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!
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Sister Tayler Farr
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