Texans Love Their Trucks

Howdy,

 

How's it going?

Mom about school I though I'd see Pres. Pingree last week but I'm actually going to see him tomorrow I hope it's not too late.

I'm thinking that the Lord wants me to start school come september but I just want to talk to President about it first.

 

Boy do I wish I could have been with you to hike angels landing! I miss the mountains soooooooooo much! I want to go on a hike so badly!

I'm also really sad I missed the Olympics I love those things!

 

But I can't complain because I get to do something even better!

 

This week has been good. It all sort of blurred together though!

 

We did a lot of tracting but still we haven't found any new investigators. Sometimes it's really frustrating. We've really been brainstorming and praying that we can find a way to reach these people. I know there is something we can do to find people here and I may not know how yet but luckily the Lord does so we'll just keep working and praying hard that we'll figure it out.

 

We met with Kaylee twice this week and she is doing so well! She has such a strong testimony. We talked to her a little more about baptism and she said that her mother still doesn't think that she is ready. We pray everyday that her mothers heart will soften. The best part of the week was Sunday when Kaylee walked through the church doors! I love that girl so much and she has such a bright future. She already recognizes the changes that this gospel has made in her life.

 

We also got to meet with Velma this week! It has been forever since we've seen her so we were really excited. She is doing well. She had't been reading her scriptures though so we read them with her. Her heart has definitely softened since the last time we saw her. She asks us so many great questions that really get me thinking. I have to do so much research about the gospel to be able to help her and Dorisette too. I love our investigators because they might be progressing slowly but I know that they are sincere and I know that one day when they do make the decision to be baptized they won't stray away afterwards because they have put every effort into finding out the truth and they want to be certain about their decision.

 

Rosa is doing well. Unfortunately she'll be out of town for the next two weeks so I won't have anything to report on her for a while. We got to talk to her on the phone for a good while before she left though and she is just so wonderful. I love these people so much. I feel like they are my family.

 

We had a great miracle this week with one of our less actives named Victor. For the past 8 weeks we've been trying to catch Victor home and had no luck. None of the Sisters have been able to meet him so we had no idea if he was friendly towards the church or not. Well on Saturday we decided to try by again and he was outside washing his truck! You can always count on being able to catch texans outside their homes at some point because they all have to wash and wax thier trucks.

Anyways so we started talking to him about the church. To sum it up he said that he knows the church is true he's just gotten into the comfortable habit of not going. At one point in our conversation he stopped mid sentence and said "you know what, I'm coming to church tomorrow." He told us later that we had caught him home on the one saturday a month that he gets work off. He works 65 hours a week and never has saturdays off. It was one of those situations that I see all the time on my mission where the Lord lines things up so perfectly so that we can help someone.

 

We also got to meet with Lawanda this morning and she is doing great! We had her read the Intro to the Book of Mormon and she had a lot of questions about it. We were able to share testimony of the Book of Mormon with her and I felt the spirit so strongly again as I told her what this book has come to mean to me. She also asks us a lot of great questions. Like I said the investigators here have really gotten me to study the Book of Mormon, Bible, and just about everything else we know about the church like no other. Apparantly the Lord really wants me to know my stuff. I'm not sure if it's for their benefit or for mine.

 

Grandpa will be happy to know that Dennis Adams contacted me this week and he and his wife are going to take me and Sister Cecil out to dinner next week!

 

Love you all!

 

The Kingdom of God or Nothing!

 

Love, Sister Gregson

Tracting, tracting and more tracting

2/17/14

 

Hola familia!

 

How's it going?

 

This week was kind of crazy I can hardly remember what happened.

First off Sister Cecil was having stomach issues so we spent some down time at our apartment which was not fun but necessary. I felt to antsy I just wanted to go out and tract the apartment complex with our apartment door open so we could kind of sort of be within 'sight and sound' but I refrained. We went to see the mission doctor today and he gave her some meds so hopefully things will get better.

 

We were able to meet quite a few Less-actives this week who haven't answered the door to the church in years. Unfortunately most of them weren't very kind to us. We would ask if there was a time we could come by and visit with them and one guy even said "nope, never."

It's hard to understand what would make these individuals come to dispise and even hate the church so much. Those are harsh words to use but that is how they have come to feel. When we mention we're from the church instantly they turn into really mean people. It's so weird. I just wish so badly I could help them see the truth again. Hopefully someday their hearts will soften.

 

We were able to see Kimber again this week. We taught her the plan of salvation and it was a good refresher for her. She still has no desire at all whatsoever to come back to church but she loves us and she always lets us come visit her.

 

We also were able to have a lesson with Rosa again this week. This time we were able to have Sister Howard there. I haven't told you about the Howard family yet but they are so great! They remind me of the Thayers and the Weavers. They are like my long lost family that I found in Texas. Sister Howard is incredible. She is the sweetest woman I've ever met and she has a wonderful testimony. She was Catholic and joined the church in her young adult years and she was able to share her conversion story with Rosa. The spirit was so strong.

I think it was so good for Rosa to get to know Sister Howard. They hit it off really well. Having a member at a lesson is always so powerful. One of the things that impresses Rosa the most is how we pray so at the end of the lesson we taught her how we pray and challenged her to pray everyday in that manner. She agreed to it so I'm excited to talk to her this week and see how it went.

 

We weren't able to meet with Velma or Dorisette this week so hopefully next week I'll have some updates on them for you.

Kaylee is doing wonderfully as usual. Usually we meet with her every Thursday but last time we saw her she said "I think you guys should come on Tuesdays and Thursdays" So that's what we're going to do. She is just so hungry for the gospel and the spirit she feels when she is with us. We're still hoping and praying everyday that her mothers heart will be softened and she will allow Kaylee to be baptized.

 

This week I had to speak in church which was terrifying! You want me to go talk to a stanger about the gospel? great. fine. I can do that easy. You want me to speak in church? Well then I just about have a heart attack!

It went well though and I'm just relieved it was over.

I spoke on personal conversion and sharing the gospel. The idea is that the more converted we are to the gospel the greater our desire and willingness to share the gospel. Anyways it went well and I'm glad I won't have to do it again for a while.

 

Other than that things have been a bit slow which I hate admitting. We're still tracting a lot but having no luck. It gets pretty frustrating at times. Tomball is a really wealthy area and people are pretty well off. People are already content with what they have so they aren't interested in what we have to share. We've been thinking long and hard about how we can spark some interest in these people and it's proven to be a challenge. But I know as we continue to work and ask Heavenly Father how to do His work here he will tell us. We just have to be patient, obedient, and worthy.

 

I hope all is well at home! Thanks for your prayers!

 

The Kingdom of God or Nothing!

 

Love, Sister Gregson

Let It Snow

2/10/14

 

Hola familia!

 

How are y'all doing?

 

You'll never guess what happened this week! IT SNOWED!! Of course it all melted by mid morning but still! It made me sooo happy! When I woke up I took a peek out the window and could see all this white stuff on the roof tops and it was snow!!

It was awesome!

 

Things have been crazy! I''ve been going on exchanges at least once a week if not twice. Sometimes it gets really stressful but it's such a priviledge to be able to work with these amazing sister missionaries! They teach me so much!

This week I went on exchanges to Fairfield and they are on bike and it was a blast! I would love to be in a bike area because you're free to talk to everyone you pass! It's the best!

I saw a great miracle while I was on exchanges this week. So back in March/ April of 2013 when I was still in White Oak, you probably won't remember this, but we were working with the Westbrook family. The mother was less active and the husband not a member. Her daughter was 8 about to turn 9 and we had talked to her mom about teaching her daughter the discussions and getting her baptized. They even ended up coming to church that week.

Then we weren't able to meet with them much after that. They were planning on moving and they got really busy so we didn't see much progress with them. Then the shock of my life... I got transferred. It has almost been a year since I last saw them.

Well on exchanges we went to this families house for dinner and as soon as I saw the mother I knew it was Sister Westbrook. They had moved into the Fairfield ward! It gets even better! She has been fully reactivated and has gone through the temple for the first time. The sisters taught her daughter the discussions and she got baptized! Sister Westbrook told me evenything that's happened since I saw her and there have been so many miracles. Now there is no way you could pull her away from the church. She loves it more than anything. It made me want to cry to see how far that family has come. It was a tender mercy from the Lord to be able to see them again. The neat thing too is that we weren't going to even be seeing them that day but our dinner cancelled on us and sister westbrook offered to feed us. It was meant to be.

 

We were able to see Dorisette this week! She's doing great! We had such a wonderful discussion with her about how the key to knowing if this church is true is the Book Of Mormon. She has such a great sincere desire to know if it's true. She wants to be sure that she is in the church that will put her on the straightest path back to God. She wants to be with him again so badly. She bore her testimony of her love for God and it brought tears to my eyes. I love this woman so much and I have learned a lot from her. She reads the Book of Mormon and prays about it so faithfully. I hope and pray that she will receive and answer and that she will be able to recognize it.

 

Kaylee was not able to come to church this week which was a bummer but she is doing so well! Like I told you last time we've been teaching her the standards in the "For Strength of Youth." We talked about "Media and Entertainment" and she shared a wonderful experience with us. Recently her cousin took her out to a movie and it turned out that the movie was pretty bad. She told her cousin that if she wants to take her to movies they need to go see a good clean one or she won't be going with her anymore. She stood up for what she's come to believe in! I was so proud of her. She was willing to tell her cousin her standards and stand in a holy place. There are members out there who don't even do that much. She is such a wonderful example to me.

 

Rosa is doing great! We haven't seen Velma in a while but we're going to see her tomorrow.

 

We had another miracle this Sunday.

But to preface it I have to tell you about Friday night. We had put together this activity that was to be held at our ward mission leaders house. It was supposed to be a non-threatening gathering that members could bring their friends to. The ward mission leaders wife made scones and we were going to watch the new Bible videos on lds.org. They sent out announcements for it far in advance and we brought it up in ward counsel a couple weeks ago with the expectation that all members of the ward counsel would come. We invited our investigators and less-actives and the one and only recent convert in our ward.

Well the only people that came was us, the Bishop, and the recent convert. That was it. It was so dissapointing. No members came. The recent convert was asking why no one came and it was hard to know how to answer his question.

Luckily Sister Williams makes the best scones in the world.

Well in ward counsel the Bishop and Ward mission leader sort of called the ward counsel to repentance in a very powerful and loving way. Bishop talked about how it's our (the missionaries) job to teach and their (the ward members) responsability to find. He told them that as a ward they should be filling up our planner with appointments. Brother Williams told the ward counsel the statistics of converts who are brought into the church through members as opposed to being found by the missionaries and when brought through a member the percentage is much higher. Tears filled the bishops eyes as he pled with the ward cousel to rise up and fulfill their duty as members of the church and members of the ward cousel. It was very powerful.

It has been amazing to see the change in perspective of missionary work that this ward has had. When I first got here I felt like we were in this work alone without the support of our ward. Now I have felt a complete shift. The Lord has worked miracles in this ward like I never seen. Good things are coming! I can feel it.

 

I love being a missionary so much. It is the greatest thing. It makes me sad when I think that I'll soon hit my year mark. If I could I would totally be happy just being a full-time missionary with a badge forever. It has gone by all too fast. I feel so blessed to have this opportunity. Texas has become my home away from home and part of my heart will always be here.

 

I love you all so much! Thank you again for your prayers. I couldn't do this without you!

 

The Kingdom of God or Nothing!

 

Love Sister Gregson

 

 

I LOVE the Temple!

2/3/14

How are y'all?

How is life?

 

Things here are great! We have seen many wonderful miracles this past week!

It started out so wonderfully because we were able to go to the temple again! It feels like forever since I've been there and it felt to good to walk through those temple doors again! I felt the spirit so strongly as I sat through the endowment session. I came to a greater realization of just how much this gospel really means to me. I would not betray for anything. I wish to devout my life to this gospel and to the Lord all the days of my life.

 

Life has been great in Texas!

This week we got a new investigator named Ethan. He is 21 and we received him as a referral from the MTC. Turns out he was visiting his brother in Washington not too long ago and he ran into some missionaries there. We met with him for the first time on Saturday and he is amazing! He has been through a lot. He was adopted and has had struggled with drugs and all kinds of things. The amazing thing though is that he is a very spiritual person. He is drug free now and he really just trying to find God and religion. He understands so well that because of God no matter what we've done we can pick up and press forward. We were able to share a little more about the Book of Mormon with him and had a really good discussion about God. We're planning on meeting with him again this coming Saturday! I can see so much potential in him and I'm really excited to be able to share this gospel with him.

 

We were able to meet with Rosa again this week and she is so wonderful. She has so many great questions. She is really just trying to find out what she believes right now. She has been very inspired by the love and devotion we have for our church and by the fact that we know the scriptures so well. She has the same desire for herself. She's trying to figure out why she's Catholic. -if it's because she was raised that way or because she actually believes what is being taught. That is the question she's been asking herself lately. She has been so amazed how well the Book of Mormon correlates to the Bible and she is always asking us "so what would the catholic church think about Joseph Smith (or the Book of Mormon, apostasy, or priesthood etc.). When she asks us those questions we answer her honestly. I have worked with quite a few Catholics since being out and I know a lot more about what they believe and how they view what we believe so we are honest with her about that and continue to encourage and invite her to find out for herself. It has been a really great learning experience for me and I just love Rosa so much. I know that one day she will be baptized when the time is right for her! I just hope is sooner rather than later of course :)

 

Kaylee is doing really well! I think I told you but she hasn't been coming to church lately because her mother wants her home before 2 and church gets out at 4. We've been praying and fasting that Her mother's heart will soften and that she will let Kaylee come to church and guess what?! Today she came! It was SO good to have her there. The lesson with her this week went great! We've been teaching her the standards in For Strength of Youth and she really is improving on her ability to understand this gospel and why it's important! It's great!

 

Unfortunately we haven't heard from Dorisette this week. I'm a little worried about that but hopefully I'll have some good news to report on her next week.

 

We weren't able to meet with Velma due to more "ice days" but we're meeting with her tomorrow.

 

So here in Texas it's been really cold as you know. We've had a lot of freezing rain which is really unpleasant not to mention both mine and sister Cecil's umbrellas broke this past week due to ridiculously strong wind... Don't worry mom I'm buying a new one today...

Anyways so our ward starts at 1 and yesterday morning we had a lot of visits scheduled with Less-active, former investigators, and potential investigators and by 10:30 all had cancelled or weren't home. So that left us there with nothing but freezing rain and an empty planner with every backup plan used. Well we knew what we had to do. The Lord needed us to tract until church time and so we did. Let me tell you it was cold, wet, windy, and completely miserable BUT I'll also tell you that I never felt happier than while I was out there sacrificing my own comforts for the Lords work. No one wanted to talk to us and we even had some angry Texans, unkind words, and doors slammed in our faces but as weird as it sounds it felt so good! I couldn't think of anything I would rather be doing than out serving the Lord and trying my best to share His wonderful gospel with the people of Tomball Texas. I kept thinking about something that Joseph Smith said once. At one point he was in jail and many of the saints thought he wouldn't come back alive. In a letter he wrote to them he said "we rejoice and  count ourselves lucky to be persecuted for Christ's sake." I have felt that many times on my mission when people aren't very civil to us. At first it made me want to get in the fetal position and cry my eyes out but now I think about what Joseph said. I feel so lucky and privileged to be able to be persecuted and reviled for Christ's sake. I feel so fortunate to be able to wear His name over my heart and have the chance to act as a representative of Him.

 

MISSIONS ARE THE BEST!

 

Anyways I hope that you are all having a great week! I love you so much and I am so grateful for you prayers!

 

The Kingdom of God or Nothing!

 

Love, Sister Gregson

It's Cold in Texas

1/27/14

 

Dearest family,

 

How are y'all?

How's the freezing weather!

Well this week I experienced my first "ice day." In the early morning we got a text from President saying that we should not travel unless absolutely necessary. School was cancelled, places shut down. By mid day all the ice was melted and everything was back to normal. I had to laugh because I remember growing up I would just pray and pray for a snow day and even if the snow was up to our thighs we'd still go to school. And here in Texas of all places I finally got my snow day and it didn't even snow... BUT the lesson learned is that the Lord really does answer all our prayers. He just may not do it in the time or way we desire.

Mom to answer your questions I'm still not sure what to do about school.... does anybody have any advice? Could you find out exactly what day school starts for me and let me know?

Also being Sister Training leader is stressful but great! We have an exchange every week so things get pretty crazy but I love it because I love being able to get to know these other sisters and I love being able to learn from them. I love being able to help them, counsel them, and encourage them. They are all wonderful!

There is only one Sister Training Leader per zone in our mission.

 

I have some wonderful things to report today!!

 

So this weeks stared out really tough I'm not going to lie. We always seem to have to resort to tracting and we try so hard but no one that we tract into has wanted us to come back.

Well like I've said many times before the great thing about missions, and life really, is that after the storm the sun always comes out again. It always seems like when things are getting hard or slow it's because he Lord is preparing you and making sure you're ready for the flow of miracles that come.

 

Well to begin we had interviews with President this week. He is so wonderful. I told him about the struggles we are dealing with and he gave me such wonderful counsel. One of the many things he shared with me was that Sister Cecil and I should read chapter 9 of PMG and listen to the promptings of the spirit to know how the Lord wants us to find and strengthen this area. So this week we did just that! And I got a lot of impressions. One was to talk to the ward counsel about doing a monthly activity at the church that is low key that members feel comfortable bringing their friends to. The other was to do a ward fast together for the missionary work. The other was to see if we could publish an article in the community newspaper about the church and our contact info. And the last one was to find some way to do service that gets us involved in the community. So that's what we've been working on this week as well as continuing to give that hastening the work challenge to our ward members!

 

I wanted to share something really neat that I've noticed since sharing this challenge with the ward members. On our list of goals that members can choose from there are probably about 25 options to choose from. The easier ones have to do with prayer like "pray for a missionary experience" or "pray for the missionaries and their investigators by name." some are a little more challenging like "invite a friend to church" or "give a friend a Book of Mormon with my testimony in it" etc. Well here's whats amazing! From what I've seen so far usually the parents choose something easy like the "prayer" goals and what's incredible to me is that every youth we've given the challenge too have picked the hard ones. They are the ones unafraid to invite their friends to church and invite them to take the discussions! It is amazing to me to see the great faith of these youth! Truly that Lord has prepared these young souls to come forth at this time. They are better prepared and more willing to share the gospel with their friends more than any other generation. We can learn so much from them! Last night a 6 year old choose to invite a friend to church and an 8 year old decided to write his testimony in a Book of Mormon and give it to his friend! It's so incredible!! If they can do it so can we! Actually what I think is if they can do it so SHOULD we.

 

Miracles are happening!! This past Sunday I literally felt a shift in the attitude of the ward. They are beginning to trust us and support us! When we brought up our ideas in Ward Counsel they were really excited to help us execute our plans! This was a HUGE miracle!

Not only that but we're beginning to see miracles with the members accomplishing their goals that we give them! We even had a member come up to us on Sunday and tell us he was able to invite his friend to take the discussions! The members are being blessed for keeping their commitments and it is getting them more excited about missionary work!

This was more proof to me that I am not doing this work alone! The Lord's hand is in this. Sister Cecil and I could not have changed these things around on our own. The Lord is the one who has done it.

 

We saw many other great miracles this week! One was Kimber. She is a less active who was actually a DNC (meaning "do not contact") as of last year. Usually when someone is marked as DNC it is because when missionaries have gone by the person tells them not to ever come back and usually there are more colorful words used than that. :)

Anyways even though at that time the less active may not want to have anything to do with the church I've learned that just because it says DNC next to their name it doesn't mean that that cannot change. I've seen the Lord soften these people hearts and that's what he did with Kimber. Since I've been here we've been trying to meet Kimber but she would never answer the door. Well this last week we went again and guess what? She finally answered the door! As we walked inside she said "Man you guys are persistent. You just don't ever give up!" What followed was a miracle. She completely opened up to us and told us why she left the church. It was neat because she said "I believe that God puts people in our path for a reason. Do you know how many years people from the church have come and knocked on my door and I've not answered. I don't know why but for the first time in years today I decided to open the door." She may not know why but I do. The Lord needs her back. She let us know right off the bat that she wasn't going to come back to church but she was more than happy to have us in her home! She got offended a few years back, and I'll admit she was definitely treated poorly, and because of that she's been inactive for years. But she still reads the Book of Mormon and believes in the principles of this gospel and not only that but she will defend the Mormon church until kingdom come. She is amazing and I already love her so much! She has a busy life! She owns 5 small companies and has two little girls! We offered to do some service with her since she has such limited time and she welcomed our offer and we were able to help her! This is someone that has been on our wards records for 12 years and no one in the ward knows her because she's never let anyone in! I hope we'll be able to help her overcome her barriers and see that living this gospel is the best life decision we can make.

 

As far as investigators go they are all doing well.

We had a really great lesson with Rosa this week. She has such wonderful sincere questions and the spirit is so good to help us answer them! I've never been one to be good at memorizing and pulling our scripture references but, especially with the investigators we're working with currently, I've had many instances where the spirit has guided me to a specific scripture in both the Book of Mormon and Bible to help them understand! IT'S AMAZING! I don't even know how to describe it! Being a missionary and having this power given to me is so wonderful!

 

I'm just so grateful to be a missionary. Whether things are going the best they can or the worst they can being a missionary is the best thing! I love it! I love it more than anything in the world.

 

I hope all is well at home! THANK YOU SO MUCH for all your prayers! They are helping so much!

 

I love you all!

 

The Kingdom of God or Nothing!

 

Love, Sister Gregson