Liberty week 19

March 14, 2013

Well.....Monticello is a lot different than Harlem! Mom you were right that the area is very poor, most of the town of Liberty is old and run down. But it certainly makes for interesting tracting!

Thursday we made phone calls to almost all the members trying to find people to go visit. Luckily we have an amazing relief society president who gave us a couple names. Then, we had the blessing of having the traveling sisters (The sister AP's :)) come stay with us for a couple days to help us. They made a map of our area, set up our furniture, and do some visits for us. We were SO grateful because we were running around crazy trying to do our grocery shopping and stuff so they were a huge help. Thursday night we were invited to a member's house for dinner. Their name is the Roberts and they are great. They have a cute little 14 month old named Skyler.

Friday we made more calls and met our branch president, President Fuller. He is awesome! He is a convert but his wife served a mission in Japan. I love their family already. We also visited brother vacarro, a member. He is from Italy and hard to understand. He also lives in a Ski resort so it was a little difficult to find his apartment. It took us 45 minutes and I felt so bad because I could hardly understand him and I'm sure he was frustrated. But we eventually found him and he was nice.

Saturday we went to go help the Relief Society President (her name is Lisa Banks. Sweet right?) and her husband, the ward mission leader, clean the church. After, sister banks came with us on some visits, one of which is an investigator. Luckily for us the elders passed on about three investigators to us so we already have a headstart in the area. Our appt went well, despite the fact that the investigator prefers spanish so I talked to her in spanish and translated for both sister barlow and sister banks...it was wierd but the spirit was there! Sister banks commented on how it's easier to understand spanish when the spirit is there. I definitely can attest to that! This investigator, Eliana, is from Columbia (I think) and has been investigating for 11 years! She needs to be baptized! It really makes me wonder how someone can investigate for 11 years and not be baptized. She had a bap date for the 29 of Dec but never went to church so she couldn't get baptized. I asked her again if she would like to set up another date to be baptized and she said yes. But then she didn't come to church on Sunday because she said she was sick...one of the hardest things for me is knowing how to help people have the desire to go to church. It's hard!

Saturday night we went to go visit the Pyram family. The branch president warned us she has a 2-3 hour long story of her life and if we ask the wrong questions we'll be stuck there listening to her. When we went to go visit her we didn't realize it was the same lady so we started talking about her life and she said she used to be a protestant preacher in Alabama. (Willie is going to be getting a lot of people like this so be prepared.) I said "Oh you used to be a preacher?" Wrong question. We spent the next 2.5 hours listening to her story. Which was actually REALLY awesome and inspiring! It was just a long time to be at someone's house. She raised her granddaughters and has a FIRM testimony of the church. Maybe someday I'll tell you the story but right now I don't have time to write it all down.

Sunday we went to church! The building (cute little chapel!) is out in monticello and we are in liberty so it's about a 15 minute drive. We have brother vacarro from Italy, sister pyram from alabama,  the mulholland family (6 kids ages 7-0) from Trinidad, and others. The ward members are so loving and I was able to play the piano for singing time in primary. The kids are so cute!

Also Sunday night we went tracting and when we stepped out of our car we saw these kids walking down the road so we stopped to talk to them. When we first met them it looked to me like a family with an older sister and 3 younger brothers. We introduced ourselves and asked if they knew anyone who would like a message about Jesus Christ. The oldest girl, Lakera, said "Yes actually my mom would!" (we assumed she lived with her mom in Liberty) so we got her moms info and said we would go visit her. But when we put the address in the GPS it didn't come up. And the phone number she gave us didn't work...so we were way sad. But while we were doing this we saw them walking back so we kinda followed them. And saw them walk into an apartment complex so we decided to follow them! We found their apartment and her "little brother" answered the door. It actually turned out to be her friend but she totes dresses in boys clothes so it was wierd. Anyway, they were willing to let us come in and talk to them! so they did and the friend who dresses in boys clothes said she's studied alot about different religions but she doesn't know which one is right! And she is scared to ask a preacher because she knows they will say "mine!" so anyway yeah we got a return appt with them! And Lakera told us that when she first saw us she thought, "I want my daughter to be like them!" Lakera is 20 and has a 4 year old. they live there and their mom actually lives in Monticello, so that's why we were confused with the address. So hopefully (crossing my fingers!) we can go back and teach them on saturday. We gave them a book of mormon and told them to pray about which church is right.

The next day right after we saw lakera we met another lady outside her house. Her name is Elizabeth and we just stopped to talk to her and shared a pamphlet of the plan of salvation and asked if we could come by later. So we have an appt with her tomorrow! I'm crossing my fingers that she is there. It makes me sad when I get my hopes up only to have them crushed. (story of the mission life :(( We also found a lady named Ana who speaks spanish and said we could come back too.

Monday we had district meeting and we talked about different ways of contacting and it was awesome because we tried it later and it worked!!!!! I forgot to tell you that we have super awesome senior missionaries named the Longs who went through the ward list before we got here and found some people for us to teach. So monday we had a lesson with Gary Carrington (brother of a less active) and it was sooooo good! The spirit was really strong and he seems really sincere. He said that he'll be baptized when he knows the truth for himself. So that was exciting!

Also monday we went tracting right by our apartment and had a GREAT experience! We tried some of the things that were suggested during district meeting. What we do when we tract is

Formula for MIRACLES :) (Willie do this when you get out to north carolina)

1) introduce ourselves

2) Say"we don't have too much time but we'd like to share a pamphlet with you and leave a blessing on your house."

3) do that and say the prayer and get a return appt!

4) watch peoples hearts soften and see miracles happen!

It was so awesome and we were able to have 9 lessons and get 3 return appts. One of which is with a family that has 8 kids! Also at one of the houses the guy came out and started talking to us because he had never heard of the message of the restoration. We explained it to him and he was really nice. He also gave us a couple people to visit! One was his next door neighbor who is from Uruguay so that was sweet. I never thought I would say I look forward to finding spanish people. It's amazing how much spanish I can speak now and I know it's only cuz the lord is helping me!

We found another guy but couldn't go in because he was home alone. He was really nice and emphasized that he is greek orthodox but we sat and talked to him for about 45 minutes. He gave us hot chocolate and kept asking us if we were going to give his info away or print our conversation in the newspaper. It was really funny. I guess people don't believe there actually is nice people in the world who will sit and talk to you for a while and not expect anything of it. That's why I love being a missionary because we can do stuff like that! :) :)

Yesterday was realllly rough. It rained ALL DAY. That meant no tracting and we didn't really have any appts set up except for one with a member and another investigator except when we got to her house she was sick so we couldn't teach her. After that we went through the whole ward list and called every less active we could find. We finally found a lady to go visit. We went to her house and I told sister barlow "I hope she doesn't smoke because I already have a headache." We went and lets just say her house really smelled like smoke and I've never had anyone be so rude to me before. Poor lady. She must have had a hard life. We talked to the elders after and said we went to go visit her and they laughed and said "yep don't go visit her!" Shoulda told us that before!

Anyway, I've been praying ALOT because opening a new area is not easy especially training and trying to help a new companion learn how to teach and help her learn spanish at the same time even though we hardly speak spanish to the people we visit. Pray we can find spanish people! We keep hearing that there is a lot of spanish people in Liberty, so we just have to find them. I've been a little discouraged because our ward is so spread out and our area is so huge and we only have a limited amount of miles for our car. So much to worry abotu all at once! But I've been praying really hard and I know that Heavenly Father knows I can do it or he wouldn't have called me here in the first place. He must see something in me I don't see yet :) I'm sure I'll learn a lot these next couple cycles! Please pray for me always!

Also we are trying to find ideas to help our small little branch become excited about missionary work. Any ideas??

Thank you for all your prayers, letters, and thoughts! You are all wonderful!

Mucho amor!

Hermana Richardson

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