with you when you bring up family history. The spirit of Elijah is strong in the world today and we seen that proven through the people we've talked to about it.
Life is great in Texas! Love you all!
The Kingdom of God or nothing!
Love, Sister Gregson
PS here are some weird things I've learned about Texas...
1. Every ones front windows are always covered, it makes it awkward to knock on doors because we can ALWAYS tell when they are staring at us through the window...
2. Men (even the very unhealthy heavy ones... in fact I would say mostly the very unhealthy heavy ones) never wear their shirts(except for the members). I can't tell you how many times we've been put through a little bit of a shock when a shirtless man opens the door... OH MY put on a shirt! haha
3. everyone, and I mean EVERYONE has dogs, which I'm fine with because i love dogs, but poor sister Schellhous hates them...
4. everyone in Texas has a second living room in their garage. They will have like full on couches and a flat screen TV, some of them a bar. And they'll all sit out and chill in their garage. So I think we should turn our garage into something cool like that when I get home. We could start a new trend in Utah.
5. THE BUGS ARE HUGE! Literally they are dinosaur bugs. We killed a nasty cockroach today. It was gross. Really gross. What's worse is that most of them fly too. Gross.
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