Laurel's Missionary Journey

Hey All! This week has been pretty unexciting, except for two investigators we are really happy for! One of them, Keith, is the man I talked about in my last email that we met on the side of the highway. We had another lesson with him and he has decided to be baptized in December! He even attended the baptism of a little 8 year old girl in the ward here, Autumn Finnell. He actually met Brother Finnell the day before at target, so you never know how the Lord is preparing his children. Another lady we are so excited for is a woman named Diane, who just started coming to church a few weeks ago. She even asked us for a Book of Mormon and scheduled an appointment to meet with us! I cannot stress how little this happens. Her best friend is a member of one of the neighboring wards, but has been coming to church with us because Diane lives in this ward's boundaries. Besides that, things are going well. The Burton girls are excited for their baptism and zone conference is tomorrow, which we...

Hello Everyone!! This past week was so crazy! It was my 6 month mark, which means I am officially 1/3 of the way through my mission. It is so insane how quickly time has flown. We did nothing for my 6 month mark except missionary work, which was exactly how it should be. Bad news, unfortunately we had to stop teaching Austin. He told his family that he was going to be baptized into the church, and they got very upset and told him that as long as they were paying for his school, he would be the religion they picked for him. He told us that he is still going to read the Book of Mormon, and in 2 years when he can start paying for his own school he will be baptized. He still comes up and says hi to us whenever we see him on campus too. On Saturday we did some service for a lady in our ward named Sister Gray. She is incredibly faith-filled, and she converted to the church in the 70s. She was raised very southern baptist, and while we were doing service for her in her lawn she told us about ...

I am running out of ideas for subject lines... sorry folks! Anyway, this week has been wonderful. There have been a lot of miracles that have happened, and even though we had almost no scheduled appointments the entire week, we still got a lot of work done. On Monday we were out talking to people and every person we talked to was not at all interested. We were headed home for the day, feeling a bit dejected and run-down with all the rejection and heartache, and right outside our apartment complex we met a man named Jason who accepted a Book of Mormon and wanted to learn more! We had a lesson with him this morning, and he is so sincere about wanting to come closer to Christ! He told us that he has an aunt that is a Mormon, and he has been going to church after church after church trying to find the right one. Imagine his face as we told him about Joseph Smith's experience! Tuesday was Halloween and we had no appointments or anything because it was a holiday and everyone was busy...

This week has been a crazy one! (Just like all of them- lol) Firstly we had spaghetti four times this week and four different member's homes and they all sent leftovers home with us. I don't know if I am ever going to want spaghetti again. Or garlic bread. Which is not something I ever thought I was going to say. On Wednesday night we went over to the Sellers for dinner, and Sister Sellers' son-in-law, Brpther Vought, let us sit in the back of his police car! It was so fun, and he showed us a little bit about how his equipment works. He cut off some "police line" tape for each of us, which was very entertaining. (See the pictures below!) On Friday we were going to a neighborhood to try some less-active members in the area. While we were there we saw a house that was SO decorated for Halloween, it was amazing! Sister Adams said that we needed to go knock on that door, so we did. The lady that opened it, Jennifer, was so nice! She was interested to hear our message ...

Buckle up friends, this is a weird/wonderful one! This week has been so blessed! We are excited because Sister Burton's girls are getting really pumped for their baptism on November 18th. They are so cute and sweet and everytime we go over there they just light up and hug us! The little girl Avry, is five, and during one of our lessons we asked her how she could show God that she wants to follow Him and she said "By letting the girl Mormons come to your house!" It was so sweet and made Sister Burton, Sister Adams, and I all laugh. On Tuesday one of the members of our ward, Sister McArthur, came out and did work with us for over 6 hours, and we saw so many miracles! We visited so many people in the ward and we were able to visit a part-member less-active family, and nonmember is actually interested in meeting with is and learning more about the church! We are also going to have the opportunity to go and do service for them, hopefully this Saturday. A few weeks ago while we...

Hello Friends and Family and Loved ones! This week has been kind of slow. We have been trying to focus on finding new people to teach and working with less-active members in the Ward, but we haven't had much luck so far. We will continue to press forward though! We have faith that the Lord is preparing people to hear the message of His restored truths! This past Tuesday was Zone Conference, which was really fun. I saw Sister Burnham again and she is basically my favorite, and I voluntarily got a flu shot, which I never ever thought I would do. I think it had a lot to do with my Mission President's wife asking me to. It was very spiritual as well, and we were able to make a few goals for how we can improve the work in the Fox Run Ward!  We did a lot of walking this week because biking is starting to get very tiring... (we have been doing it almost every day the past two months!) and we got caught in a sudden torrential Florida Storm. This happened on a day that both...

Hey Y'all! This week has been beyond blessed. There are so many things to talk about I don't even know where to start! First of all, Elder Calvin lied to us. He said he was going to be staying in Fox Run but he actually got transferred! It was a little sad to see him go. When your district is two companionship who share the same area and you see/work with them almost everyday, you get pretty close. Plus, Elder Calvin came out at the same time as me. But he will do great things in his new area, and we have Elder Morgan now in Fox Run, and he just came here from serving in Troy at a college campus, which is so cool because we are trying to get work started up at UWF campus. Now both championships have someone in them with real-life college experience (Elder Hirz and I) and missionary college experience (Sister Adams and Elder Morgan). The beginning of the week was pretty slow. We were struggling to set appointments, and no one we tried contacting was very interested. There ...