*Also shout out to @MorgiePete for being way hilarious and giving me "humour inspiration"*
Okie dokie, it was a pretty alright week.
Obviously
some weird stuff happened because this is Carrollton and you can't ever
have just a "normal week". But some REALLY good stuff happened too!
Weird stuff:
1.
A woman we met at the door said she would only talk with us if we
agreed to make dream catchers with her. So that's what we did right
there on her porch. Definitely one of the weirder teaching experiences I've had. The South is a super weird place.
2. We had the ultimate Black-Southern-Jesus moment when we met this lady named Marcell. She talked at us
for about 45 minutes about how much she loves Jesus and told us all her
devil possession stories, she read us almost every verse from Psalms,
explained that we are breathing in Jesus every time we take a breath,
and she even topped it off by singing us her favorite hymn at the end.
Life is so good and hilarious.
3.We spent an entire hour-long
dinner appointment talking about artificial goat-insemination (sp?) and
now I know way too many things about goat-farming.
The GOOD stuff:
1. We had a bomb.com
lesson with Brenda about tithing. We were originally really nervous
about teaching this just because this family has next-to nothing. It's
been a really humbling experience to teach them, and I've really grown
to love them all SO much. When Brenda walked into church on Sunday,
she said "Y'all! Where's the little paper to put this money
in?!"....*Jaw dropped*. It's actually really amazing to me just how
converted Brenda and her family have become. When I first met them, I
honestly thought "Man, this is going to be really tough." They are
definitely super A-typical future-Mormons, but I've never seen any
family change as much as they have. Brenda's no longer chewing tobacco,
they no longer drink coffee, they are paying tithing despite having so
little to give, and they just glow more and more every time we come to
see them. Shout out to them for their baptism happening on November 19th!
2.
I can't remember if I've talked about them, but there's this
part-member family of 2 kids that are getting reading for baptism on the
19th as well! Bryonna and Brandon. (The Elders also have a baptism the
19th...it's going to be one big Pool Party!). Teaching
Bryonna and Brandon has been quite the struggle if I'm being
honest...they're 8 and 9, so there's a lot of attention-span struggles
obviously, but this has been off the charts. We finally figured out a
way to keep both of their attention though--we bribe them with tater
tots haha. Unconventional, but it works. While we were teaching them
about prophets this week, for whatever reason we felt impressed to share
the cliche 20-minute Restoration video with them. I think we watched it
more for me than for them because while I watched this dumb video that I've seen 128,479 times, I felt the spirit so strongly telling me that
Joseph Smith was a prophet when he got down on his knees to pray and God
and Jesus Christ came to him to answer his prayer. It was a moment
filled with so much love and that burning-in-your-bosom kind of feeling
and I started to get teary eyed haha. Those little moments are the best.
:)
3. We had MLC (Mission Leadership
Conference) and President Foote asked us to share one thing we've
learned while being a leader. As I sat there and thought, I remembered
that the first time I was called to be an STL, I was 3 transfers into my
mission, and the second time around I have 3 transfers left. I
remembered how little I actually knew about life then and being a leader
and how little I knew about what it means to really be a disciple of
Jesus Christ. I still don't know everything, but I recognized that I've
grown SO much in a short 8 months and I have 3 more transfers to grow in
this little mission-greenhouse through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
That
first time as an STL started me off on my 'path of humbling' that just
really hasn't stopped since then haha. God has broken me down to my
absolute lowest, and by the grace of His Son, He has slowly built me
back up little by little into what He wants me to become. My heart of
stone has been slowly changing into a heart of flesh, and it's the
longest process ever, but thankfully I have a lifetime to change and not
just 18 months.
As always, I wish I could put my thoughts into better words but at least I know what I mean haha.
Thanks ya'll,
I'M OUT!
Sister Lawson
(Side Note - Brenna's release date will be March 30, 2017) woot woot.......
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