ONE MONTH ANNIVERSARY!

Email, September 23, 2014

It's been a month since I left on my mission! We had one random candle in our apartment so I lit it and blew it out. :)

So this past week......hmm... Sometimes it's hard to remember to write everything that's happened in the past week. So I've realized the importance of exact obedience. There were some nights we went to bed at 10:40 instead of 10:30 and we were SO TIRED the next morning! That never happens when we go to bed on time. The Lord knows what's right.

Anyways.....so first story, "the bugs". So we were going to bed and I scratched my back and felt something on there so I grabbed it and it popped in my fingers! Ew! So we turn on the lights and I see that it's a box elder bug. I HATE THEM SO MUCH. they're almost as annoying as love bugs. So at this point I'm like freaking out and crying. So I was wondering if they got in through our window so I lift up the curtain and find this ginormous spider instead! JUST WHAT I NEEDED AT BED TIME! So It's in a corner on the window and so I smush it and it didn't die and fell on the ground! So me and Sister Hadden  ran out of the room SO fast and I was screaming and crying and jumping around and I was scared it fell on me! So we got a broom so we wouldn't have to touch anything looking for it in the blankets and it came crawling out of her blanket. So I go in for the kill round 2. I was so scared it was going to like super jump into my face or something. Sister Hadden decided to take a video for your enjoyment.  But i defeated it! I couldn't sleep that night at all though. So I just stayed up watching Mormon messages:)

So there's this lady names Sherry. The Elders said she is busy and can never have a lesson. So we try not making an appointment and just going over. It turns out she lives in the Ukrainian's old apartment! Weird! Anyways so we ring the doorbell and she comes out dressed in her underwear! Haha She kept saying "we're all girls here! It's nothing you haven't seen before" And I was like "yeah it's just like gym class!" Even though I felt super awkward just chatting to her in her underwear. So she has a 4 year old daughter and every night they snuggle and sing Katy Perry songs haha she's going through a CRAZY divorce. So as we sit down (btw she put some pants on) she's telling us about her background with the church. She said she had this LDS friend who gave her a Book of Mormon that she was reading and when her mom found it, she threw it away. So she moved to Huntsville and started her crazy divorce and the bishop and the ward helped her a lot through moving and everything. What impressed her most is that she wasn't even a member and they were willing to help her with so much.

Anyways so we start teaching the restoration and it's already like 9 pm because she's a huge talker. Our curfew is 9-9:30. We taught the restoration to her in like 7 minutes haha but EVERYTHING that we told her she responded with "that makes sense. I've always had questions about that. And that makes perfect sense." SHE WAS GOLD. So since she lives in Utah she's looked up a lot of stuff about Mormonism and knew about a lot of it. But when we recited the first vision to her, she started crying and said "I haven't heard that before. I don't know why I'm crying. That's just beautiful." And of course I start crying. We tell her it's the spirit witnessing to her that what we were saying was true. And she just kept saying "I know it is". The spirit was SO strong. We gave her another Book of Mormon to replace the one she had when she was younger and she started to cry. She was SO grateful to have her own Book of Mormon. She still has a cheapo CTR ring that her friend gave her. She told us it was one of her treasures and that she keeps it safe in a box. She is so ready. The Lord has been preparing her. If we don't end up teaching anyone else in Huntsville, I would say that we were sent here just for Sherry. We are meeting again with her on Wednesday. We're planning to invite her to be baptized:) so we'll see how it goes!

We went to drop by and see this one family and we forgot to pray before we went in. The whole visit was just a debate and Sister Hadden and I just came out so discouraged. I felt sick to my stomach by how that visit went. It was a huge learning experience. Prayer. is. everything. The spirit. Is. Everything. I've been worried about recognizing if I'm teaching by the spirit. I've been trying really hard to notice when I felt a prompting to say something. I think the spirit was still with us, but I feel like our minds and hearts were too clogged up from the debate to hear it speaking to us. It was definitely a humbling experience.

We haven't met with Bee again yet. Tomorrow night we are and we're inviting her to be baptized:)

The stake gave us tickets to general conference to take some of our investigators! So cool!

So much has happened this past week. We have 14 investigators and this week we are planning on inviting 11 to be baptized in October. I hope all goes well!

So the temple dedication was so beautiful! We watched it at the stake center so we weren't at the actual thing. The cultural celebration was so much fun! We were told we were just watching it. But we got to be in it too! I was crying during the whole thing! Especially the first song. It's just so exciting! So we got to walk out when they were singing Army of Helaman and Called to Serve. It was so awesome!!! I cheered so loud for our Huntsville people! Imagine if all of that youth went on missions. The world would never be the same! And guess what? All the youth there was only 1/3!!! They had 3 different casts!!! It's amazing.

Huntsville is like a pot of gold no one knows about! It's the best! I'm loving every minute of my mission. So when Holland was here, he was talking about how we are the shepherds for the sheep. He was like "we can't be worried about the shepherds if we're already worried about the sheep! We don't have time for that! Once you're done with your mission, you're still a missionary! Once a shepherd, always a shepherd!" It was soooo powerful. I think about it everyday. There are so many amazing things happening that I want to talk about! But this is already long haha

I love you all! Keep up your CPR certification! Church, prayer, and reading! (Scriptures)

Love ya,
        Sister Sarlls

My watch broke so I bought a frozen watch (plus digital is easier)

Hike

So I made it to the top! Phew! I was following one of the sisters and I thought she said to go a certain way so I went that way and it was a little cliff and I fell and a branch tore open my pants a lot haha but it's not an adventure until someone rips their pants! And it just happened to be me! It was super fun and gorgeous.