Chiggers!!!!!

Hello everyone!!

 

Have ya'll heard o' chiggers?? Well, let me just tell ya about 'em. They is itty bitty and they likes ta bite ya. It's kinda like a skeeter bite, but it hurts ya even worse. It's itchy itchy itchy and ya can't sleep when ya got 'em on yer back. That's been my experience at least. Wow! It is hard to type in Arkansasian! I really had to focus to do that! Anywho, chiggers are not very fun. They itch for daaaaays. We went and did some service for some members who have cattle so we were outside helping them with various things and we sprayed and sprayed ourselves with bug spray...I even messed up the name tag I was wearing... :( but they still got me!!! It's okay though. It's not as itch today, so that's good!!!

 

We had a super crazy week! It was so hard but so good at the same time!!! Tomorrow we are looking forward to a meeting with Elder Stanley G. Ellis of the Seventy. It should be a great meeting! I remember when we had it last year with Elder Choi. I won't try and spell his first name. :) What's cool is that the conference before we met both of these general authorities, they spoke! So it's cool to actually meet men that we hear from every 6 months! I will miss this part of being a missionary. There's a lot of things I will miss, but I will miss all the meetings where we meet important people. ;) At this meeting, I will give my "departing testimony." Do you know what that means? It means I come home super soon, like in the next 3 months.....it makes me kinda sick actually thinking about it. I cry just typing it out in an email. :( BUT it's not over yet. I still have a long time to be out here. I'm going to enjoy every last minute and work until there's nothing left in me. They're going to have to take me home in an ambulance because I've worked myself so hard. I feel like I'm at the end of a race and I'm so tired that I want to just give up but I can see the finish line and so I want to run faster and faster so I can give it my all at the end!! So that's what I'm going to do.

 

We picked up 3 new investigators this week! Like I said, it's been a super hard week but we taught more lessons than we ever have while we've been here. With that result, we are finding more amazing people who are prepared for the gospel! One of them is Sister Jackson. She is married to a less active member. She had never even heard of our church until she met him! Crazy! It is amazing to work with less active members. That's supposed to be our focus here in Charleston but with that, we are finding more investigators because the less actives have family members that are nonmembers. Anyway, Sister Jackson is so amazing! We were able to have a lesson without her husband there which was really good! We got to know her more than ever and we were able to find out that she really has a desire to believe it for herself. They read the Book of Mormon and she would love more than anything to be sealed to Bro. Jackson for eternity. But she wants to believe it for herself and not for him. We told her that that is excellent and that we can help her do just that. We are going over there later today. We are pretty excited! :)

 

Sister Shumway came out on an exchange with me and it was such a miracle of a day! We went and saw this lady named Sister Her. She was baptized about 4 or 5 years ago and moved to the ward a year ago. Her boyfriend is a nonmember and she has some kids who have not been baptized. It was halfway through the lesson before she realized that we were from the "Mormon" Church. Once she realized that, she was super excited! She didn't know where the church was at and so that's why she hasn't been coming! We also went and saw Sister Riley! Previously, she didn't want us coming over when Bro. Riley was home but now we can go over when he is home! Something has changed and so we are good to go now! :) Sister Shumway really followed the Spirit with her. It was amazing to see. I love Sister Shumway. She is so great!!!!!!!!!!

  

We had an amazing meeting this last Saturday! Elder Southward, our Area Seventy, was there and it just involved the stake that we are in. All of the members were invited. President and Sister Shumway came to do a presentation on "We Are One." They have been doing these meeting with the 9 different stakes in our mission and they've been going really well!! It is all about how the members and missionaries need to be one in purpose. It was such a good training for the members and how they can be better missionaries in their everyday lives! It even helped us missionaries to know how we can be member missionaries when we go home! I can't even begin to explain how good it was. I wish that this was happening all over the world! Every member of the church needs a meeting like that. We were sad that more people didn't come but it was an okay turnout. I LOVE MISSIONARY WORK!!!

  

Brother Lynch is another guy that we found. About a week and a half ago, we were looking for a less active member in some apartments and we didn't know which apartment it was. Bro. Lynch was walking by us so we asked him if he knew the guy and he said that he did and he would show us which apartment he lived in. As we were walking to it, we talked to him a little bit. His daughter was also with him. They were so nice! He had just had a stroke earlier in the week so we gave them a Plan of Salvation pamphlet and told them we'd stop by again. Well, on Saturday, we went by and he let us in and we were able to talk to him more about the church. It was funny because at the beginning, he said that he didn't go to church because he didn't like big groups of people that he didn't know. By the end of the lesson, he was practically begging us to come to church. He didn't have a ride so we arranged one and him and his daughter came to church yesterday! They loved it and want to come back again! Hopefully his son will come this next time. We are so excited to work with them more. They are solid investigators!

 

On Sunday night, we were up in a town called Lavaca. We were waiting to go to our dinner appointment. We still had about an hour and so we took out the ward list and went to go find some people. There was a name that stood out to us. It had a little note by it informing us that the Elders had not gone and seen her. They asked the neighbors about it but hadn't seen her. So we went to go find out if it was her. IT WAS!!! She was so excited to see us and she wants to come back to church! She went less active years ago because she wasn't married and so she felt out of place in a church that really focuses on the family. Well, now she's married and has a family so we invited her to come back to church! She got emotional as we talked about Jesus Christ and everything He does for us. We love her already. Her husband is a non-member so we are going to meet him soon hopefully and see if he is interested at all. Ah! I really can't say it enough that I love being a missionary. It is so exciting to find someone - even a less active member - who wants to come back to church. It is so rewarding to get to know people spiritually and testify to them of the love that God has for them. I love it!!!

 

Bro. Henry is still doing amazing! This week we challenged him to give away a copy of the Book of Mormon. There's not much more to say except for that he's grrrrrrrreat! We are so blessed to know him! :)

 

We had dinner with the Moore's on Sunday. Sister Moore, less active, has her nieces living with her and one of them, Megan, is over 8 and wants to get baptized. We started teaching her and hope that she'll be able to get baptized at the end of next month. They come to church every so often and since we've started going over there, they've come to church almost every week!

 

Sorry if this is all out of order and confusing. That's what my brain is like today!

 

Love you all!!

 

See you soon then!

 

Love, Sister Pahl