Well...I messed with Texas

Dear each ya'll and all ya'll,

 

First off I have to say Happy Birthday Grandpa!! You are the greatest! I love you so much and I hope you have such a great day!

This week has been so great! Our plane got safely to Houston, and the first people we saw were the Pingree's! They are incredible! They just glow with happiness! We had 11 new Sisters and 8 new Elders! can you believe that! They said that's the most sister's they've ever had! and next transfer we're expecting around 16 Sister missionaries so I was told that I will probably be training! I'm terrified!

 

Houston is beautiful, which I didn't expect (I forgot to bring my camera with me but i promise I'll send you some pictures next week!) There are so many trees, which I didn't expect. And it's so green which i definitely did not expect! The weather right now is PERFECT! But i know it won't last for much longer... every one I talk to, EVERYONE says "just you wait"

 

Anyways so we went straight to the mission home after we landed and President and Sister Pingree fed us an incredible dinner, and just so you know everyone in Texas can cook! And i mean really cook, I haven't had a bad meal yet! AND I ate eel which was weird.

So, like you heard, my first night I stayed at Kim's parents house! It was so funny because we were all introducing our selves and when i said my name she was like "SISTER GREGSON!" in her cute Irish (or Scottish, not sure which) accent and I asked her if she knew any Gregsons, and she said "no but I know the Richards!" She had nothing but wonderful things to say about Grandma and Grandpa! It was just a small reminder to me that Heavenly Father is watching over me!

 

On Thursday we got our companions! My companion is .... Sister Jones! and she is a hoot! She is loud and social but in the best of ways! She reminds me of a Gregson let's just put it that way! I love her so much and we've already grown really close! She's is from Bountiful Utah, and she's been out for 10 months. The funny thing too is that there are 2 girls that I went to Skyline with also in my mission! One graduated in 2008, and one in 2009! Again more blessings!

So I am serving in White Oak! it's an inner city town, but I don't know if you can really call it a town because it's HUGE! We cover a family ward and the singles ward which is really fun! We share the family ward with the Elders. On my first night Sister Jones took my around to meet some ward member's and the bishopric. Texans are the nicest people. They like to hug you, feed you, and tell you everything about themselves! I love it! It makes me feel right at home! Also they like to decorate with really great wall paper! (Katie do you remember that episode of Gilmore Girls where they stay at an inn and the room has flowered wallpaper and it matches everything else in the room and they start to feel dizzy and a bit queasy, well that's every home in Texas for ya!! haha it's so great!)

 

We've already had some miracles, and some disappointments, but It's been so good!

 

We've done a lot of work with the less actives this past week. The first person we visited was Sister Rulhman! I just love her, and she's my first miracle! She is about 70 years old, she was baptized in 2004, but she hasn't been to church for a very long time. The Sister's have been meeting with her for 6 month trying to get her to come back to church. She's is a very sweet lady, with a very hard life. Because of how hard her life has been she loves to watch movies. It's her only way of living happy, she lives vicariously through the characters. She told us flat out that she was addicted to movies. But she is just the greatest! She loves the gospel and she loves the missionaries, but she just won't come to church, so me and Sister Jones decided to just talk with her and find out what's holding her back. Gosh, I wish I could just tell you every word of our conversation with her because she truly is the best! Anyways to make the story short she just lacks to motivation to come. She is struggling right now because she realizes that she is at the end of her life and she wants to be happy and have no regrets but she often looks back and her life and feels guilt for the things she did. I think she lost her sense of worth, she's forgotten how much she means to Heavenly Father. Next week i want to take her the talk by Elder Uchtdorf where he says "Compared to God we are nothing, but TO God we are everything..." I want her to know how much she means to God and how important she is.

 

OK so now for my miracle with Sister Ruhlman...

 

Earlier when we were driving me and Sister Jones were talking about our families, and Mike, I told her a little about your amazing story. How you struggled but found your way back, and your experience with Dad when you were in a coma. (I hope that's OK) And later that day is when we visited Sister Ruhlman and at one point she brought up 'out of body' experiences (coincidence? I think NOT!) And she asked if we believed in them. I think it had been in her mind because she wondered if it really was possible for her to get to heaven, if it really is possible for her to actually have a happy life with Heavenly Father. She's never really known happiness and I think she just really wanted someone to confirm to her that it's there waiting for her. So I told her Mike's story, all of it. I hope that's OK Mike, I felt strongly that she needed to know that she could move on from her past and that Heavenly Father can provide a happy life for her and I knew I could show that to her by telling her your story. It brought her to tears, she was very touched especially when I told her about how you saw Dad and when I told her you were happily married in the Temple and now have a beautiful daughter. I think it brought that hope back into her life. She is so happy for you Mike. And guess what? She came to church on Sunday! It was amazing. So Mike if you ever wonder why you went through what you've been through I think it can be said that part of the reason is because Sister Rulman needed to hear your story. So I was wondering if you could send me a picture of you family that I could give to Sister Ruhlman and maybe if you could write her a letter and say whatever it is the Spirit inspires you to say. If you don't want to you don't have to, but I know it would mean the world to her.

 

I love Sister Ruhlman!

 

I met a lot of other great people that I love like the Mendoza's! They are an older couple from Mexico. He is so funny, he hasn't been able to come to church because of a leg surgery so we go to visit him and share messages with him and his wife. His wife doesn't speak English but she understands it. It was really funny because the night before we visited them Sister Mendoza had a dream that Sister Jones would get a new companion so when I showed up at her door she was so surprised. She told me her dream came true!! haha

 

And my very favorite family is the Thayer's. I'm sure you'll hear about them often, but they've become my Houston family!

Now for our disappointment. Last Sunday a non member named Jesse came to church so Sister Jones got his info and we were going to visit with him on Wednesday, but he ended up rescheduling for Thursday. I was so excited because he was going to be my first investigator, and he didn't show!! It was so sad!! So we're going to call him and hopefully we can get him to come! We're not giving up that easy. Look out Jesse here we come!

 

But yesterday a non member named TayAnn came to church and we got her information and we're going to start teaching her this week! I can't wait!

 

The hardest thing about Texas is that it's so large we drive all over to get to our appointments and it takes a lot of our time. It's frustrating because I just wish we could spend every second finding people but we can't get to those people without a long drive in the car, which feels like time wasted. I know I'm spoiled if that's my complaint but I just want to be a good missionary and I wish every second was full of teaching people!

I love being a missionary!!! It's the best calling in the world! I am so happy to be out here. It's still a little weird remembering that I'm a missionary! haha I'll see and Elder and in my head I'll think "Oh look it's the missionaries!" and then I remember "oh wait I'm one of them!" Sometimes it's a little scary to go up to people, and it can be strange having everyone looking at you like you're the strangest thing they've ever seen but then I remember who I am representing and I feel to grateful to be out here doing this work! We get a lot of people that ask us "Are you hiring" etc. they thing we're employees or something! It so great though because it's the best way to start talking to them about the gospel. The great thing about Texas is that it's not a strange thing to talk about religion and God so people are really open about their beliefs.

 

Our mission theme is "finding the tens of thousands" and there's a really cool story behind it. When President Pingree first got out here he had a revelation that there were literally tens of thousands of people in Houston whom God has prepared to hear His word. So that's our goal! To go out and find them! He was inspired by how we should go about doing it and he calls it "Power Hour." Every day at 6 pm we go knocking and ask the head of the household if we can come in and leave a blessing on their family and home. Most people are happy and grateful to let us in and and pray with us. We go in and get to know them ask them what they would like us to pray for, and then with the family we kneel in prayer and leave a blessing on their family. We tell them our purpose and ask them if they would like to know more. I haven't been here very long but President was telling us that the number of baptism's and investigators has dramatically inclined since they began having the missionaries do Power Hour! It's amazing! The Lord knows what His people need.

 

I love the gospel! It's true! I love you all and I hope everything is going just swell back in Utah!

 

I love Texas and I am so happy. I am doing my best to make my mission the best 18 months FOR my life.

 

Have a most wonderful day! remember God loves you! and so do I!

 

Love Sister Gregson

 

P.S. I Triple-dog-dare every person reading this to pray for a missionary experience and go find someone to share the gospel with! Then you better report back to me! I recently found out that only 5% of active church members actually do missionary work. Can you believe that? only 5%?! Think about what this gospel means to you, and go be that 5%!!! And if you don't you will owe me 3 J-dawg hot dogs when I get home! I mean I'll be happy either way so it's up to you... just sayin'... No, but don't do it for me, do it for Heavenly Father and whom ever he inspires you to share your testimony with. You can do it! Trust me! If I can do it, ya'll can do it!

 

P.S.S here is an address you can send my stuff to, right now we're in a members home but we'll be moving into our new apartment on the 5th of April so just send my stuff to this address. You can still send to the mission home but i won't get stuff for about a month if you do!

 

The address is

Sister Emilee Gregson
9218 Stone Post Circle

77064 Houston, Texas

 

And again I'm moving out of there on April 5th so don't send anything a week before that date!

You can check out the Texas Houston Mission Blog here.