This week has been the best week in
Carthage so far! It all started off last Monday. We didn't have a
dinner appointment so we decided to go tracting in Carthage for the evening and
take dinner at 8:00. Early that day we had each chosen five streets that
stood out to us and then narrowed it down to ones that we had that were similar
and that felt like we needed to go to. We drove to the first street that
we had felt strongly about and it was non existent. Where it was supposed
to be, ended up being a corn field and there were no houses along that
road. So with a little bit of discouragement we offered up a prayer and
explained our situation and discouragement to Heavenly Father and then asked
for His guidance as to where we should try next. After the prayer we
pulled out the map again and the road that we felt like we should try next was
completely on opposite ends of the town. We went and luckily Carthage
is tiny so it only took us a few minutes to get to the opposite side. Once again the section of road that we wanted to try once again had no houses
on it. So we decided that we would try the homes on the surrounding
block. The first house we tried there was a woman who adopted two highly
handicapped children, and one of her kids will be going to a group home
near the end of the summer so she told us to come back in the fall. The
next house we went to there was a man mowing the lawn so we briefly talked to
him and his son is the one who lives in the house and he told us they were
inside. We went and knocked on the front door and Megan (who is engaged
to the man's son) was super nice and told us to come in. Just a
quick note we have never had someone allow us into their home while we have
been tracting! So it was a nice surprise! She is probably no
older than I am and has a 3 year old son named Riley. She grew up in
Quincy, IL has never heard of Joseph Smith or of the Book of Mormon! We
taught the entire first lesson and she was way excited about learning about the
gospel and has been looking for a church to attend, since she has only lived in
the area for 3 months. After meeting with Megan we continued to tract the
area and were allowed to come into another home! They were so kind
to us, devout Catholics and not interested in learning about our church, but
they love the missionaries and what they do, so we were able to share a brief
message with them and invite them to pageant. By this time it was past
8:00 so we could have gone back to our apartment for dinner hour, but we
decided to continue to knock on the rest of the doors. We came across
Chris who is probably in his early 20's and is very open to what we had to
say. Well we basically had the best evening ever on a p-day!
Tuesday was a typical day. We
had service at the city hall, taught a lesson to Carolyn during lunch, had
service at Montebellos Care Center where we paint the ladies fingernails.
Which the first week when we did this service I thought for sure I would
dread this every week, but it is actually a lot of fun! Especially since
the same ladies come each week, so they recognize us and we know which colors
to use. We visited with less active members of our ward during the
evening and when I got home I had received the package with the recipes and the
letter from Ben with the CTR ring in it! Thank you so much for putting
that together! I loved it!
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| Cool sunset from the other night. |
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| Elder and Sister Price from Shelley Idaho. They are going home this week. |
Wednesday we had Training for the Nauvoo Pageant and learned about what we would be doing there. Pageant starts tomorros so Nauvoo is getting way busy! It is exciting! My companions and I will be working pageant twice a week! After training we went and visited some more of the members in the Nauvoo area since we can't proselyte in Nauvoo. We stopped by one of the members homes and they were not there, but one of their friends was there and had us come in. Well it ended up being Kimberly Smith who is the great-great grandaughter of Joseph and Emma Smith who is a convert to the church and was in Nauvoo holding a few firesides telling her story about after the martydom of Joseph down to her conversion story. She was taught in the home of Merrill Osmond so she knows Travis. It was really neat to visit with her and she then gave each of us a CD that has songs that her and her son have recorded that tell the stories. That evening we had a lesson with Sarah and she has not had any coffee since last Friday! The lesson went great!
Thursday was awesome! The
weather was so wonderful and it was Independence Day! I went for a 3 mile
run that morning which was amazing. Nothing compared to the miles that you or
Justin are putting in right now. Anyways, we had a lesson with a member
who is being reactivated. After the lesson we went to the town square and
there were a lot of Fourth of July activities going on so we went around inviting
everyone to come to pageant! I loved it, because I was in a great mood
and the people were in a friendly mood! We then went back to our
apartment and held weekly planning. Afterwards we went and visited a
group of members and less actives that were having a picnic at the park.
We went over to another families home for dinner and fireworks, and then came
back to Carthage and visited another group of members who were watching the
fireworks as well.
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| Sister Thompson and Sister Call on the Fourth of July |
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| Fourth of July outfits. |
Friday we had Zone Conference in Ft.
Madison. We arrived early to do some last minute cleaning before car
inspections as well as to get our assignments for the nights we work
pageant. Zone conference started at 9:30 a.m. and it was with the Nauvoo
and Quincy Zones. The first thing we did was each meet President and
Sister Jensen! They are so great and full of smiles and love. I do
feel bad for them because literally one hour after the Jergensen's left the
mission home and so the Jensen's had taken over was when the car accident took
place. A car ran into the driver's side of the car, so the Elder that was
driving is the one that was life lighted and spent a week in the ICU, but is
now out of the ICU, but is dealing with major trauma and still cannot recognize
some of his family members. The Jensen's were literally thrown in as
mission president and wife immediately, but they have handled everything so
well! After we met the Jensen's each missionary shared his or her
testimony. The spirit was so strong at that meeting. We continued
with the meeting and had trainings and what not. I had an interview with
President after the meeting which was really neat to get to know him a little
bit better. On Saturday we helped out with a children's parade that took
place in the morning and that evening we had a lesson with Sarah. The
spirit was so strong because we threw out our lesson plans and helped her to
understand the scriptures that we had left her to read the previous time we
were there. She had read them at least twice and so we went through the
scriptures and helped break it down so she could understand them. At the
end of the lesson Sister Thompson invited Sarah to church for the following
day. Sarah sat and thought about it for a while and then said that she
would come!!!!!!!!!! The spirit is amazing and works miracles!
Well as always the following day we had curveballs trying to figure out rides
to church and how to prevent her from being overwhelmed by the large number of
visitors at church. Well she stayed the entire three hours of
church!!!!!!!!!
The gospel is true and works
miracles with people!
Love you all!
Sister Call
Sister Cox just barely got news that
her visa came and she will be flying out on the 15th. One week! It
is such a bitter sweet moment. We thought for sure she would be here for
at least 4-6 months. It will be so sad to see her go! I seriously love
her, but am so grateful that our paths have crossed and that we will both be
attending BYU-I when we get back! It will be interesting to see what
happens to our companionship and what changes will all happen in the next 7
weeks of my mission.
haha Oh so the water in Carthage isn't great so we have to get our water from the Family Search Center in Nauvoo. So this is the picture with me and the water jugs.
Sister Call
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