Hi guys! Thank you all for the birthday wishes

They just moved me out of Tennessee & into Hot Springs, Arkansas!

I loved Collierville Tennesse! It was so hard to leave, I became so close with so many people there who have forever changed me. 

When I first arrived in Tennessee I was SO excited to share my testimony, but quickly discovered that being a missionary in the south is hard. Pastors & ministers preach against us in their congregations and we were bashed everyday. We were teaching zero people and I immediately was so discouraged. I felt like it was pointless to be out here & that I was wasting my time. 

I kept trusting that the Lord would guide me to those who were ready to hear the gospel and He did. The week I left we had three people on date for baptism! We were able to put my sweet friend Beverly & her grandson on date. Everytime we stepped into her house she told us that we were the angles she had been praying for & that she could see the light of Christ inside of us. I love her more than anything! 

Brandon was definitely the person I was meant to find and teach though. He went from being completely agnostic, to having the strongest testimony of Jesus Christ in just a couple of weeks! He is going to be baptized June 8 & I am so excited. He has been sharing the gospel with everyone he knows, we were able to teach his family too! The night before I left Collierville he cooked us a huge fancy dinner it was so good. I said goodbye to him and he just started to sob, he told me that I have no idea how much I've changed his life and that he is so grateful that I had the courage to talk to him at the gas station all those weeks ago. I am so humbled to of had that experience with him & am so excited to see how much he grows.

I'm still not fully adjusted to the Southern culture yet haha! Everyone lovess Jesus. This week a lady asked if she could pray with us, she laid her hands on my head and started speaking in tounges. I've never heard anything like it haha. My companion and I were trying so hard not to laugh I had to hold my breath

Right now I am in a trio! I was hesitant at first but it has been so fun. One of my companions is a full blown cow girl and my other companion is from Haiti! I have loved each of my companions so much.

My first Sunday here in Hot Springs some of the older couples in the ward came up to us and said that they had heard that the great grand daughter of Lynn Mellor was serving in the ward. They had served along side him while he was the first stake president in Little Rock, Arkansas. It was a testimony to me that I am exactly where I am meant to be, loving and serving the same people that my great grandpa loved so dearly. 

Love you guys !

Thank you all for the birthday wishes! My trio has been alot of fun! Lots of laughter all the time which has been so good for me. There was this sweet new convert who was baptized a couple months ago named Angela, she bought me a cake it was so thoughtful. She doesn't have much money but she was so excited to throw me a little party. 

On my birthday my grandma's brother drove down from Little Rock & took us out to lunch! It was so good to see them. They aren't members of the church so I was pretty nervous because my whole purpose as a missionary right now is to help people come unto Christ, so it felt weird not sharing a message with them. While we were eating a lady randomly came up to us and bore the sweetest testimony. She told us that missionarys had changed her life 5 years ago and that we need to find those people who are seeking for truth. My aunt and uncle looked pretty nervous but the spirit was so strong as she bore her testimony I know we all felt it. My companions and I were talking about it after & that sweet lady definitely felt prompted to come talk to us because it was a perfect testimony for my aunt and uncle. 

For dinner that night this older couple in the ward texted us last minute & asked if we would join them for Hibachi. It was seriously the best food I've ever had we ate SO much haha. Best birthday

I got the best birthday present ever the other day! My companion in Collierville called me and said BRANDON IS GETTING BAPTIZED!! June 8!! I just started to cry because I am SO excited for him. I can't believe he was a random guy at the gas station and now his entire life is about to change. 

On Wednesday this week we decided to knock some doors. Seriously door after door people yelled at us. Everyone was so rude! We all got soo down. We were walking back to our apartment and there was a lady on a walk listening to Jesus music. We asked her if we could share a message with her & she said "Only if I can share one with you!" After that she didn't let us speak at all, just bashed us the whole time saying that Satan was not Jesus's brother. She asked if she could pray for us and during her prayer she put her hands on my head and starting speaking in tounges. It was the weirdest thing I've ever experienced haha. I opened my eyes and looked at my companion and started to laugh I tried so hard to play it off. I never knew what speaking in tounges was until I got to the South... it's the most interesting belief

This week we also went and knocked at some trailer homes! It is so sad seeing how some people live here. This little 8 year old girl was playing in the street, she came up to be and told me that I was really pretty. I started talking to her and I noticed that her face was all scarred up and her hands had cuts all over them. I asked her what happened and she immediately tried to hide it and got so nervous. She told me that she fell. I asked her what really happened then her mom came out and grabbed her and gave me a nasty look. It made me SO sad. Her parents were definitely abusive and my heart just sunk 

This man named AJ put in a request to meet with us. We called him and he seemed like a waste of time and that he wouldn't progress. We decided to stop by his house later that day and we got to meet him! He was shot in the head 4 times and he told us he saw a pillar of light. In that moment he decided he needed to change his life around and he said he saw our church's ad. We had a good lesson with him and he came to church! He was taking notes during sacrament meeting and loved church! He called us after and told us he wants to become a member. He's super cool but very scary looking haha! Gold teeth and covered in tatoos. I have to keep reminding myself that the Atonement is for everyone & that everyone can change...

The morning of my birthday we went on a walk! There was a man fishing & he had a fish on the hook so he asked me if I wanted to reel it in! I reeled it in and lost the fish. I asked him if he wanted me to cast it back out. I casted it out and I tossed the line over the power limes hahaha. He told me that my dad would be disappointed in me haha.

I spoke on Sunday! I think this is the 100th time I've spoken. Usually I need to write out everything but I didn't prepare anything this time. I just stood up there and talked I never thought I would ever be able to do that haha. A bunch of members came up to me and told me my talk really touched them ayy

Love u all!  See ya in a year 

Hi guys! I love you all! 

We have one more week until transfers. My companion thinks this is my last week in Collierville, it's rare for me to stay any longer than I have already. Part of me wants to leave and see another state but also I LOVE the members in the ward and each person we are teaching. The wards feel so familiar & feel like home so it'll be hard to re adjust all over again. I want to stay here so that I can see Brandon be baptized but maybe my work with him was just to find him and teach him. It's hard as a missionary because sometimes you don't get to see the fruits of your labors until you are in another area. I also don't want to pack up everything!! That'll be a pain because I've scattered my stuff all over this apartment. 

SO much happened this week so I'll just give y'all the highlights. We were out tracting one evening in Oakland in this pretty poor neighborhood. I swear everyone in the south has dogs and they always sit on the front porch without leashes. I've been bitten by 2 dogs in my life so I always get kind of timid around dogs until I see that they are nice. We hop out of the car and start walking up the driveway to this home and the dog on the front porch sprints at us full speed. I didn't want to run because I knew I couldn't out run the dog. I screamed "STOP IN THE NAME OF JESUS" and grabbed my comp and put her in front of me. I thought it was for sure going to bite us but right as it got to us it jumped on us and licked us. I looked around and noticed that the neighbors were sitting on their porch smoking a cigarette watching us. I was so embarrassed that they heard me yell that haha. Also my comp told me she thinks I have PTSD from dogs maybe I do..

I have come to love our friend Beverly. She is the sweetest older lady in the whole world. We felt prompted to offer her a priesthood blessing so we asked Brother Tolbert in the ward if he would do it. He invited Brother Curtis and they gave her a blessing of healing. It was so powerful and Beverly felt the spirit so strongly. Beverly loves the fact that there is a prophet on the Earth today and watches conference videos multiple times a week. She told Brother Tolbert that she loves "Russell" haha. Beverly also never calls me Sister Reeves, only Caroline and I kind of love it. She always tells my companion and I that she sees the light of Christ in us and that she knows we are His messangers sent to her. Beverly said the second we walk into her home we bring the Spirit with us & that it stays in her home the rest of the day. Makes me so teary every time. Normally she is too sick to come to church but she came this Sunday!! I was so excited to see her. She takes care of her grandson, Landon. Her daughter got into alot of drugs and had a child who was a drug baby. He can't hear very well and is autistic. Landon ran up to me at church and just threw his arms around me it was so sweet. We aren't supposed to hug or hold little kids but it's so hard not to I definitely keep breaking that rule.

We didn't get to have a lesson with Brandon this week which was a bummer. He opened a food truck & was super busy preparing for the event. We ended up going and it was so much fun! There was a million food trucks and all of Collierville was there. It's a huge deal here, they have it once a year and it's called "Fair on the Square." We weren't going to buy anything because we are broke but we decided to get something small from one of the food trucks. Turns out the owner of that truck was a member in Nashville! He gave us like $50 worth of food and drinks. It was so sweet. We've actually gotten alot of free stuff this week. It's going to be very weird to come back from my mission and have to pay for my own meals and going out to eat. The members in Collierville take such good care of us

There is this couple in the ward who has 5 kids. All their kids are older and this couple thought they were done having kids but the dad kept receiving promptings that there was a little girl who needed them. He told his wife and so she started to pray about it. That night she had a dream and saw the face of this little African America girl with a really round face. She later saw a picture of a little girl who looked exactly like the girl she had seen in her dream. She told her husband and he said "Wait I didn't think it was supposed to be a down syndrome girl" but they prayed about it and adopted her, and named her Alexis. Alexis's birth mom did alot of drugs & completely neglected her little girl. No one wanted to adopt her because she is not high functioning what so ever and is very out of control. She throws anything she gets into her hands, including knifes. I was always so scared of her when we would go over. Sunday night I was sitting on the couch with my legs crossed, and Alexis came up to me, uncrossed my legs and wanted me to hold her. I did it and she just laid on top of me. She grabbed my hands and wanted me to play with her lips, that is her love language. I just sat there and held her for half an hour and I was just trying so hard not to cry. I felt the Spirit really really strongly while I was holding her. I just kept thinking about how unfair it was that she has to have this body but I also gained a testimony that night that she would some day have a resurrected, perfect body. I told her mom that and she just started to cry it was such a sweet moment for me. They are also trying to adopt Alexis's older sister Mariah. She's been living with them ever since I got to Collierville. Mariah has been coming to church and seminary every week! We even taught her a lesson, but this couple didn't want to push it because she is having a hard time adjusting to living with this new family. Mariah is 15 and her birth mom was trying to get her into prostitution to make money. So Mariah coming from that awful situation to living with these members has been such a huge adjustment so we are just trying to love her. I bet Mariah will see the difference the gospel makes in people's lives and eventually want to be baptized

Early one morning this week we played pickleball! The APs came and we had 10 missionarys there. It's getting warmer outside so there was more people playing at the courts. These older ladies were blasting their music and one of the songs said the F word. Normally I don't care at all and it doesn't bug me but it was my first time hearing that word on my mission. I heard it and my whole body froze it was SO weird. I looked at the other missionarys and the same thing happened to all 10 of them. We all felt the exact same thing. We all talked about it and everyone said that before their missions everyone cussed and listened to music like that but being on a mission it feels so different. I keep thinking it won't be hard to adjust to real life when I come home but maybe it will a little bit

Thursday we had Zone Conference! If it's a missionarys last zone conference they will give their "departing testimony." This sweet sister stood up and bore her testimony about the Holy Ghost. She said she got up one morning and started to plan their lessons for the day. She felt the strongest impression ever to cancel the first lesson they had for the day. She told her companion and her companion told her that they had planned this lesson for a while and that they needed to go. She got an even stronger prompting to not go to that lesson. She canceled the lesson and later that night found out that there was an open fire shooting on the street where the lesson was going to be and the exact time the lesson was planned. So crazy! I feel like I have a hard time acting on my first promptings but I really need to start

We were knocking doors and this lady named LeeAnne invited us inside. Her home was disgusting, it smelled awful and there was junk everywhere. I was scared to even sit down. We ended up teaching her the Plan of Salvation and she just started to cry. It was so sweet. I'd love to see what it feels like to hear the Plan of Salvation for the first time. But anyways I asked her to read a scripture for us but she told me she is blind. I felt sooo bad for some reason I didn't even notice that she was blind I thought her eyes were just white haha I didn't put two and two together. Anyways she was a super sweet old lady but I just felt so bad for her, her living conditions were just awful

So much more happened this week but those things are what really stood out to me! By the way I feel my southern accent really coming back. I say y'all every sentence as well as yes ma'am & sir. I also have started ended my prayers by saying "In Jesus name we pray, Amen". I really did not want it to come back but I guess it's inevitable. Also something I love about the South is that everyone wants to hold hands when we pray. I thinks it's so cute and makes the prayers so much better 

Love & miss you all! If you guys could keep Brandon, Beverly, and Susan in your prayers at night it would mean so much to me

The most embarrassing thing happened this week haha! We were headed to dinner at this family's house that I had never met before. We put their address in our maps and parked in front of their house. The mom was in the driveway with her daughters and she waved at us! I noticed that the mom did look a little confused. She went inside but her daughters stayed in the driveway. We got out of the car and we started to ask the daughters how old they were and they started to walk into the house. We followed them inside and I smelled dinner in the kitchen. When the daughters saw us walk inside they ran ahead of us and yelled "Mom they are coming inside!!!" I thought they were just excited that we were there. The mom was cooking dinner and I was about to ask her where her restroom was. She looked so confused then my companion said: "Wait, are y'all the Thiels?" The mom said she had no idea who the Thiels were and my heart sank. We had totally just walked into a strangers home... we had the wrong address!! I looked back and realized that the little girls didn't even invite us in, we just followed them inside. Them yelling "Mommy they are coming inside!!" was probably out of fear, these two random girls were just walking into their home. We said that we were SO sorry and that we had the wrong house. I can't believe I was about to set my stuff down and use their restroom.

This week was hardddd. I felt so burt out and numb to everything. Brandon was definitely the highlight of my week. We invited him to come to an 8 year old in the wards baptism and confirmation. It was the best baptism I've ever been to. All the talks were so well done & put simply. It was really good for Brandon and he enjoyed it. He also invited his mom to come to church to hear us speak!! It was so good she was so sweet and she really enjoyed coming to church and all the people she met. Here are some of the text messages Brandon sent us this week:

 "I can't stop encouraging people to come hear the message of your church 

It's like a compulsion"

"Baptism is a major highlight for me too. I really look forward to it. I've told all of my friends and family haha. Some think it's awesome, some are curious, indifferent, and a couple family members are really mad at me/the idea but that's ok. I honestly feel like my mom is going to want to start talking to someone. She is the most receptive "

"I really really like everyone in the ward. The community culture is so different than everything I've ever seen before."

He also texted us and said our talks that we gave at church were so powerful and that they really touched him! So crazy he was just a random guy at the gas pump next to us and now he is praying about baptism. We have a couple in our ward who used to be mission presidents in Mexico. They can be pretty scary and intimidating. They had Brandon and us over for desert and the husband started preaching to Brandon and I got so nervous. He asked Brandon if he would say a pray for us and i told Brandon he didn't have to if he didn't feel comfortable. We left and I apologized to Brandon because that couple can be pretty intense but he said he liked them so that was good haha. I feel like I can kind of be a helicopter mom over him because I really don't want to mess it up

My comp & I have gotten in a couple fights this week... she is the designated driver so she always drives & she is the WORST driver I've ever been with. I'm terrified for my life every time we go anywhere. She does U turns at red lights and follows cars so closely and brakes SO hard. We were coming home late one night and I saw a bunch of deer on the road and I told her to slow down but she didn't then a deer ran right in front of us and we almost hit it. Then the next day we were driving and a car slowed down to turn right and put on his blinker and she didn't slow down so I screamed at her and she slammed on the brakes and we came to a skidding stop, 2 inches from almost being in an awful car accident. I told her she needed to slow wayy down way earlier when she saw the car breaking in front of us. She told me she hates when I comment on her driving but I had literally just saved our lives. She started to cry and have a panic attack. I had to calm her down to keep her from passing out. She had a full blown panic attack and even though I'm not supposed to drive I drove the rest of the day. She didn't really talk to me the rest of the day because I got upset with her but she actually almost killed us so many times that day. I forced myself to apologize and everything is ok now. I'm definitely going to talk to our mission president and see if I can be the designated driver

We had dinner with the Tolberts Sunday night and their 17 year old daughter said she was thinking about a mission! We told her we were having a lesson after dinner and we invited her. She was soooo excited and did so good in the lesson. We are trying to have all the youth come to lessons with us so they can get excited about missionary work. Unfortunately they did ask us to teach seminary this week so that means we have to wake up at 5:30...

There is a mom in the ward who has a son who is a returned missionary and goes to BYU. She calls him all the time and says she wants him to marry me haha. He came into town to visit and his mom grabbed me right away after sacrament meeting to introduce us. It was soo awkward 

On Thursday we has exchanges! I went to Walnut Grove TN and another missionary took my place for a day. She went to a lesson with one of our friends and the lady started to bash them. The new missionary got in a huge fight with her apparently and told her: "The spirit is not in your home so neither will I be" and she got up and left. The lady was SO furious and screamed at them. When I got back into town we went over to her apartment to apologize for that missionaries behavior... it was so awkward.

Hit 4 months this week! This transfer has flown by so far it feels like I just picked up Sister Tieman & we are already halfway through the transfer

My new obsession is crocheting I am making a blanket & it is sooo satisfying I can't put it down! Every night this week I was in bed by 9pm crocheting I felt like such an old lady

Tuesday we wanted to go tracting in a new area that we think missionaries haven't touched before. Most of the houses were gated but there was this one gate that was open with a long driveway. We decided to see if there was a house back there that we could knock on. We walked down the driveway for probably a mile then it opened to this huge field with a pond and there was this huge house on the other side in the trees. There was workers mowing the lawn and we were just in awe of how beautiful the land was. All of a sudden we see a car on the other side of the lake so we decided to turn around and we noticed it was following us. When we turned around to look at it the car would back behind trees so we wouldn't see it. We kept walking and I kept looking back & it was slowly following us hiding behind trees. We thought that if someone didn't want us on their property they would just come tell us we shouldn't be here but it was weird the car was just following us while trying to hide behind trees. We started to walk really fast and everytime I looked back it was still there slowly trying to hide. Anywaysss it followed us all the way out and we were pretty scared cuz if something happened to us we were out in the middle of no where haha. Anyways we told a member what happened and we pulled out a map & found out the owner of Auto Zone lives there!! He's like a billionaire and we just wandered onto his land haha.

We had a lesson with Brandon & invited a member last minute and she was able to come! Turns out that member was a mission president a couple of years ago in Mexico with her husband & was a convert to the church! Brandon asked questions and she said she had the exact same questions when she was investigating the church! It's kind of nice we have former mission presidents in our ward but they can be superrr intimidating. Brandon also invited us to his food truck event & we went! He gave us free food and it was so sweet. At the event there was free face painting so my comp & I got our faces painted. Little did we know the face painting booth was members of the Penicostal church.. they saw our name tags and tried to convert us. They were telling us that they dress like "the holy apostles" and how they "catch" the holy ghost. Soooooo interesting. 

There is this lady named Susan that we've been trying to teach for forever. The missionaries have taught her in the past & said the lessons were so good and the spirit was so strong. She came to church last Sunday & I introduced myself to her but she seemed so scared of me. I asked the member that brought her what was going on and she said she's having a really stressful time right now. Susan texted us a night this week and told us she needed us to come over to pray for her and do service. We went over and her house was a mess. We helped her put things away and organize stuff. She is a horderrrrr. Apparently her sister (who's a member and lives in Utah) flew into town and stole her mom who Susan was taking care of who has dementia. Susan and her sister are going to court against each other and absolutely hate one another. She told us she doesn't know how she could be apart of a church that the person she hates the most is apart of. We decided to hold off on lessons and just do service for her, we didn't want to be pushy at all. Sunday night she asked us if we would come over & that she really really needs a lesson from us. We rushed right over & taught her the Plan of Salvation & she loved it!! It was such a good lesson and she asked us if we could teach all the lessons to her. If we can just work out the drama with her sister I think she would love to join the church

We had a lesson with our neighbor Amy last week & we gave her our number and hoped she would call us. We waited a couple days & got pretty discouraged we didn't think she was interested. A couple days later she called us and asked if we would come over the next day! We were so excited because we felt like she was so elect & prepared. She was so sweet and gave us bags of makeup/hairproduct that she didn't use anymore & made some lunch. We had a lesson with her and taught the Gospel. Throughout the lesson I felt the energy in the room shift. As we were teaching, she was trying to find things to disagree with. We told her our missions are 18 months and she told us that we are wasting the best years of our lives. She loves the Bible & so I was teaching alot from it and she made me show her where each verse was she was very skeptical. She then pulled out a notepad full of questions she had about our church. She had looked up our church online which sucks so much Anti is such a battle. Nowadays people just research things for a quick answer and it is SO hard. She asked us why we believe we will turn into Nephi after we die. She asked us why Lorenzo Snow left the church... we ended up having a 3 hour lesson. We kept telling her that everything she was reading was false but she kept reading off her questions. She told us she was trying to have an open heart but her mind was closed off. At the end of the lesson she told us she wasn't going to call us last night but that she prayed if she should have us over and God told her to let us in. Anti is soo hard

Missionary work can be so hard but I read this quote by Elder Holland that Iove

Elder Holland:

Anyone who does any kind of missionary work will have occasion to ask, Why is this so hard? Why can’t our success be more rapid? Why aren’t there more people joining the Church? Why isn’t the only risk in missionary work that of pneumonia from being soaking wet all day and all night in the baptismal font? I have thought about this a great deal. I offer this as my personal feeling. I am convinced that missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience. Salvation never was easy. We are The Church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, and He is our Great Eternal Head. How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him? It seems to me that missionaries and mission leaders have to spend at least a few moments in Gethsemane. Missionaries and mission leaders have to take at least a step or two toward the summit of Calvary. Now, please don’t misunderstand. I’m not talking about anything anywhere near what Christ experienced. That would be presumptuous and sacrilegious. But I believe that missionaries and investigators, to come to the truth, to come to salvation, to know something of this price that has been paid, will have to pay a token of that same price. For that reason I don’t believe missionary work has ever been easy, nor that conversion is, nor that retention is, nor that continued faithfulness is. I believe it is supposed to require some effort, something from the depths of our soul. If He could come forward in the night, kneel down, fall on His face, bleed from every pore, and cry, “Abba, Father (Papa), if this cup can pass, let it pass,” then little wonder that salvation is not an easy thing for us. If you wonder if there isn’t an easier way, you should remember you are not the first one to ask that. Someone a lot greater and a lot grander asked a long time ago if there wasn’t an easier way. When you struggle, when you are rejected, when you are spit upon and cast out, you are standing with the best life this world has ever known, the only pure and perfect life ever lived. You have reason to stand tall and be grateful that the Living Son of the Living God knows all about your sorrows and afflictions. The only way to salvation is through Gethsemane and on to Calvary. The only way to eternity is through Him—the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

We had such a good lesson with Beverly this week! We went over & she just can't get enough of prophets. She told us that she watches "Russells" videos at night. She lovesss him haha. Missionaries in the past have taught her the restoration multiple of times, but we decided to teach it again using an object lesson. We really emphasized priesthood authority & I think it finally clicked for her. The spirit was so overwhelmingly strong & I asked her if she would be baptized if she knew this was true. She said yes but told me she needed to pray about it. I also told her about priesthood blessings & that it would help her so much with her health. I think if we are able to get her a blessing she will feel it work in her & she'll gain a testimony of it. I just love Beverly so much haha she always calls me Caroline it's so weird to hear my first name it always throws me off

This guy named Drew used to meet with the missionaries so we decided to stop by. His wife was home and let us come inside. The wife was so bashy & rude. She wouldn't listen to anything we had to say and kept making assumptions. We actually found out that her mom is a member of the church. Drew walked in later and was genuinely interested and had read the Book of Mormon before. The wife just ruined it though and we weren't able to talk to Drew much, we ended up just leaving. It's hard when one person is on board but the other isn't 

We've been teaching this man Esau for a little bit. He believes everything we say and loves our studies we have. We showed him a picture of Jesus Christ though and he FREAKED out. He went on this long rant about the 10 commandments & how "there should be no graven images". He thinks that if we see a picture of Jesus Christ it will put a false image into our heads & if a man comes that looks like him we might worship the wrong man. My companion said she's run into this so much on her mission! She said they were teaching someone who was close to baptism then they came to church and saw all the pictures of Jesus Christ & left almost immediately. Soo weird

We've been telling the other missionaries & our mission president about Brandon & everyone says we need to put him on date for baptism right away. My companion wanted me to do it and I was so scared I couldn't sleep at night because I was so anxious about it. I really didn't want to mess it up. We texted a bunch of different members asking them if they could come to our lesson with him and none of them could. Last second a member was able to leave work early so he could come. I had never really talked to this member before so it made me even more anxious. Turns out the member joined the church when he was Brandon's age so it was so good for Brandon to hear! We taught about Baptism and at the end of the lesson I asked Brandon if he would be Baptized April 27th. I think it kind of threw him off. He told us he feels like he isn't putting in enough effort in between our visits to get an answer and that he really wants to get an answer first. I was kinda bummed we weren't able to put him on date but I think it was really good that we extended that invitation to him because now he has motivation to recieve an answer for himself. I was fasting for him on Sunday and he came to church with us! It was fast and testimony meeting and I think he really enjoyed it. He started tearing up and told us the talks really touched him. I don't think he realized it was the spirit though. All the members literally swarm him at church hahaha they all want to talk to him but I'm scared they might scare him away.

Something so so cool happened this week. We stopped teaching soo many people so we decided to pray that would would find new people who were prepared for the gospel. We put a ton of time in our schedule to knock doors & our goal was to hit 100 doors. We made lunch and ate it outside before we left. My comp and I talking about deep doctrine stuff (resurrection, sealings, temples names, etc.) and we were talking for awhile. Our eyes were closed and then all of a sudden I saw a lady standing over us and she said "What do you guys believe?" We were wearing shorts & t shirts and I wasn't even wearing my tag. She had been listening to us through her window and told us she felt prompted to come outside and talk to us. This lady had actually talked to me and my last companion before, she heard us listening to a conference talk and was curious. But this time she invited us inside!!! We hurried & got dressed and went over. She told us she's been floating around different churches and isn't 100% sure what she believes. We ended up having a 2 hour discussion with her and it was so amazing !!! The spirit was so so strong and she was like she most prepared person I've ever met. We were able to give her a Book of Mormon and she said she would have an open heart to reading it! She has had a super tough life, her husband is awful to her & she has a foot that doesn't work. During our lesson the spirit was SO strong it was actually so cool. My companion and I were both crying as she was telling us her life story. She gave us a huge hug and said "this hug is from your momma" . She asked if she could make us dinner sometime and is open to learning more! So cool how Heavenly Father was able to answer our prayer right away. She felt prompted to talk to us, she invited us back over, and she asked for our number! As a missionary you can just feel when someone is ready for the gospel and we felt it so strongly with her. So so glad I didn't have to go knock 100 doors that day. 

We got fed tacos 5 nights this week! I like tacos but I can't do it anymore. Everytime we walked into a members house and saw tacos my companion & I looked at eachother because we couldn't believe how many times in a row we had tacos. 

The Tolberts in the ward fed us Sunday night! I always loveeee going to their house because the parents are so fun. The dad is hilarious and always has the funniest stories. He told us him and his brothers grew up fighting and it was just second nature for him. He told us the first week on his mission they were biking and someone rolled down their window at a red light and cussed at them. Brother Tolbert has anger issues and went up to the persons car, opened their door, and started hitting the person over and over again hahahahhaa. He told us all the other cars were watching and getting out of their cars and he said his trainer was a really wholesome missionary and was absolutely mortified. Brother Tolbert just thought it was normal to stand up for himself that was just second nature to him. He said if he would have done it today it would have been all over the news and he would have not been able to get away with it. He also told us he punched a companion he had later in his mission,  knocked him out & broke his hand. So surprised he didn't get sent him haha

Love u all! About to hit 4 months don't know how I feel about it time goes by soo slow in the beginning hopefully it starts to pick up now that I'm out of training 

 got my new companion! Transfer day I cried when I said bye to Sister Udy because I was so scared to get a new companion. My new comp is awesome though. She last served in Alabama, in a branch with 30 members. She said she was definitely in the sticks. So being in Collierville over 2 wards is going to be a huge adjustment for her. She is so so chatty and never runs out of energy. I'm excited to be with her though I can tell she's a hard worker & we will be able to get alot done.

I've been leading our area and I've been so stressed out. There is sooo much to remember. I caught her up on everything that's happening here & she said, "Why isn't Brandon on date for baptism yet?" We had a lesson with him and she told me that he is the most prepared person she's ever talked to on her mission. We extended him an "as you come to know" which basically means as you know to know this church is true will you be baptized? He said YES!!! I'm hoping we can put him on date soon & help him prepare for baptism. We invited him to watch conference with Dave & Nicole Rees in our ward and it was really good. Brandon ate with us and we explained conference a little bit to him. I was hoping he would leave conference having a ton of his questions answered but I think it just gave him more questions... especially since they really talked about covenants & temple garments. I'm hoping it doesn't scare him away. I tell all the members about how we met Brandon and they usually tear up and tell me how amazing it is.

We met this Indian family who lives in our apartment complex and they are so sweet! They told us they've met with missionaries in the past and believed everything they said. The dad even told us he went to liberty jail and felt the spirit so strongly. He believes it and feels it but if his family is baptized into our church it will go against his Hindu sealings to his family. It's a sticky situation but we are going to try to go over once a week and hope the spirit can turn on a light switch for them. Before we left their apartment I asked if we could leave them with a prayer. The dad asked if we could kneel and say it. It was so sweet we kneeled down all together and prayed 

We got to watch the eclipse!!! It was super cool & a good chance to talk to everyone that came in from out of town.

Sorry so much happened this week and I haven't had time to write a big email. It would mean so much to me if everyone could keep Brandon in their prayers! 

Love and miss you all so much!!