SOO Bound

 Preparation day was actually pretty fun. Who knew playing wiffle ball as a District would be competitive and entertaining. For some off reason I am so bad at wiffle ball. I could not make any connection with the ball and the skinny yellow plastic bat. I struck out more than I made a solid connection with it. We also had pizza ordered for us by the Sullivan's. Hawaiian pizza never disappoints. We left around 330 and finished up calling the homies. 

Small world story. On Tuesday we were at service with the Portland sisters. As we were eating lunch we brought up the topic where she was from. She is from Maricopa, Arizona. 

I was talking about how Uncle Duane had a dentistry there. She was like,"I don't think I knew him, I went to a dentist with all the pirates on the wall and it was called Treasure Smiles." I'M LIKE YO, that's Uncle Duanes! It was pretty crazy how that works. We went to the same dentist and now we're serving missions in the same district. You might not think it's that cool, but it blew my mind. 

Now I have to speak on a funny lesson we had on Tuesday. So we met up with our friend Michael Walters. One thing you need to know about Michael is that if you serve in Charlotte, you know who Michael is. He has been meeting with missionaries for three years. No missionaries ever really give him the time since he's a very slow learner, me being one of them. So on Tuesday it was the first time I met with him in the past two months. We sit down and he tells me,"don't try no cursing on me." I was like what?!? Then he explained how he thought I was cursing me and get into his brain. I asked why he thought that and he explained that when I'm teaching, sometimes my left eye twitches badly and it freaked him out haha. I'm working on keeping both of my eyes open at all times in the lesson now. 

Also on Tuesday, we just had some of the most Michigan interactions in my whole mission. One example is that a lady was laying down on her front porch bench listening to Jamaican music. The funny thing was that Elder Nelson and I didn't see her until we were about to knock on the door. It kind of spooked us since we weren't expecting a human to be there. I then asked her if she was religious, she replied no. I then said,"Do you want to be???" She said no. At least we tried. 

What a day Wednesday was. Elder Nelson and I found 4 new friends to teach all while door knocking in the rain. God loves effort! As I was reflecting on this past transfer, God has been richly blessing this area. Elder Nelson and I have found 41 new friends to teach in the past 6 weeks. God can mold anyone… including me! Into some of the finest instruments for His work. At the beginning of my mission, I really thought I couldn't lead or do anything without the help of my trainer or senior companion. Fast forward 10 months and I'm a completely new missionary. God magnifies the called!

We had so many sweet lessons this week. One I will share is with Courtney on Wednesday evening.  We had a powerful lesson explaining the Word of Wisdom. Elder Nelson shared his conversion story and the spirit filled the room. The kids who usually are running around crying seemed to be quiet. Such a heartfelt moment. We were on the verge of tears with what we felt in that room. We promised her very bold spirit led blessings that come from being obedient to God. Courtney was hesitant about the word of wisdom when we went into it, but as we left the spirit really worked on her. She is living the gospel.

Thursday I literally didn't even breathe. We grinded every second of the day. We had our dinner from 830-930 pm since we didn't have time to eat. It was insane. Teaching so many lessons and finding so many new friends to teach. We found 5 new friends to teach on Thursday which is pretty epic. For dinner that night we made some steaks on our stove top. Elder Nelson found a really good mashed potato recipe in his instapot and it hit the spot. Who knew two 18 year old kids could cook like this! 

We had another great encounter with our friend Michael. He is a slow learner so you have to be patient with him, but man is he funny. We taught him about prophets and it finally made sense after we did some object lessons explaining how prophets work. After he answered some of the questions we asked him, we hype him up so much. He was like,"Yeah I know! See I'm not that stupid." He pulled out his pen and paper and began writing. Elder Nelson asked him what he was writing down. He finished writing and underlined what he wrote as he said it,"I am not stupid." This literally made us all just start dying laughing. It was a had to be there moment,  but I had to write about it so I remember about this amazing lesson with Michael. 

THIS WEEK IS INSANE. Cool miracle we witnessed on Friday. We were going to meet up with an inactive member named Frank McGraw at the hotel he works at. We walk in and we bump into Melissa who has a temporary room at the hotel. We invited her to join our lesson in the other room with Bro McGraw. She happily accepted because she told us she needed a message about peace in her life. We basically taught the restoration to both of them again using the introduction of The Book of Mormon. Melissa randomly mentioned to us that she feels so warm, tingly, and happy. She has never felt like this before. We testified how it was God speaking to her telling her that The Book of Mormon is scripture. The inactive member Bro McGraw looked her in the eyes and bore powerful testimony that he knew The Book of Mormon to be true and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is Christ's New Testament Church. LETS GO! The Spirit was pulsating off us, God is real. 

This email is way too long, if any of you read this I love you. I have to mention another lesson with our boy Michael! We taught him only about 1-2 principles of a lesson and on Friday we taught him about Joseph Smith. Towards the end he looked at us and expressed how he wished he was in our shoes. It was so sad. He then told us that he wanted to start drinking since his liver is about to fail him. We then took one of his beers out of his fridge, a cigarette, a blunt, and a lighter he had. No worries, we immediately threw it away. This man is slowly repenting!

Shout-out to Brooklyn for making and sending me mint brownies. They were literally so fire.

This week can't get any more insane. We had a lesson with our friend Melissa and she accepted a baptismal date for June 18th! WHAT. During the lesson we were teaching and testifying, she randomly blotted out,"I'M FEELING IT AGAIN, I'M FEELING IT AGAIN." She was referring to the Holy Ghost. She is so amazing, we are very excited for her journey and her learning about The Church. The rest of the day on Saturday was legendary, we taught 10 lessons. TEN. God is good. 

We received our transfer calls on Saturday at 12. I am being transferred out and heading to the Sault Sainte Marie area. This is the only area in the Upper Peninsula. This is the closest area to Makinaw Isaland and the nearest missionaries are about an hour away. I will be district leading in this area. I can go on exchanges with elders now! My new companion's name is Elder Brecken Fonnesbeck. He is from Gilbert Arizona and has been out for 6 months. I am so excited to be his companion, but I will miss Elder Nelson so much :((. Also cool side note. I will DL over Sister Mamata again, she was the Tongan sister in Bay City who is a legend. 

On Saturday night we went out and ate with a man named Dustin Makenzie. You will get to know that name very well. He is very well known around the mission. He is a man that was baptized in the Sault Ste. Marie area about a year ago. He is the branch mission leader and he is an openly gay member. He struggles with some things, but absolutely loves missionaries. He drove all the way down from the Soo to eat with us at Applebee's. Bonus is that he even paid! Love him so much.

This email is very long. I apologize again. One of the most hectic weeks of my mission. Elder Nelson and I found 19 new friends to teach this week. It was phenomenal. The past 6 weeks we have found 53 new people to teach for the Charlotte area. I am sad I am leaving, but excited to bring the energy up to the Soo! 

I love you all so much. If you have gotten to this point, you can personally message me,"mission accomplished." I am interested in who actually reads and comprehends all of my emails every week. As always #FindTime4Me