Laurel's Missionary Journey

Hey All!! I think it is safe to say that getting transferred to TCC is the best thing that has ever happened to me. The amount of joy I feel serving here is something that I could not begin to explain. The constant teaching and testifying to people that I can relate with well is what I always envisioned missionary work to be like. Here, at almost 14 months into my mission, I am finally becoming the missionary I have always wanted to be. To give you an idea of how campus work goes, we found 20 new investigators this week, and we weren't even on campus on Tuesday! Friday was really slow as well, because it is summer semester and no one wants to take Friday classes. So on Friday we walked around for 2 hours and found 4 people to talk to. But we talked to them all! We made a video that I'll show y'all one day.  This week has been a busy one. Tuesday was zone conference. and that was really wonderful. We had to do an impromptu role-play for the wife of the First Counse...

MY WHOLE LIFE IS SO DIFFERENT. Being a full-time missionary on a college campus is nothing like anything else I have ever experienced before! I had done booth work on UWF before, but working on TCC is a completely different ball-game. AND I LOVE IT. On campus, there are new people to talk to every couple steps. At first that terrified me. I thought it was going to be so scary to see all those people and have to talk to them and have them be my own age! But it has been the most incredible experience of my whole mission. On my first day in this area, I was able to give out 4 copies of the Book of Mormon and we found 3 new investigators. This also happened in the brief hour we had between appointments, because there is so much work to do! We have two investigators working towards baptism, and we meet so many people and testify so much. I have never worked this hard in my life, but I have also never felt this fulfilled as a missionary. I know that every single moment of every single day I ...

Howdy all! I don't think I could ever correctly describe the joy that I felt yesterday. It might be really sappy, but it is true. With the difficulty of the past few weeks (from a general lack of progression with the people we are teaching to emotional stressors galore) I think it was safe to say that I had become discouraged. I was feeling as though my mission was useless, and maybe I should never have come in the first place. I had been praying about this issue for a while, and though I wasn't receiving any answers I had hope that I would. That answer came to me in the form of my best friend/favorite human on the PLANET, Autumn. Which is usually how my answers seem to come. <3 This past week was Stake Conference, and so all the congregations in our area met together for one large meeting. That means that the Pace and the Fox Run wards were both under one roof. I cannot describe how wonderful it is to have all the people you love most in the world in the same place. I was r...

Hey Everyone! This week has been full of emotional ups and one major down. To briefly mention the down, almost every person that we were working with dropped us this week. So we have no one left to teach that is progressing closer to Jesus Christ. It is a little scary, but we are going to press forward and keep working regardless! I've done this before and I will do it many more times before I am through. It just means we have the chance to find the people who are interested in the Gospel! As this trial has come our way, the Lord has also blessed us immensely. This Sunday, Brother Tom received the priesthood and was ordained to the office of a priest. He will be able to help bless and pass the sacrament soon, and he has received the calling to teach the 8-9 year olds in the primary. He is very excited about it because he loves kids. He is slowly become the whole ward's Grandpa, not just ours! It's an incredible thing to witness. He is such a great man, and I have so much to...