Laurel's Missionary Journey

Howdy Everyone! This week has been completely, as Sister Burton would say, wack-a-doo! So much has changed in just a short amount of time. I met my new companion- her name is Sister Kitchen. She is from Utah and she is very excited for the work and to be a missionary.She is also a fan of Dear Evan Hansen so we are pretty good friends already. Being a trainer is a very different challenge than I was expecting. There are lots of positives to it, like remembering a lot of the basic training I got when I was in the MTC, and revisiting a lot of fundamentals of missionary work. It's almost like in English class, when you feel like you know English and you speak it really well and then they start talking about grammar rules and you realize maybe you didn't understand English as well as you thought. BOOM that is what training is like. Sister Kitchen is doing really well though. In her very first lesson she set a Baptismal date with Shelia. Shelia is going to be baptized on March ...

Hello all of you lovely people! This week has been full of so many good things and so many hard things! But life is like that, so it is all good. :) Haley Burton had her baby! We got to go see little baby Christopher Mason this Wednesday, and he was absolutely adorable. He had fire-truck red hair, which was unexpected because his mom is African-American and his dad is a blond Caucasian. I wish I had my camera because I would have taken pictures! He was so cute though. We also started teaching an amazing lady named Shelia this week. She is from Brazil and speaks Portuguese, so if you are keeping track that means that I have now taught in English, Gaelic, Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, and Portuguese. Who says going state-side means you are going to only teach Americans?! She is amazing though. She got interested in the church because her father recently was baptized, and when he was his entire life changed. He became much happier and loving, and Shelia wanted that positive change for her ...

Everyone- It Snowed. In Florida.   Waking up and seeing snow on the palm trees is not something I ever expected! It was the equivalent of pigs flying. The members in the ward said they can only remember that happening three other times in their lives. I would have taken a picture of it, but I somehow misplaced my camera? I am going to find it though. Along with the weather having something impossible happen, we have seen a lot of impossible miracles this week! We has seven of our investigators come to church with us on Sunday, which is more than I have ever had on my mission so far. God truly is blessing us here in Fox Run! The Burton girls are doing amazing and getting ready for their baptism in just a little over a month. Their older sister Haley should be having a baby any moment now, so I am really excited to get to go over to their house and meet little Mason! As I missionary I am not allowed to hold any children, but I am so excited to see his little face. It is ama...

Friends, Family, Loved Ones <3, Happy December! This week has been an answer to many prayers. I wish I could write whole novels about this week, but right now I don't have the time for that. Maybe one day. ;) My entire mission, in fact, my entire life, I have struggled to feel like the Lord needs me for any specific reason. Since coming into the mission field, I have often felt like it wouldn't really matter if I was the missionary serving in this area or if someone else was here, because it is God who is doing all the work anyway. It wouldn't matter if I had never served a mission at all, because there would still have been missionaries in this area, and missionary work still would have been done. This week, I realized how wrong I was. A few weeks ago our recent convert, Sister Sadler, was telling us that one of her friends in her tailor park, Candice, was about to have a birthday. Sister Sadler wanted to make Candice a cherry cobbler, because that is her favori...

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! This week has been hard but good! We had zone conference on Tuesday, which is always the best. I saw Sister Burnham again! (She is my favorite!) and I got to be part of a special musical number with Elders Argyle, Hirz, Morgan, and Thomas. Elder Hirz was playing the piano, Elder Thomas was on the violin, and Elder Morgan, Elder Argyle and I were singing. The piece was "Savior, Redeemer of my Soul" and I loved it. The Spirit was there so strongly. Like my Mom says, the Spirit really speaks though music! We saw Sister Burton and her girls again and they are so cute! We changed their baptismal date to January 13th (my sister Jessica's birthday!) because the girls are struggling to remember all the commandments, like the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chasity. That is wonderful though, because we want them to be fully prepared for a lifetime of discipleship after they are baptized, so a few weeks later to help them be ready is not a sacrifice at al...