Hey Y'all,
Another week gone and we are almost
done with January! I can't believe at the time! Its going to fast! We are
already on week 6 of the transfer so next letter will bring transfer news.
Soundly though we found out that the transfer meeting mission world wide are
not doing transfer meetings anymore so I will found out about my area if I get
transferred and my new companion all at the same time. I am hoping and praying
that I stay even though I feel like I don't know Dunn very well as I may hope
but we will have to see what President decides!
Monday was great! We went to get our
hair cut. I just got it trimmed and got my eyebrows waxed and sister Beard got
her hair colored and cut. It was nice to get all of it for free from a less
active. Before we left she curled our hair and it was so fun! She wants to
feed us soon. I can see this relationship started and hopefully we can help her
get to church.
Tuesday we had Zone Conference and had
a great conference on teaching the Plan of Salvation using the Bible since we
are here in the south of the Bible Belt. We applied it to a lesson but it
didn't go to well, but we plan to study for it more and will continue to us it. Sadly since it was conference we had exiting testimonies and a lot of great
missionaries are going home. A lot are close friends I met when I first came
out. Everybody told me that when your friends start going home then you
better not blink cause then it will be your turn. Not sure I like that idea
that really scares me!!!
Wednesday and Thursday was a hard day
for me! I just keep having those ideas that Sister Beard is leaving and that I
will taking over the area. Again I have been paranoid and it resulted in my
breaking out in Hives!!! Yeah! not fun! WE thought it may be bed bugs because
sister Beard thought she had it to because she had marks and was itchy. We have
an investigator with them but we just haven't been in there house. We got
paranoid to and washed and did a big clean to be safe. It helped but I got more
hives. I couldn't stop them from coming and so when we went to dinner with our
Ward mission leaders brother we went to our ward mission leaders house to get
medicine and she gave me Zyrtec and Benadryl. I told Brother Knight about what
I have been feeling and he gave me a great blessing. He said something that
really sound out that I wanted to share. He said that the Lord calls the Weak
and simple and sometimes its at our weakest points he uses all that we have we
just have to keep going and push through. I have seen a lot of that this week.
When I feel like I am getting stressed and worried or just ready to throw in
the towel I have been saying ok what can the Lord use me in this situation
or what can I give to the work and continue to serve him with all my heart,
might, mind and strength. Having Zone Conference and stake conference yesterday
has helped me to restart myself and rededicate my efforts.
Friday was a pretty hard day! We
had spent most of our morning role playing for a lesson with our Baptist
investigator who has been trying to bible bash with us in the past. They
requested us to teach the Plan of Salvation and so we decided to us President
James outline and use some of the scriptures. We had a great practice and knew
where we wanted to go with it. Then when we did the real thing it was horrible.
We didn't even get past the Creation. She didn't like the fact that God put
Adams Spirit into him if we existed before. She didn't like the fact that we
even lived before this time on earth. I will honestly say I felt bad for her
and I also was getting frustrated. I must have been showing it cause sister Beard
would bump me every so often very lightly. We tried to even explain that we
believe in the Godhead where Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the spirit are
all completely separate beings but work together in unity. She wouldn't let us
move on from there either because we must have simply believed in a different
God. She said a lot of hurtful things and we just simply closed and said that
we love coming and sharing what we know and grateful for her strong faith and
that all our job as missionaries are to bring people unto Christ and only add
to what they may already know to be true. We pretty much will not being coming
back for a while. She wasn't happy with us. But I was holding in emotions and
hurtful thoughts all the way through the prayer. Once we got in the car and got
away from the house I just lost it. I cried beautiful alligator tears! No joke!
I really couldn't help it. We pulled over in a church parking lot and just
talked. She is not ready to accept the gospel. At this point we needed to use this
hard lesson as a learning opportunity. Yes it was hard and a lot of hurtful
things were said and I was ready to shake her and make her understand but I
learned for myself truly how much this gospel means to me! I was so ready to
defend what she was denying and trying to prove wrong that I was ready to yell
and make it worse. I knew that the spirit was pushed away and I may have been
to blame but I know that this was not a loss. It was an experience that I
needed. With all that I have been feeling the doubt and the unknown of certain
things I learned for myself and saw how much I have learned! I would have not a
year ago been able to defend and testify with pure knowledge of what I knew to
be true. I know where I stand and why we are only to invite others to come unto
Christ! We started off great and the spirit was there but our natural mans got
in the way! We did not get contentious but it could have gotten. The spirit told
us to leave and we did. It was hard to have to stop seeing her and her family! She
had even told us that she loves that we have the priesthood that can seal
families and that believe in the atonement. But she couldn't see the reason for
the idea that we existed before this life! I am grateful for all that this
Gospel brings to us all and I am glad that I know what I know! I love this
Gospel! I know this Church is true! I know my savior and Heavenly Father love
me!
The week got better
though on Saturday we were able to bring our most elect investigator to Clinton
to the Elders in our District's baptism for the investigator. It was a great
chance to be there with her and see her excitement. One of the Elders sang a
beautiful solo and when we left she asked if we would sing at her
baptism!!!!
😀 It was a really
great baptism! She had a great time and she said that she doesn't want to wait
but she is waiting for the one who brought her to the church to baptize her in
April when he gets back from Arizona! I know she is strong and that she won't
fall away during that time, but that we will just have to watch for nerves. I
just hope I will be able to be here for it! We had dinner with our recent
Convert ( the man in the picture I sent earlier) We had dinner again at Cracker
barrel like we do every Saturday and taught him about the Priesthood preparing
him for it soon! He is nervous but he getting there! We are excited for him! I
love him and he is a great man who wants to do good and wants to be ready for
it! I love seeing the desire and drive that come from Recent Converts!
Sunday we had Stake Conference
and heard talks from Elder Clayton, Elder Rasbund, and Elder Hales and Sister
Reeves! They were all great. A lot about temples. We want to apply helping our
investigators to make a goal for the temple just as we do with their baptism.
We had a lesson with our investigator who is the family with 6 kids. We taught
the Plan of Salvation and they just ate it up. We got the older kids to help us
draw the outline. It was great! We found out that they are not married. Which
they felt made it impossible to come to church. We told them they are welcome
whenever. We also invited the older two girls to activity day girls. We invited
them to be baptized! They said yes when they felt that the church and the things
we are teaching are true!
We had a great week and had some
wonderful and great experiences! I know that I have been too hard on myself and
I will be fine if I take over the area! I want to stay and I have wanted to stay
in every area I have been! I sometimes hate how much love I have and how loving
I am and how I just give myself to people and then I have to leave them! I know
though that I have this gift from God because really they need this love from
me. I learned to have this love because of this Gospel and because of my family
but after this week I know that everyone wants this kind of love! We all want
love and especially from our Heavenly Father! I love you all and I hope this
week you can feel of the love God has for you!
--
Sister Tayler Farr
Monday we went to Clinton to have a district
P-Day! It was great! We played a game called Dot to Dot! I am totally playing
that with my family! Its a work out but so fun. You make an obstacle course in
the gym but have random items set up like we had a table on its side. The
chair rack out and other big items. Whoever is "IT" makes the course
and each dot. It is dark with little light then when they count we try to do the
course but when he is finished counting we have to hit. If they get you you
have to start over. It was so fun but it was hard. After our fun day we went to
Fayetteville to exchange with the Lumberton Sisters. I stayed in Dunn this time
and Sister Beard went to Lumberton! I am proud to say that I survived my
exchange! I had a blast with Sister Higgins.
Wednesday we had district meeting and it was
great! We all got to share stories about an experience that has shaped our
testimonies and I of course shared my life story of having a Brain Injury
pretty much all I shared in my Farewell talk. We then talked about how we need
to allow those we teach also have these experiences. It was great and fit well
with what we listened to on the World wide Missionary Broadcast! It was great
broadcast although it would lose connection and some things we missed but other
than that it was what I needed to hear. A lot about missionary work I have
slacked off and on and not really tried to work harder in. We were told by Elder
Oaks that we are to "cry repentance." Elder Bednar held a great
discussion with missionaries about how we need the spirit but we are to help
them recognize themselves and not point it out to them. We are going to apply
just that. We know we have the spirit but sometimes we say "you are
feeling the spirit." That is good but we need to let them figure it out
for themselves. We talked about how we can find through Less actives and
Members. We saw the difference between getting people to teach from members
from our own effort and how the ones from members are most likely to be
baptized. It was a big difference. I have definitely seen this to be true!
Members are a great help in the work!
