Christmas!

CHRISTMAS WAS THIS WEEK!

I just thought I should let you all know in case you missed the memo.
WHICH MEANT I GOT TO SKYPE MY FAMILY!  Aw... :) They're the best.  And
they're doing well in case you were wondering.  I hope someone more
than my family is reading this email, or this was a very unimportant
paragraph.

Other than that, normal missionary work has been going great!  We saw
Beverly this week, and we attempted to soft commit her to baptism.  I
honestly wasn't thinking she would, but that wasn't our intention.  We
mostly just wanted to make sure she knew that that was what we were
hoping she would progress towards, and now she knows it, so I'm happy
with it.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and was able to focus on the
true meaning, and have a happy New Year!

THE EXCITEMENT THOUGH!!!

Hey everyone!

This week was so crazy!  It started off with a new investigator we got
about a week or two ago.  Her name is Beverly.  We gave her a
Restoration Pamphlet and a Book of Mormon to read so we could talk
about the next time we saw her. When we saw her next, she said she read
the Restoration pamphlet, but not The Book of Mormon because it was
too small of print for her to read.  So we got her a bigger one, and wrapped it
up for her like a Christmas present.  When we gave it to her, she was
so excited!  She tore the plastic right off and started flipping
through it.

The next time we saw her we asked if she'd read from it, and she said
that she'd read the introduction, the testimonies, and had read random
bits and pieces throughout.  She said that she loved it, and that she
understood it better than the King James Bible, and the best part
(wait for it...) SHE SAID SHE KNEW IT WAS TRUE!!!  It was insane!
She's dying for us to come back and read with her because she loves
how we make it even easier for her to understand.  I'm so excited to
see what happens with her.

Then, the next big day was Saturday.  We had our Christmas zone
conference, which was mostly just a Christmas party.  We got a
Christmas present (which was a TKM flag!), then we played dodge ball (I
got a big welt on my arm), and then.... the best part.... (Wait for
it...) WE WATCHED BIG HERO 6!  Yeah!  It was so good!  I'd already
seen it, but guys, we got to watch a movie!

Then..... DEE GOT BAPTIZED!!!  Oh my goodness!  It was so great!  She
had to be dunked three times, but she's a member now!  It was so
wonderful. :) She was so ready.  She was so happy afterwards and so
clean and pure!  So many members came to support her, too!

I loved this week, and I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!

Sincerely,
Sister Shelton

It's Friday!

Hey ya'll!

So this week has been really fun!  Friday was a big day.  We had a
tri-zone conference with Elder Zwick of the Seventy.  It was so cool!
We were able to listen to him, his wife, President Griffin, and Sister
Griffin talk.  Those are some of the best people to listen to.  The
spirit was so strong the whole time.  I feel like the message I
learned the most from what they said was I can do it.  I have that
ability to make great things happen, and so do all of us.  It was a
big confidence booster.

In the middle of the conference we had a lunch, and I had a group of
missionary friends who I was going to sit with, and then all of a
sudden, one of the elders I was going to sit with said, "Hey, there's
open seats next to Elder Zwick!"  So yeah. I had lunch with a Seventy.
To be more exact, I sat on the right hand of him. ;) Yeah, I just went
there.  But no, really.  It was so cool! He was the nicest man I think
I've ever met.  I felt like that's the closest I've ever been to sitting
next to Jesus.  That kinda sounds weird, but he really does an amazing
job at being a representative of Jesus Christ.  I hope I can be like
that some day.  :)

Later on that day we had a nativity at our church.  Everyone brought
their nativities from home and set them out, and there were so many
gorgeous trees.  It was breathtaking.  It gave me hope for cultural
hall wedding receptions.  (Not saying that's how I'm doing mine, Mom.)
There were so many people who came that weren't members.  We had a
potential investigator come.  And there was a man who didn't believe
Mormons are Christian who came, and by the end of the night he changed
his mind on that subject!

I just love how people are around this time of year. Never forget the
true meaning of Christmas!

Sincerely,
Sister Shelton

Movie Missionary Week

Hey ya'll!

So, this week was fun!  It was like a movie!

It started out with exchanges.  I went over to Pleasant Ridge with
Sister Wright.  She came out with me, so we're both greenies.  It was
an adventure.  We had our whole day planned out, but it pretty much
all fell through, and so we did tracting for about four hours... In the
pouring rain.... Totally brought the wrong shoes for rain, too!
Couldn't do anything about it, either, because I was on exchanges.  But
it was so fulfilling!  I loved every minute of it because I was doing
God's work.  We even got a return appointment.  I guess I won't
because I was on exchanges, but they got one! Yay!

On Friday, we were going out to find some less active members, and we
just tried one who wasn't there, so we went on.  We were just in our
car listening to the amazing David Archuleta sing "The First Noel"
(because that song is gorgeous!) when my dear companion, Sister Johnson,
turned to me and said, "We need to go to [insert specific street
here].  When we drove past it, I just got a feeling that we really need
to go there, and I've been fighting it off for a moment, but I'm not
going to any more." So we pulled out our area book to see who lived
there, and we had a potential investigator named Pam, and a less
active member.  We decided to go to Pam.

We found her house, or I should say the ginormous hill that went to
what should be her house.  We were about to go up when a car started
coming down it going to a house that was a little below the hill so we
got scared and almost backed down, but then I said, "Sister Johnson,
we're going to this house. That was a prompting from God."  So we did.
We drove up that hill that was easily more than 45 degrees, and we
were so scared.  We were gonna die, but alas, here I am writing, so
obviously we didn't.  We got to the top of the hill and knocked on
the door.  A man's voice yelled, "Come in!"  So we did and asked for
Pam.  He said she just went to the house at the bottom of the hill.
Her mother who was the less active member lived there, and she was just
visiting her.  We went to the door and she let us right in.  She told
us that she was usually busy working, and it was hard to catch her, but
she was home taking care of her husband since he just had a surgery.
She is so willing to let us come back, too! So, yay! We got a new
investigator.

On Saturday we ran through all of our plans in about two hours, until
some set appointments later on in the day.  So we went to help an
elderly lady clean her house.  Then, we had an appointment with our
second new investigator, Beverly!  She is so awesome! I love her.  She
had such fantastic questions, and I'm so excited to teach her.

On Sunday we got to go over to a member's house and watch the Christmas
devotional with Elder Hoyt and Lunceford.  It was really nice.  It
really brought the Christmas spirit. I really liked Pres. Uchtdorf's talk.
I hope you were all able to watch it. If not, go track it down. I hope
you're all able to bring more of the Christmas spirit into your life.
Have a wonderful white week!

Sincerely,
Sister Shelton

My first ponytail in two and a half years!  It made me so happy even
though I know it doesn't look that great.  #treasureplanet

This is my district!  They're so great (from left to right: Stark, Cook, Dillard, Johnson, Lunceford, Shelton, Gerig, Hoyt)

November 2, 2015 (continued)

Thanksgiving Week!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.  I sure did.  It was a
little weird though.  It was pretty much the only day I've ever had on
my mission where I did absolutely nothing to build up the Kingdom of
God.  Well... I guess I did some personal studies in the morning, so
that was awesome.  I always love studying the scriptures.

After our studies Sister Johnson and I went over to watch the Turkey
Bowl.  All of the Elders in our stake were there playing.  I've never
cared to watch any sports before, but it was seriously so fun!  I
think I may be changing my thoughts on playing and watching sports.

Later on in the day we got to go over to have our Thanksgiving dinner
over at the Beal's house.  They're vegetarians.... Yeah....  You'd
think that sounds bad, but no! They actually made a turkey just for us
and Elder Hoyt and Elder Lunceford.  And even though they don't eat
turkey, they know how to cook one.  It was good!  It was a really
enjoyable night.  After that we went and had pie over at the Maret's.
It's always a party over there. They're a really fun family.

Something really awesome that's happening now that Thanksgiving is
done is Christmas!  And with Christmas we have a new amazing thing
that you all may know about already.  It's a new Christmas initiative
that the church put out.  It's called "A Savior is Born."  You should
all go to www.christmas.mormon.org. There are two great new videos out on
it and a ton of other great stuff. I'm really excited about it!  We
as missionaries are going around with "A Savior is Born" cards, and we're
passing them out to EVERYONE.  My personal favorite thing about the
videos and the cards is that they invite everyone to "discover why."
You can print out the cards on the website and give them out to
everyone.  Those cards are gold.  Please do it!  It's great.  It is
such a big thing that the church bought advertising on YouTube for
over 40 days.

Anyway, that was my week.  I hope y'all are doing great back home!
Remember to share the Christmas spirit.  It really is a magical time
of year and a time when so many hearts are softened.  I hope all of
you can have that as well!

Sincerely,
Sister Shelton

November 23, 2015

Hi everyone!

So this week has been fun.  On Thursday we had exchanges, so I went
over to Pleasant Ridge with Sister Rowley for the day.  It's so fun
going out and seeing what other areas are doing, and learning things
that others are doing.  The fun thing I learned is just a fun way to
do companionship study.  Pull out something you want to study (i.e.
PMG, standard works) and just go to town reading and whenever you see
anything that stands out, just stop in the middle of whatever you're
reading and just talk about it.  I feel like that's honestly not that
creative, but it is so fun. It gets you so pumped, and you learn so
much.  Just try it.  It's a party.

The next day was zone conference.  I love zone conference so much.
It's hours upon hours of the spirit being dumped onto your soul!... I
hope that wasn't too dramatic.... Yeah, but anyway... The church is
releasing a short Christmas video on the 29th of November (maybe
sooner) and it is wonderful.  The church also bought some advertising
on YouTube to share that video for over a month.  Tithing money FTW!
Yeah, so we're now trying to find a lot of people through the Christmas
Season.  As the world stays busy and everyone wishes they could have
the Christmas spirit, us missionaries will be out and about sharing
that spirit that everyone wants this time of year, and we will show
them they want that all year round!

One other thing that happened at zone conference was President Griffin
gave us each a Book of Mormon and told us to read it and mark it up
and liken it to ourselves.  I almost didn't do it because I'm already
reading the Book of Mormon, but then I realized it was what I really
needed to do.  I'm in Helaman right now in my normal Book of Mormon
studying, and I'm in 1 Nephi with my likening studies.  So yeah, I'm
reading the Book of Mormon twice in a day. It sounds strange, but I
know it's what I need right now.  I challenge everyone reading this to
do the thing you know you need to do to help yourself the most even if
it seems strange.  Do it with real intent.  And can I suggest to you
all that the thing you need to do most very likely is something to do
with the spiritual side of life.  Like many people say when we ask if
they know of anyone who could use our message, "Everybody could use a
little more Jesus in their life."

Sincerely,
Sister Shelton

Second Week of my Second Transfer

Hey everyone!

So this week has been fun.  Now that it's our second week into the
transfer I'm starting to become familiar with the area, and we're
starting to get into the groove of everything.  We're just starting to
get into a lot of finding.  You've always got to be finding more
people to hear the word of God.

This week we got to go down to a training for all of the greenies.  I got
to see everyone that I was with in the MTC! It was a lot of fun.  It
was so fun to hear all of the success that everyone has already been
having.  My MTC companion, Sister Davis, has already had a baptism, too!
Gah! Bringing people to the church is seriously the best job ever.

I hope you all remember the important things in life.  It's not all
about what job you have, or what happened last on your favorite show.
It's best to focus on the eternal things.

Sincerely,
Sister Shelton

November 2, 2015

So, I live in a place called the Tajmahal.  I live in a really rich area, so a member bought this place for our mission.  Usually there are two companionships in it, but there's been a lot of confusion in this area with people being ET'd and people getting sick that it's a companionship of four people living here right now.  Confusing? Yes.  Yes it is.

November 9, 2015

Hey everyone!

So this week has been awesome! I got transferred to a new area. Now
I'm in Grove Park, Tennessee.  It's pretty great.  My new companion is
Sister Johnson, and let me tell you, it is quite the party over here.
I love her.

So I've only been in Grove Park for a few days, so I haven't really
had enough time to learn the area, but a few exciting things have
happened so far.

The first thing is we had a lesson with Dee, and as we were talking to
her, she said she'd picked out a day that she wanted to get baptized.
We didn't even ask her to get baptized. It was all her! So we asked
her what day it was, and she didn't want to tell us. All she would
tell us is that she wanted to get baptized then because it was the
same date that she got baptized into her current faith a few years
ago. After a little bit of fishing it out of her she finally told us
December 8th!  How exciting!?  But then she said she wasn't completely
sure about it because she said it seemed like it was too far away to
wait, so I guess the date isn't completely set, but it's happening!
Dee is getting baptized, and I'm so happy for her. She is the sweetest
thing ever.

The second thing is that Sunday was the primary program! Yes! Best day
of Sacrament ever!  So, there always seems to be one thing in the
Primary program that is just super awesome, and this kid takes the
cake. He got up and said his part with one of the ladies in the Primary
whispering in his ear, and once he got done with his part he turned to
her and said, "Wait.  One of the sister missionaries is dead." You
could hear everyone in the congregation snicker. We weren't quite sure
which one of us died.... After the meeting his mom came up to us and
said, "I'm sorry.  He's been obsessed with death lately."

Anyway,  so far I'm loving it here in Grove Park.  It looks like
there's a lot of potential here.  I hope everyone reading this has a
wonderful week, and remember to go use the atonement.  I can't get
enough of that stuff and neither can any of you.  Trust me.  Well...
Have a good week!

October 26, 2015 (Sent November 9, 2015, by mistake)

(Sorry, I thought I sent this a few weeks ago.)

Hi everyone!

Sorry I didn't get a letter out last week. I was too busy partying
over here.  We went to Bay's Mountain National Park with some members
last p-day and it took the whole day.  But I mean, it was fun. Way
fun. Hiking and picnicking and observing wildlife. Anyway.  Let's get
on with things....

So last week was a lot of fun.  Sheila got baptized! It was so great.
She was so ready, and is still doing great since then.  She seems to
really enjoy everything the gospel has to offer her, but we're still
meeting with her a lot to help her get fully settled into everything.
Besides, she's a party, so who wouldn't want to be around her?

We also got a new investigator. His name is Gus. He has met with the
missionaries before, but I think just with a mix up between transfers,
he got dropped somewhere along the line because he's super friendly
and very willing to meet with us again, but we haven't been able to
find a time to meet with him again yet. I'm very excited to see what
will happen with him.

So on to this week.  On Thursday we had exchanges, so I went over to
Johnson City for a day and hung out with Sister Lindford. Exchanges
are so fun. Everything about them is fun. It's like a fun sleepover,
but you learn a ton, and coming back from it is still really fun too.
I wish I could write everything that I learned while on it, but I was
honestly learning the entire time I was on it, so I'll just share one
thing.

So, I'm sure we've all heard how Mormons in general have this light
about them, and that's so cool, but while I was on exchanges, one of
the investigators we saw looked at me and Sister Lindford and said,
"You both have this light in your faces." That was the first time
someone said it specifically to me.  It just hit me this week how much
we really do have that spirit with us.  If you've been baptized and
you're living a worthy life, you'll have that spirit.  For those who
have been members their whole life, and even sometimes those who
haven't always been members, it's difficult to know sometimes when the
spirit is there. Yes, there are some obvious times of it being there,
but sometimes, you just don't know. But have you ever done something
that's just so dumb that you feel the spirit leave? That's got to be
the worst feeling ever.  In our baptismal covenant we're promised to
always have His spirit to be with us, and I can say now that that is
so true.  We become so comfortable with the feeling of the spirit that
we don't even know it's there.  My companion, Sister Beckstead, told me
this week, " You're more guided by the spirit than you know." That is
so true. "I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say." He's said it.
He's bound. If you've been baptized and are living worthily, you've
got His spirit with you all the time.

Anyway, I really do love this gospel. It's the best thing in my life.
I hope all of you can feel that way, too. I hope you're all having a
great time, and all is going well. Have a good week, and don't forget
to write!

Happy Halloween!

Let the Holy Spirit Guide - October 19, 2015

Hello everyone!

Sorry I didn't get a letter out last week.  I was busy partying at Bay's Mountain with some members.  We had a picnic and went hiking, and it was seriously one of the funnest days of my mission so far.  It ended up taking up the whole day.  You can't blame me for not getting to writing when we had such a party.  Actually you can... 

So last week we had a baptism for Sheila!  It was so great.  She has such a light and happiness about her now that she's a member.  We're still working with her to get settled in, but she seems to be doing great!

This week we had exchanges. Yay! My first exchange of my mission!  I went to Johnson City with Sister Lindford for the day.  I loved every moment of it.  Exchanges seriously are such a great learning experience.  

Sorry this is such a sad tiny letter.  I have no time.  It also doesn't help that my iPad freaked out and deleted a whole letter that I worked so hard on, but my time is up.  I've got to go do the Lord's work now.  I love you all, and I love hearing from everyone.  Have a great week!

 

 

Sister Erin Shelton

October 12, 2015

No letter this week - just this picture of an activity on P-Day to Bay's Mountain National Park with some members.

First video - October 5, 2015

Conference, Baptisms, and Potential - Oct 5 at 1:34 PM

Hello everyone!

This week has been so good! I've been settling more into missionary life.  It's definitely an adjustment, but it's a good one. :)

So, General Conference! How fun is that! More exciting than Christmas? Hm.... I'd say it's up there. Okay, favorite talk?.... I don't even know.... They were all so good! I want to go back and watch it all
again. I wrote out a list of about 8 questions, and I haven't had time to go over that list yet, but I'm fairly certain every question was answered.

You know what's better than General Conference? Days when someone is baptized in between two sessions! Yeah that's right! Debbie got baptized! It was amazing. About twice as many people as We thought would show up showed up. It was awesome.  Debbie has troubles with her leg, so we had to
have two people helping in the font. One baptizing, and one helping her back up. It was so beautiful. I cried and I couldn't stop smiling! So did my companions.  As soon as she got out of the water she just
said, "Yes! Yes!" Because she can't say anything else. She was glowing. Once Debbie was back and dried off, Sister Winget and I did a musical number. We did "Baptism," which is my personal favorite baptism song. I sang and she played. It was a bit hard to sing with all the emotions going on at the time, but it happened. Then we had a wonderful lunch and went back to conference. It was so good!

So on Tuesday we went over to see Sister Trent. She's awesome and assertive the way only an old lady can get away with.  She decided to come with us to see a few investigators, but none of them were home, so she took us over to a house that she's fixing up and trying to sell. It is an awesomely me house by the way. She's doing good on it. I'd buy it if I had money and I wasn't on a mission. So while we were there, there was another man from the ward named Brother Gary, who was helping out and he was with a construction guy and they were just discussing things on the house.

After Sister Trent gave us a tour of the house, we got in the car and were about to leave. Then Sister Trent yelled out of the car window to Brother Gary, "Teach him the gospel!" Then Brother Gary motioned for us to come back, so we did.  Brother Gary convinced the guy working on the house to come and talk with us. We got in the house and then Sister Trent turned to the guy (who's name was Jeff) and told him, "Sister Shelton here has only been out for a week, so can she practice on you? So it was all on me. My companions promised they'd never throw me out to fend for myself, but Sister Trent didn't.

I first got to know him a little, and turns out he does know a bit about the church because he had a few friends who went on missions, but he's actually Catholic. (It's strange. You'd think being in the
south you'd get more Protestants, but I've had more encounters with Catholics) After finding out a bit about him, I explained a little bit about the Book of Mormon.  Then Sister Trent burst in telling me to
read my favorite scripture from it. It caught me off guard, so I didn't actually give him my favorite, but I gave him a good one still. Moroni 10:4-5. Very generic missionary scripture, but I'm glad I chose it. I explained to him that God doesn't want him to just take our word for it. He really does need to read it on his own and pray to know if it's true.  That's something I love bout our church. Then I bore my testimony of how much I love the Book of Mormon and how I know that
it's true. The spirit was so strong. I don't feel like I have ever bore a stronger testimony of The Book of Mormon in my life.  I could tell he felt the spirit and that he understood how much I loved it,
and it was just so good! The I asked if he'd like a copy, and he did! It was my first time handing out a Book of Mormon!

Jeff is such a nice man. I only saw him for 20 minutes, and I probably won't ever see him again because he doesn't live in my area, but I felt such love for him. That wonderful charity. He is a son of God, and that is wonderful. I don't know if he went home and read The Book of Mormon. I honestly doubt he did, but maybe one day he'll look over and see it laying under some papers, and pick it up, and his life will be changed forever, and that is good enough for me.

I hope all is well at home! It's great out here.  If anyone wants to write me you can send it to the mission office written below. I'd loveto hear from all of you!

Sincerely,

Sister Shelton

Tennessee Knoxville Mission
11320 Station West Dr. Ste 101
Farragut, Tennessee 37934

Week 2/3 Entering the Field - September 28, 2015

Hi everyone!

So, I wasn't able to write last week because I was traveling, so if you were wondering what happened to me, don't worry. I'm alive and well. Honestly, at this point, the last week of the MTC is a blur. I just remember waking up Tuesday morning at 2 AM and flying on a plane for the first time ever! Flying is so fun! In my journal while I was on the plane I wrote a whole page all about how cool flying is. We went from SLC to Atlanta, Georgia, and Atlanta to Knoxville. I got a window seat on the way to Knoxville, so I had a perfect view of downtown Atlanta. As soon as I saw it, I had the Walking Dead theme song start playing in my head, and ever since, I keep thinking about it because my mission just reminds me of that show. Is that horrible as a missionary? Probably.... I'll learn some day....

Anyway.... Here are the details of the area I'm serving in. I am in Rogersville, Tennessee! It is in
North East Tennessee, bordering Virginia. In fact, I got to go to Virginia for a district meeting the other day. Okay, now for my companion.... s..... Yeah that's right. I'm in a trio! So, in the picture below there is Sister Winget (left) and Sister Beckstead (right). They're both pretty great. :) Anyway, I'm going to go back to how my area is. It's tiny. It's green. It's adorable. It has many winding roads that make me carsick, but that's okay because I love seeing the random unique things Rogersville has. Like shacks. So many worn down shacks. And there's more graveyards than people here, so that's all sorts of creepy, but a fun creepy....  Rogersville is one of the biggest areas in our mission, and we're the only set of missionaries there.  It's also a pretty "mountainy" area. Jk... Some of their mountains really are mountains, just a lot of them are larger hill things. But beautiful larger hill things. I found out the reason the mountains are called "The Great Smokey Mountains." It's because fog will settle on them, and it looks like the mountains are on fire. It's pretty cool.

So the work here is going really well. We have quite a few investigators and two baptisms in the next two weeks! How cool is that? There's Sheila and Debbie. They're both so strong! Debbie is getting baptized between conference sessions on Sunday!  We're still getting things worked out on Sheila's baptism, but it's on October 10th. The branch over here is so great! It was a bit of a culture shock coming from Utah. On Saturday when we had the General Women's Conference, I was so excited because I thought we were going to go to a huge dinner, and I'd meet the whole branch, and it'd be so much fun. I was wrong... So wrong. We had dinner at our apartment and then went to the church. It was us and one member. On top of that, something was wrong with the satellite, so we ended up watching it on my companion's iPad.  It was awesome though! If you didn't see it, go watch it.  And everyone go watch General Conference this weekend!

For a while I was getting a bit discouraged with how few members I'd seen, and then Sunday happened, and I couldn't hold in how much love I felt from everyone. There may not be many members here, but those who are here are some of the most loving people I have met. It's weird being away from my whole life. But it's so comforting that the only thing I'm not away from is the most important thing. The church. It's
the same everywhere you go.

So one lesson I've learned is when to focus on yourself and when to focus on your investigator. I've heard some people to do one and some to do the other.  I figured out the formula.  If you are simply laying around feeling sad for yourself and getting homesick, get up and go to work and stop thinking about yourself.  But if when you go to work you could be doing better, even after preparing so hard
to help someone else, go focus on yourself, and invite the Lord to come along. God wants to help you with your problems and he knows better than you do how to fix them. And don't feel guilty for focusing on yourself.  If you're not in a good position, you can't teach others to be in a good position.  I'm happy I learned this lesson so early on.

I hope that last part made as much sense written out as it does in my head, because I know that it's the right way to deal with it.... If it doesn't.... Write me!  I love letters! I don't get enough!

Anyway, I love you, the book is true, and Jesus was a Mormon, too! Or you know..... a Jew.....

Sincerely,

Sister Erin Shelton

September 15, 2015

Hello everyone!

This week has been crazy.  As soon as I got here, I was rushed all around and then to my class where I met my district and my companion.  My companion's name is Sister Davis.  She's so cute!  I'm a fan of her.  There are four sisters in my district, and we're all going to Knoxville, and one Elder who is going, too.  The other five Elders in the district are going to Little Rock, Arkansas.  The first day was mostly a blur, but hey!  I'm a missionary now!

The spirit here is insane!  I'm drinking from a fire hose!  I think I've probably cried every day, and not because I'm missing anyone, but because the spirit is so strong.  Honestly, I don't have time to miss anyone.  Our schedule is that packed!

So, on the second day we met with the Branch President.  I already have used my piano skills.  I played the opening hymn for that meeting.  After being interviewed we all got our callings.  Sister Davis and I got called as Greeters.  That basically means that we're cute enough to make people feel welcomed when they come in for Sacrament meeting, but that won't happen until next Sunday.  I'm good at being cute. :D

We have a few investigators.  One is named Segan.  He's Catholic, but he doesn't like the idea that families aren't eternal in his religion.  We're trying to focus on God's love for him, and him feeling the spirit.  Our other investigator is Carolina.  We meet with her on skype and will continue to for all of our meetings but one.  She's also Catholic.  We just met her yesterday, so we haven't discussed exactly what we want to help her with, yet, but we'll figure it out.  She's so sweet!  We asked her if she wanted a Book of Mormon when she comes to the MTC, and she was happy to have one!  I love both of them so much!  They're both such great people.  I just hope they can find God's love for them.

I just wanted to share a really cool story that happened when we were preparing to teach Segan.  So, our awesome teacher, Brother Whiting, was going back and forth between our class and the one next to us, because for some reason their teacher didn't show up.  So, I was reading D&C 11:12-14, and as I was reading that, I thought about this little three-part clip that Elder Bednar put together about ways the spirit works called, "Patterns of Light."  At the time I couldn't think of what it was called, so I wanted to ask Brother Whiting.  He wasn't in the classroom, so I peaked my head out of the room to find him, and he was in the other classroom showing "Patterns of Light" to them.  I freaked out and got Sister Davis over to see it, and we knew that we had to show that to him!  It made us tear up!  I can't wait to show it to Segan and see what he has to say about it.  I would highly suggest to everyone to go watch it.  It's so beautiful.

So, before I came here I promised myself that I was going to be obedient.  I pretty quickly found out that's a lot easier said than done. But something that my Branch President said is that you only need to decide once what kind of missionary you're going to be - an obedient missionary, or an exactly obedient missionary.  He told us to write it down on a paper which one we were going to be, and then sign it.  I'm happy to say that I'm going to be an exactly obedient missionary!  I definitely still have work to do on that, but I'm really trying.  Don't worry, I haven't done anything too against the rules....

Sunday was great, but at the same time, our schedule wasn't nearly as packed as what it was the other days, so I did start missing everyone back home that day.  But there were so many good things about it, too.  We got the sacrament!  Yay!  I'm trying to figure out ways to make Sunday different than other days, because our normal days feel like Sundays now.  There were a few things that were great about Sunday.  One was that we got to go be in the choir.  We sang a song called "Hurrah for Israel."  You should be able to watch us sing it on BYU-TV, but I don't know when that will be, so just keep your eyes open!  The best thing about the choir is that our conductor will stop and explain cool things about the song.  He explained what exactly Israel was and the whole story behind it.  I was so happy about that because I was so curious about that subject, but I never seemed to find time to figure it out. 

Another thing that was so great about Sunday is that we got to watch a devotional from Elder Bednar called "Characteristics of Christ." It's so good.  I was crying so much... They only show it in the MTC.  One thing I remember from it was that the Savior was always turning outward to help people. In the scriptures when it talks about Jesus fasting 40 days, and all the temptations he struggled with, when you first read it, it seems like he sent angels to help him when he was done, but he didn't.  If you look at the JST, it clarifies that he sent angels to John while he was in prison to comfort him.  He didn't even think about helping himself!  Like, who is this guy?!  Oh yeah... He's my Savior. :)  I love him!  I know that as I focus on others instead of myself, I will, without even realizing it, become so much closer to Christ than I could imagine.  

Today we got to go to the temple!  It was my last time that I get to go for a year and a half (unless I get special permission from my Mission President, but I doubt that will happen since we don't even have a temple in my mission).  It makes me sad thinking that I can't go any more.... I teared up thinking about it.  I love it there so much!  What is life without temples?!  What is life without my family?!  Oh yeah... A missionary's life.  I'm so cool.  I'm a missionary!

In my one week of being here, I feel like such a different person.  A good different.  I'm becoming that awkward missionary.  It makes me so happy, and then I remember just how awkward I must be, and then I cringe slightly, but that's okay, because God's people are a peculiar people.  Besides, it's not like I wasn't awkward before....  It's weird because I feel so much like a missionary, but then I think about it, and it still seems so strange.

I have so much more that I want to write about!  But I don't have much time.  That seems to be the life of a missionary.  I hope you're all doing well! Pictures should be coming soon.... Hopefully....

Sister Erin Shelton