Wednesday we got to teach our cute friend Beverley! She is an older lady & her health is awful. When she feels up to it though she loves having us over. She is very very chatty though and it's really hard to relate what she's telling us into the lesson! I was looking at the pictures on her drawer and I noticed there was a picture of Mitt Romney with her family. She told us she LOVES Mitt Romney and that when he's in town he always comes to visit her & she makes him her famous fried chicken. My companion and I were shocked!! We told her that Mitt Romeny was a member of our church and she couldn't believe it. It was so random I have no idea how she knows Mitt Romney. She had no idea he was a member. I'm mad at Mitt Romney he should have given her a BOM!!!  Beverly told us that everytime we leave her house her house feels so peaceful for a long time after. So sweet. She seriously has nothing but she baked for us! I felt so bad I didn't want to take anything from her but she made us some yummy cornbread and squash. Her daughter turned to hard drugs & had a drug baby so Beverly is 70 years old, can hardly take care of herself & has to take care of her grandson. Her grandson came up to me and gave me a big fat wet kiss on my face haha

We had more lessons with Steve! (Snoop dog) He is very elect and loves learning about our religion. Hes been meeting with missionaries for a while so weve started to talk about deeper stuff, like patriarchs & Joseph Smith history. He started confessing to us things he had done in his past. He told us before he went to prison he was in a gang. He said someone was going to snitch and try to take his boss to court so Steve was sent to kill the guy. His boss gave Steve the gun and told him he was the one who needed to kill him. Steve found him and said "he felt the holy spirit" tell him he shouldn't kill him, but threaten him instead. He told us it worked and that the guy never snitched. I had noooo idea what to say to him so I said: "Wow Steve that's awesome you chose to be a peacemaker that's something Christ would have done" I HAVE NO IDEA WHY I SAID THAT HAHAHA I think I just got scared. I also noticed he has a black tear drop tattooed under is eye... if I remember right doesn't that mean you've killed someone? Anyways Steve is really cool besides all of the scary stuff... I invited him to come to church March 10th to hear my companion sing! I'm kinda nervous that he's coming to church if he's actually killed someone. Prison was good for him though and he sounds like he's trying to change his life around! 

We got back in touch with our friend Fabe !! He's our friend who was progressing SO well then we lost contact with him for a couple of days. We were so nervous and we prayed for him every night because we both had a really good feeling about him. We had a lesson with him over the phone and it was SO good. He told us he posted on his Facebook that he was meeting with us and that we shared a special message. He told us all of his comments about us were negative and made fun of the "holy underwear." He told us it made him so mad how much hate we were getting because these friends of his preach at church to love one another and follow Christ but then they make fun of these two young missionaries who are trying to teach the same thing. Everytime we have a lesson with him it's the most I've ever felt the spirit. We taught him the restoration and it went so well. I taught him about prophets & asked him why he thought God called prophets throughout time. He told us he believes God calls regular people to speak for him, and that he could even call a simple farm boy. My companion & I looked at each other and were SHOCKED!! I taught him all about Jospeh Smith and I asked him to pray to know if what we were teaching is true. I said our closing prayer & I've never said a prayer like it before. I didn't even know what I was saying the words were just rolling out of my mouth. It was the best prayer I've ever heard & I was so guided by the Spirit it was so cool. Fabe told me that the prayer was so deep and it made him shed a tear. He asked us to call him again the next day. He's from Collierville but is in Louisanna right now for a work trip for a couple weeks. I wish we could meet with him in person but the over the phone lessons have been so amazing. 

Last week I got so fed up with not finding anyone. It was my turn to plan our day on Thursday and I put 4 or 5 hours into our schedule to knock doors. My companion tried to tell me knocking doors doesn't work in Collierville but I told her we needed to switch something up. We knocked doors and had so many meaningful contacts and now have two lessons set up for this week! I think my companion really needed me to give her that push. She told me that her last two companions hated knocking (lazy missionaries) so she just got in the habit of never doing it. She also told me that the Elders have already knocked every house in Collierville but I told her we are knocking again. Knocking today gave us both an extra boost of motivation because we were both kind of down that the work wasn't progressing here. I was SO scared of knocking at first but now I think it's kind of fun, you never know what kind of person is going to come to the door haha.

We found this Hispanic lady named Jessica knocking. She can only understand a little English so we told her we would come back with a member who could speak Spanish.  We couldn't find anyone so we asked Spanish sisters to come translate for us. She lived in apartment #539 and I knocked on the door and a different Hispanic lady answered. She told us she didn't know a jessica and that there was two #539 apartments in their complex.  The Spanish sisters talked to her anyway and invited her to church and she's coming! Good thing I knocked on the wrong door haha. On our way over to Jessica's 2 Hispanic men stopped us and asked us who we are. The Spanish sisters invited them to church and they were super interested! I think people are impressed with white girls who can speak perfect Spanish. It was crazy it was just right after another my companion and I were like why doesn't this happen to us? Then the Spanish sisters had an amazing lesson with Jessica & her friend. They absolutely loved us and made us yummy tres leches cake. They loved the lesson and will for sure end up getting baptized. It was supposed to be our lesson but the Spanish sisters took over because it was easier. My comp and I couldn't understand anything. We sent Jessica over to them. The Spanish sisters were so thankful for us because we basically just found them 5 new people to teach in 1 hour. 

Also while we were knocking in the ghetto this guy was sitting on his porch smoking a cigarette blasting rap music. He yelled at us to come over. He shook my hand & said "they call me Snow". He said "teach me something". I was so scared of him at first but he ended up being super nice. We taught him about the Book of Mormon and gave him one! He told us he would read the entire thing by the time we came back. We walked away and I looked back and he had already started reading it. He probably went through 2 packs of cigarettes while we were talking so who knows how far we will get with him 

All the Elders that serve in Memphis have huge jars of bullets that they collect. They have a competition to see who can collect the most haha innercity sounds fun to serve in I wish they sent Sisters there! 

We got our friend Eli (21 year old) newish convert to come to church! None of the members wanted to give him a ride because he's pretty weird.. he sat with us at church and kept doing a cross across his chest then kissing his finger & pointing at the sky. It was so funny we were trying not to laugh. Then my companion got really sad during one of the talks because the topic was eternal families & it was touching for her because of her mom. Eli looked over at me and said pretty loudly "Sister Reeves I think your companion needs to be comforted" it was sooooo funny hahaha. He's a weird kid he told us he has short term memory loss & maybe some asburgers.

There's a new rule in the wards that if any of the young women want to go to the bathroom they need to have a buddy. If any of the women leave sacrament meeting to go to the bathroom a preistood holder has to follow them and make sure nothing happens. They implemented this rule because Tarlisha (one of our old friends who we had to stop teaching) would bring her sons to church and they were being weird towards the young women. 

Anywaysss

I love u all !  

The beginning of the week was pretty slow- my comp was taking it easy getting back on her feet. Wednesday she was finally feeling up to getting out of the house! We went and knocked on some doors that day! We don't do a ton of knocking in this area, we never have the best of luck. We knocked on this one lady's door and we asked if we could share a scripture with her. We shared the scripture then right after she said "Do yall know what BIBLE stands for? Basic Intructions Before Leaving Earth" then she shut the door. That was her way of telling us she knows what Bible stands for so she's all set haha.

We had a lesson over the phone with a guy named Matthew. We asked if we could start off the lesson with a prayer and before we could say amen he said "Well from the calculations in my head from hearing your prayer I would say you are some decendant of Christianity." (In the most know it all nerdy voice ever) We could tell he doesn't want to grow spiritually, but intellectually. He told us he is a Discordian and believes in the Greek Goddess of chaos. It was the weirdest lesson ever he definitely plays Dungeons and Dragons. We told him we could sit here all day and tell him what we believe in but it would mean nothing if he didn't pray and ask for himself. Then right then and there he prayed!! On the phone!! Instead of addressing the prayer to Heavenly Father he prayed to Yahway whoever that is lol. He asked Yahway if the things we were telling him are true. He downloaded the Book of Mormon app & has been reading it. He's a very interesting guy... he also believes Jesus was just a man not Christ. He was very understanding of everything we were telling him but he was throwing out Bible terms and history that I've never even heard of before. He's actually so annoying but he wants to keep meeting with us again.

I hate all the phone call lessons. People want to hear our message and meet with us but they want to hide behind a screen! A lesson over the phone just isn't the same.

We've been doing alot of Facebook work this week! Most missionaries hate the idea of Facebook and messaging random people and I was totally against it as well. Since my companions been down I've been doing alot of contacting on Facebook! Most of the time I get left on read, but recently I have had SO much success! It's cool to see how the Spirit can guide you with who to message and what to say to them.

We drove to one of our outer areas Saturday to Summerville, it's about an hour away from us. We only have the miles to go maybe once a month. It's hard to knock doors over there and say "Hey come to our church it's only an hour away!" & most people out there don't have cars. We went and visited a couple of people who used to be taught. We told our friend Nathainal (who we had been having phone lessons with because he lives so far) that we would stop by and bring him a Book of Mormon because he really wanted one and he didn't have a phone that could download the app. When we got to his house we realized we didn't put more BOMs in our car. We were so upset. We meant to put more in our car before we left but we got so busy we forgot. We had a couple of pamphlets in our car & we were so bummed we forgot. I decided to say a prayer that we would be able to use the resources we have to help Nathainal. We got out of the car and I looked in the back for a jacket and I saw a Book of Mormon under the jacket!! We were SO happy and we were able to give it to Nathainal. We read some of it with him and he's excited to read more of it on his own. He was the sweetest old man. The neighborhood he lives in was sooo sketchy tho. After this we decided to go knock doors at this sketchy apartment. The whole place smelled like weed. We knocked on this one door and the lady yelled " come in" & we said "we are the missionarys!" then she went silent and never came to the door. We should have just walked in 

The missionaries before us used to host a ward "game night" where they play pickleball and board games Saturday nights. My companion and I decided to start it up again. I baked cookies and we went early to set up. We texted all the members in the ward. 1 person showed up. This sweet mom came by herself so embarrassing we are never hosting anything again haha

Sunday I spoke, following me two new converts spoke about their experience joining the church and how the missionaries helped, then my companion spoke. It was a powerful sacrament meeting I cried the whole time. The lady that spoke after me said she joined the church at 24, and her dad had warned everyone in their family to stay away from the Mormons and whoever joined the church would be disowned from the family. She started meeting with the missionaries in private because she LOVED the plan of salvation. She ended up getting baptized and she told her family. Her dad said "Well we don't have a daughter anymore" and she went a year with no family. Her dad got really really sick and decided to have her over for Thanksgiving but wouldn't speak to her. Eventually on his death bed he told her he was sorry for everything, and that he wishes he would of listened to the missionaries that came by. He asked his daughter to get his temple work done for him. It was the saddest story I'd ever heard but it was so so good. Brother Scott spoke next, he was the new convert that came to the temple with us (who had an awful experience). I don't know why they asked him to speak he had no idea what he was doing. He didn't know if he was supposed to sit on the stand or anything. He didn't have anything prepared. He was SO scared. I feel awful they should have a rule where new converts don't have to speak!! The Bishop shook our hands after the sacrament meeting with tears in his eyes it was so sweet

A boy moved into our area who was just recently baptized. He's a 21 year old boy and I think he might have a little autism. We researched his history and he hasn't come to church in forever & hasn't done any of the new member lessons. The elders that baptized him made a note on his records that "he's a ladies man and killer with the ladies" haha. He told us we can come by tomorrow, but he wants to keep it a secret. He doesn't want his fiance to know about it. He also wants to see us in person to see if we are pretty.......

 Update! We had a lesson with him. We are SO mad that the Elders baptized him. They just did it to say they had a baptism. He has zero understanding of anything. He had no idea what a prophet was & has never heard of the Plan of Salvation. We are re teaching him everything & hes coming to church Sunday. We've had to pick up alot of the Elders pieces. Anyways he was a weird kid, he told me he's in Cobra Kai and he wants us to come to his tournament on Saturday because he is fighting Daniel Larusso. I was trying so hard not to laugh. He also showed us some of his moves. 

I love & miss you all. I hit two months and this has been the longest two months of my life haha. I hope it just gets faster from here. 16 more to go...

Thursday we were able to go to the temple with a new convert in our ward, Curtis! It was his first time and he had all of his family names ready. His brother was a member of the church and always tried to get Curtis to read the Book of Mormon. He passed away of cancer and after he died Curtis decided to explore the church his brother was apart of. It was super cool because Thursday was his brothers 28th birthday and Curtis told us his brother would be so happy because he always wanted Curtis to go to the temple. He also got to baptize for the first time!! He baptized me and he was so proud and happy.

We also invited another newish convert to come do baptisms as well. He's an older man & we asked him if he's ever done baptisms before. He said "I've tried" and we weren't sure what that meant. We quickly figured out what that meant in the font later haha he had zero mobility and could not bend back to be baptized. We had 2 different priesthood holders try. He would not go down!! He was fighting it but when we kept asking him if he wanted to stop he said no. The person baptizing him seriously had to shove him down it looked so painful. I hope he had a good experience  Anyways we found out later that he has a huge fear of drowning and we felt SO bad. It seriously looked like he was being drowned he would not go under.

Friday my comp got surgery! I was in the hospital all day long it was awful. The doctors gave me a huge long list of everything I need to do to take care of her. So instead of a full time missionary I'm a full time nurse! I have to wake up in the middle of the night to give her medicine. I don't mind though, I feel bad for my companion I bet it's hard to get surgery being so far away from home. This is her first ever broken bone and first surgery! The surgeon wore scrubs and cowboy boots. It was definitely the most Tennessee you can get haha

I did exchanges so I wasn't stuck inside all week taking care of my companion. I went with one of the sister training leaders and part of her area covers Memphis! We went to go visit one of her friends, Marianne and when we got there my comp told me to take off my tag because there is alot of anti people living in Mariannes apartment. They tell her that we don't belive in Jesus and that we are "devil worshipers." We walked in and all her friends were watching us walk into her apartment it was pretty intimidating. She told us that she doesn't care what her friends think, because she knows what she feels when she learns from us and tells us how happy it makes her. The deal we have with her is if we teach her a lesson she teaches us some sign language afterwards haha. 

Sunday was crazy. My comp was still down and so I had to cover two areas! We were running all around and we went to 4 different wards. We went to the singles ward and it was pretty interesting. The single adults are all pretty odd and theres this guy named Ollie who always tries to get my snapchat or messanger so he can send me his rap music he makes. He also told me i am very beautiful haha. We also had 3 different meetings and I couldn't think straight because it was fast Sunday and we were at church ALL day. It's so intimidating meeting with the Bishops & ward leaders every week because they just write down everything we say. Sundays are probably our busiest day. I thought Sundays were a day of rest but not for missionaries. It honestly feels like we aren't keeping the sabbath day holy because we work all day. The only thing we do differently is not go to the gym.

I love you all !!

On Pday we went to a huge bass pro shop with our district! After we walked around downtown Memphis, got lunch and played pickleball. My district is super fun and they r all really good at pickle! It's weird because they are just normal teenage kids but then the second someone asks us who we are they have a switch they can flip in one second. It's definitely weird seeing the Elders flip their switch because they are immature teenage boys then they can turn into these spiritual men in 1 second haha. 

Tuesday night we went to dinner at a members house. It was a grandma and grandpa and they said they've fostered 79 children. So crazy and they've adopted 12 of those kids. They are white but they adopted all black kids and half of them are drug babies. At dinner the grandparents were telling us that both of their parents were very racists and if they knew they had adopted black children they would be disgusted. Then they started ranting to us about how black people are so lazy and that none of them want to work and they just rely on the government for everything. They kept saying "that's what black people do!!!" The grandma also told us she never saw "the blacks" until she was 30 years old. My companion and I were literally in shock because all their black kids were around the dinner table and it was so awkward we didn't know what to say. Member meals can be so awkward 

Wednesday we got to go visit our friend Steve! He LOVES us and he loves our lessons. He asked us to sign his book of Mormon next to our favorite verses. Towards the end of the lesson he started going off topic saying how pretty we were and that we were beautiful without makeup. Then he asked us if he wanted to date someone in our church could he if he wasn't a member? We told him yes then he told us if he had to pick one of us to date he wouldn't be able to choose because he likes us both and we were like uhhhhhhhhh Steve you're 50 years old !! Idk if he was just being nice or what but. He says he's wanting to get married in the temple but he doesn't want to go to church because "He hates buildings because he was in a prison building for 29 years". He told us the only fights he got in prison were when someone tried to interrupt his Bible study haha.

We went to the doctor again to get my companions cast off and doc told us she needs to get surgery? We are meeting with the surgeon next week and I'm hoping she doesn't have to get surgery because that means I'll be spending a lot of time at the hospital with nothing to do...

 

A member refered us to this lady who rents a house from him. He said she has a hard life and was let go from her job so she isn't working and we could stop by whenever! He told us he tried to send elders over a while ago and she opened the door and cussed them out. We were pretty scared but we decided that we have "sister privilege" and that won't happen to us. She told us to come inside- her house was filled with cigarette smoke, I was trying not to choke when i walked in. It also burned my eyes. I had just washed my hair and now my hair/everything I was wearing was covered in smoke. She told us she didn't like Mormons but she thought we were sweet and she would meet with us again. She also dropped the f bomb a couple times but then kept saying "excuse my french". Man she was pretty weird. Everyone we teach has some sort of trauma and we just have to listen to their life stories and it's so hard to focus and pay attention because we want to act like we care but also it's hard to cut them off and start talking about the gospel because they just want to trama dump on you. So basically 2/3 of our lessons are usually people trauma dumping

We had a lesson with Caraletus! He loves meeting with us and told us he knows he's supposed to be here right now meeting with us and that the Lord put us in his path. We taught him repentance and baptism. By the end of the lesson he told us we make him feel so good inside and that he can feel the spirit. He told us he wants to get baptized and that he found a church that will baptize him. We kept saying noooooo and we tried to bring up being baptized into our church and he didn't like the idea of "being baptized into a church" which is totally valid. We tried to explain you need to be baptized by proper authority and I don't think he really got it. Other than that it was a great lesson and the member we brought with us shared a powerful testimony! Having members in lessons is seriously so powerful because they can share their conversion stories and bare their testimony.

Every week we meet up with the Elders and Sister in our district. There are 6 of us here. We talk about our friends and any problems we are having and we all work together to figure out the best solution. We got lucky with our district the Elders are the zone leaders & the sisters are our Sister Training Leaders! They are such awesome missionarys. At the end of out meeting Elder Peugero the zone leader asked if anyone wanted a preistood blessing. My heart starting beating so fast and I felt prompted to ask for one. I didn't need one or anything but I felt like I should ask. The Elders put their hands on my head and Elder Peugero said everything I needed to hear. I've received many preistood blessing throughout my life but this was the most powerful one I've had. Elder Peugero was so inspired with what he was saying. I think the blessing was so special because I've been studying alot on preistood blessings and it is really cool that we have it on the Earth once again. The Elders take the blessings so seriously and hold the preistood so humbly because they know it's the Lord's power. Anyways super cool I didn't realize I needed one until he asked. I was scared to speak up but I'm so glad I did because it brought me so much peace and comfort.

Stake Conference was this weekend! We got to go to Saturday & Sunday session. The Saturday session was SO good. Every single person that spoke had the Spirit speaking through them. My companion and I were seriously bawling. The members here have such strong testimonies because most of them are converts. The spirit was so strong in the chapel. This moms story really stood out to me- she mentioned that shes been battling cancer for the past couple of years. She said that instead of praying for her circumstances to change, she prayed to have strength through them. She wasnt worried about herself, only worried about not being able to give her kids 100%. She said she prayed for specific things, such as healthy kids while she went through chemo so she didnt have to take care of sick kids. She also prayed that her 1 year old would be ok not needing as much attention from his mother. She told us her entire family got Covid and that no one had any syptoms! Also, her 1 year old was so mellow and never had tantrums and just wanted to snuggle his sick mom which was something she could give him. It was the sweetest story and really shows the love a mom has for her kids. I looked over at my companion and she was just SOBBING because she lost her mom to cancer. The last guy that spoke was an African American from Louisiana. The chapel was calm and quiet and he stood up and starting preaching !! He was yelling and screaming Amen and calling people out in the crowd. He definitely used to be a Baptist or something. We were trying not to laugh because it felt like we weren't at an LDS church anymore. He looked at me in the crowd and made me stand up in front of everyone and they handed me the microphone and I was seriously shaking. Anyways when the meeting ended we were talking to an investigator who came and that preacher came up to us and told her to stay close to us because 28 years ago the missionaries changed his life. It was really cool I think all the members thought his way of teaching was weird but all the investigators that came loved how he was teaching because that is what they are used to. He was a mission president in Louisanna which is super cool because he got to teach the missionaries how to "teach his kinda people."

We had a really good lesson with our friend Fabe. He's a 49 year old man who is recently divorced and is filled with guilt and reached out to us. We taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ and really focused on faith and repentance. We were so unsure about what we were going to teach him we were leaning towards the Restoration. We prayed that the spirit would guide us with what to say. We started teaching and he told us we were touching him so much and he asked how we knew what to say to him because it was exactly what he needed to hear. The lesson was only supposed to be 30 minutes but it ended up being an hour long! He said HE KNOWS God led him to talk to us. My companion and I both said it was the most we have ever felt the spirit during a lesson Fabe is SO prepared to hear the gospel and I know he was feeling the Spirit. He told us he was baptized into the Catholic church at 1 years old but he keeps getting the impression that he needs to be baptized again. He's out of town so the lesson was over the phone but it's cool how the Spirit can speak even through the phone. This was also my first experience of having the spirit put words into my mouth! During our lesson I kept remembering scriptures I had read through out the week and quotes I had written down from stake Conference. He loved everything I was saying and kept saying we were speaking words that he needed to hear. In D & C 11:21 "Seek not to declare my word, but first seek to obtain my word, and then shall your tongue be loosed; then, if you desire, you shall have my spirit and my word, yea, the power of God unto the convincing of men."

This scriptures came true for me during this lesson and it was so cool to have my tongue be loosed.

That night we had a lesson with a 17 year old boy named Justin. His best friend is a member of the church and gave him a book of Mormon. He goes to seminary with his friend every morning at 6AM. He's really close with his best friends family. They invited us over for family home evening so we could teach Justin. Justin was super timid and nervous but by the end of the lesson he opened up. He told us his family raised him atheist and he said "I feel like a part of my life that has never been touched before is being touched." I wanted to cry !! We are going to go over every Sunday night to teach him little by little. I'm so impressed with this young boy reading the Book of Mormon. He marks his scriptures and writes down questions. He's a very mature 17 year old boy and I admire his friend for sharing his testimony with his friend. I also love the family that hosts us they are awesome! The mom and dad are so much fun and sitting in the living room with a family makes us feel a lot less home sick.

Guess who's waking up at 6AM tomorrow to go play pickleball  it's hard to get competitive that early in the morning but I'm glad we fit some time in to play haha. Elder Peugero and I are undefeated as of now!

I love you all !! Miss you guys so much !