EM: Transfers, Training, and White Washing...Oh My!

Family Dear,

This week has been insane!

But before I get to that I must say Happy Birthday Mum! I love you so much and I am so grateful to have such a wonderful mother! I hope this birthday is the best yet and that you eat a lot of German Chocolate cake for me. Boy do I miss that.

So yeah... this week was crazy!

I knew that transfers were coming up but me and Sister Jones felt like we were going to stay companions so I wasn't too worried. On Tuesday night i was exhausted and when we got in for the night i sat on the couch and fell asleep and the next thing I know Sister Jones woke me up with the news of who had to pack their bags to leave. When she said my name i was in total shock! WHAT?! Good joke Heavenly Father...

I have since discovered that He was not joking.

I was in denile. I'm pretty sure I went to all the stages of grief! I thought that if me and Sister Jones were separated that at least she would be the one leaving and I would get to train in my area... but no.

I was so sad when I realized I would have to leave Marla, the Thayers, and Debra!

Then I thought, well If i'm leaving President wouldn't make me train in a new area so I'll proabably be with one of the other sisters that have been her a while.

WRONG. The next morning during studies he called and asked if I would train and open up a new area (white wash) in the Parkway ward. I was terrified but of course I accepted. President said that the Lord trusted me and that this call came from the Lord, not him. He said he had full confidence in me.

I was in such a daze after that. I seriously couldn't believe it. But I really wanted to have a good attitiude about it because I knew it was what the Lord wanted me to do. It was really sad to leave Sister Jones and my district because I have grown to love them so much!

Anyways now that I've had a few moments to be dramatic...

Thursday was transfer day! We had 40 new missionaries come! and 25 of them were sisters!! Amazing! 7 of the Sister's that came out with me are training! The numbers of Sisters in this mission doubled when my group came out and tripled with this new group!

My new companion is Sister Shellhous and she is incredible! I don't even need to train her! She is so sweet! I love it because she is just as eager to get out and work as I am probably since we're both so fresh so the work has been great!

We're living with a member, she is an older widow and her name is Ro Canfield. She is the sweetest lady and she always had ice cream for us when we come home at night! She takes good care of us.

So my new address is...

Sister Emilee Gregson

19827 Shores Edge Drive

Tomball, TX 77375

My area is really small (at least compared to my last area) so it didn't take us long to get familiar with it. The first person we called when we got there was the Bishop (Sanford) he gave a a few names to visit and then invited us over for dinner. He is awesome! He and our ward mission leader are younger guys and they are so funny! Their sense of humor reminds me a lot of Dad!

This week has been so much fun! We have been using our time to meet ward members, do contacting, meeting the less-active members, and tracting! I love it!

Sister Shellhous loves to tract, which i really am grateful for because so do I and we've seen so many miracles this week! One of the days it was pouring rain and we had planned to tract but we didn't let the rain stop us so we tracteded in the rain and it was awesome! I felt like a hard core missionary! (well as hard core as you can get in Texas) We have 3 new potential investigators we found through tracting so we're going to go visit with them all this week!!

The ward is really nice! It is a very young ward! There are a lot of young, large families. I think that about 75% of the congregation is children and I'm not exaggerating! It is the loudest sacrament meeting I have ever sat through but it is so much fun! The ward is amazing and everyone has been so welcoming and so excited to have Sister missionaries.

I'll share with you one of my favorite miracles that happened this week!

Yesterday evening me and Sister Shellhous decided to go tracting and we prayerfully considered which street we needed to be on. We usually will look at our map and each find 3 streets that stick out and then share them with eachother. Tea Leaf was the street both of us had chosen so off to Tea Leaf we went!

As we started going from door to door we noticed this young boy probably about 15 who lived across the street we were on watching us. We could tell he was hadicap in some way. He was so facinated by what we were doing. When we finished tracting on the street we started walking back to the car. I kept thinking we needed to go back to that boy and give him a pass along card even though he probably wouldn't know what to do with it. But I was dumb and kept walking. That boy knew what was up though because we didn't get to far when he shouted at us! We turned around and he pointed to his house. He wanted us to come knock on his door. So of course we did! When we got to the door we could hear this boy inside the house shouting for his mother to answer the door. His mother answered the door and she came outside and talked to us. Her name is Dolores and she is amazing! She has 3 sons and all are autistic. We started to talk to her about Christ and she has great faith in him! After we talked to her for a time we asked if we could come back and teach her more and she agreed!

As we walked away from the house her son came out an waved at us. I honestly believe he knew what we were sharing and wanted his mother to hear it. I know Heavenly Father has a great love for that boy and I'm so glad that he shouted for us to come back. He couldn't speak, but he did all he could to get our attention and have us come to his house. He knew it was important, I know he did.

This week turned out to be so wonderful! Me and Sister Shellhous have been working SO hard and it has been so much fun to just use every ounce of energy to work. We already love our area and the people in it!

It was hard to leave the Thayers, and Marla! (there may have been some tears shed) I didn't realize how attached I would get to people so quickly! But I now know that this is where I need to be.

Now for the best news! Marla is getting baptized!!!!!!!! Sadly because of transfers I wasn't there when she told Sister Jones of her decision, but I am so happy for Marla! I am going to call the President and hopefully he will let me go to her baptism. I am so excited for her! I know she is going to be such an incredible member of the church. She has been so amazing through this whole process and she allowed herself to change and find out the truth for herself. It has been amazing to see.

This week I have really seen how the Lord qualifies us for the work. It has been scary at times but the Lord has always provided us with work to do when we aren't sure where to go next.

I hope yall know how much I love you and I am so grateful for all the prayers and support!

I love you so much!

Love, Sister Gregson

Sister Ruhlman and me. It was so hard to say goodbye to that woman. But I'm always going to stay in touch with her! When I told her I was leaving she said we needed a good moment to pout. haha She's so wonderful!