"Why can't my life just be normal?"

This quote accurately sums up my life basically all the time.

I learned a new fact about Sister Smith this week: 

"[She's] not SUPERstitious, but [she is] a little stitious." 

(For real, she is REALLY superstitious.)

(First person to name where that quote comes from wins a date with me).

THERE IS SO MUCH to type and talk about. I'm sorry if I forget important things. Also ask me if I'm really stressed right now because I am. We have 2 baptisms to plan for because we couldn't get them to work out at the same time. So please send mucho prayers our way because it's gonna be rough haha. EXCITING THOUGH BECAUSE EVERYONE IS GETTING BAPTIZED THIS WEEKEND!!!! :) Brenda, Jasen, Angel, Bryonna and Brandon all passed their baptismal interview yesterday with flying colors. woo!

I might have to just do the cliche "Day by Day" thing to keep my thoughts straight because there was so much that happened.

Monday:

Actually nothing exciting happened this day.

Tuesday:

(It's weird that this happened this week, it feels like eternity ago.) TEMPLE TRIP! While I was in the temple this time around, I had this major realization that I hate waiting. That's all I will say about that haha. There are just so many good things I'm looking forward to that it can be hard to stay focused which is something I've been working really hard at for the last few weeks. The Lord revealed to me some things I can do to have better focus so we'll try it out. It'll be a battle, but I think I can do it.

 

I also got to see Brother and Sister Shaffer (aka basically my grandparents) from Snellville and it was so happy! They are now Elder and Sister Shaffer because they are doing a service mission here in the GAM so I'll get to see them all the time! LIFE IS SO GOOD. After our meeting, I saw them across the room for the first time in 7 months and started bawling my eyes out haha. Embarrassing. This same day, we had dinner at a member's house and this is a literal quote the husband said at the dinner table: "Breast feeding is fine, just harden up your nipples!".............k. Good thing he redeemed himself afterwards though because he gave us some actually good, real marriage advice haha.

Wednesday:

We went and taught Brenda and the kids about temples and it was the loudest, most unconventional temples lesson I've ever had haha. Brenda was really frustrated with the kids because they wouldn't stop talking and she couldn't ask us her questions so she yelled over them and at them the entire lesson. Kind of scary. But! She LOVES temples. She was really touched when we told her she could be sealed to "Paw-Paw" (her deceased husband) and it was CUTE. 

 

Due to the recent election, we got quite the array of responses while we were out tracting. (For future reference, the day after elections is a terrible day to do missionary work because people are in bad moods.) Multiple people told us they were too busy crying and couldn't talk about Jesus right then hahaha. LAME

Thursday:

For whatever reason, the Lord has blessed me to have really nice cars on my mission (**Shoutout to our blue friend, Daeqkwon in Snellville! Good times.**) On Thursday we drove to PTC to get a brand new car! IT'S SO NICE. And it starts automatically from our apartment hahaha. #blessed.

Friday:

I spent the day in Douglasville with the Spanish sisters on exchanges! Here is a message I learned: 

"hola! Estoy en intercambios con las hermanas de Espanol. ella me ha ensenado un poquito de Espanol. No se rie a mi acento malo. Tenga un buen dia!" *imagine me talking with a really bad accent.* But anyway, yes it was a good time but I had no clue what was happening WHATSOEVER. I literally felt like a greenie all over again. Then James and his mom had me over for a birthday party and it was HILARIOUS. They are seriously my favorite family ever. He also offered me alcohol which was slightly awkward but that's okay.

Saturday:

My cute Southern friends, the Huckebas had us over for dinner and invited us to their Thanksgiving service at their church the next day!

Sunday: 

BEST BIRTHDAY EVER! We had Brenda, Jasen, Angel, James & his friend Sally, Alison, Bryonna and Brandon all at church! IT WAS AMAZING! Person after person just texted us that morning to confirm they were coming to church and it was the best to have all my good friends there with us. :) A recent convert guy made me a sword for a gift, and then we went to my first ever Baptist church service with the Huckebas. That was quite the experience but I won't go into details right now haha. I will just say that I KNOW this is Jesus Christ's church after going there!

Hopefully I didn't miss anything important but as you can tell it was a busy week haha. Probably the best week of my mission so far. :) LIFE IS SO GOOD, Y'ALL. 

If you made it to the end of this email without dying, I applaud you.

HAVE A GOOD ONE, 

I'M OUT.

Sister Lawson.

 

1. ELDER AND SISTER SHAFFER!!!! (From Snellville). BFFS

2. The new whip! 2017

3. Temple trip with Bae

4. Birthday cake from James and Mom..."Sister Lawson" wouldn't fit on the cake so they settled with "Brenna". haha...

5. Making dream catchers with Dixie.

 

 

 

Baptisms on the 19th

*Disclaimer--I think it's probably like 25 degrees in here so please excuse the grammatical and spelling errors I will undoubtedly make. Thanks*

*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.......

Donny Osmond is all over my fridge

Yola!

Before I forget, someone named Jake Harper was really mad I didn't give him a shout out last week for the inspiration of the "Zone Training Quidditch Match". He'll get over it, but I felt like i should shout him out anyway. You 'da man! Thanks for the help. It was a success.

Unfortunately, i am pretty much out of time because i stink and don't know how to use my time wisely still after 13 1/2 months of doing this thing. Sorry this will be short!

Highlights:

1. We definitely bought pumpkins to carve tonight and I'm pumped about it.

2. Our investigator James REALLY REALLY wants to wash my feet because #Respect...I dunno, he's like way into symbolic stuff like that. He is 100% not allowed anywhere near my feet though so he'll have to figure out a different way to show his respect to me haha. (Diet Coke and watermelon sour patch kids are always a sure-fire way to win my heart...*HINT HINT BECAUSE BIRTHDAY COMING UP!*)

3. We spent SOOOOOOOOO much time volunteering at the local Soup Kitchen this week and it was my favorite service I've done of all time ever. Helping people rocks.

4. Some of you might remember me mentioning in my very first email in Carrollton a woman who is OBSESSED with Donny Osmond....if not, that's okay. But! This same woman was super nice and gave us an entire bag full of 400-500 magnets with Donny Osmond's face on them. They are currently plastered to our fridge. She also promised me a plaque with his face on it for my birthday to hang on our wall. (Being a missionary is the best because you get lots of free random hilarious crap from people...this same week, we also got a hilarious Bamboo plant from the local Dollar-A-Scoop Chinese Buffett on Bankhead Highway...#SponsoredTweet. Life is good.)

5. Our first exchange as STL's in the PSS zone was a success! Shout out to Villa Rica for being fun.

6. Sorry this stinks and there is zero spiritual stuff in here...I had some of the best studies of my whole mission this week though, I promise! I'll have to fill ya'll in next week I guess.

I'm out!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

Sistah Lawson

 

2. THE FRIDGE!

1. Ward Trunk or Treat!

 

#GETtheSNITCH

Welp, another week in the life of Sister Lawson was a success...

Recap:

1. Our first annual Zone Training as the Powder Springs South Zone happened this week and it was AWESOME. Like I mentioned last week, we played quidditch with a missionary spin on it (don't ask me how it worked because it just did) and the people went nuts.

Comments included "This was the most fun zone training I've ever been to" or "I ACTUALLY LEARNED THINGS!" sooooo.....#Success.

I was mostly just excited because we really helped to set a tone of excitement for the work in our zone and people left feeling really motivated to go out and do stuff.

Our second training was about increasing our faith to find prepared people so we did something called a "Miracle Family". Basically we invited everyone to pray with their companion to envision a very specific person or family they wanted to try to find this transfer. It requires the utmost mucho great big faith of all time, and we all left on a spiritual high and with a goal to "Get the Snitch"....nice. (I think I explained that super terribly but that's alright haha...you get the idea.)

2. After a very long, very frustrating, circular lesson about the Word of Wisdom again with Brenda and her grandkids, we FINALLY got them committed to not drink anymore coffee! (Yes, the 4-year-old included...hahaha. Their life is weird). 

3. I found another new 90 something-year-old best friend this week named Brother Lamb and he's ADORABLE! It was like talking to Mr. EJ all over again...man, I miss that cute man.

4. We've been enlisted to help start up a YSA something-or-other down here in Carrollton so my dreams of serving in a YSA are starting to come true!

5. Our new friend Allison is AWESOME. We had a lesson about prayer this week and she prayed out loud for the first time ever :*) it was so cute. This week we are going to help her quit smoking so PRAY FOR THAT PLEASE!

6. Once upon a time, we found a hidden Christian Bookstore and my life got really happy all of a sudden. A year ago, I never would have thought that I would find the greatest joy in walking down the aisles of a Baptist version of Deseret Book but yeah..I'm really going to miss those stores when I come back.

7. James is FINALLY starting to recognize the Spirit and not be so logical about everything in the gospel. We had a really powerful lesson where he literally felt God TELL HIM to quit smoking right there. The spirit was strong and he couldn't deny it. THE SPIRIT IS SO COOL. (Sorry, I couldn't explain what happened as well as I'd like to but yeah...the spirit is awesome, seriously.)

I think that's all I've got for this week....Life is still SO GOOD. I love Carrollton, my mission, and serving the Lord. I'M NEVER COMING HOME, BYE! (actually yeah I am because I miss you all...)

Sister Lawson

1-2. Zone training and "Getting the Snitch"..(yes, that's our whole zone...it's tiny!)

3. One time the trim fell off our car and it was pitch black on a dirt road so we didn't know what else to do...

4. A cool old building we found in Roopville!

5. Making breakfast for dinner with my compy!

6. A hilarious car we found at Walmart this week.

Praise the Lord!

Ahhh...God is so good.

Unfortunately, I feel like I don't really have all that much exciting stuff to report on to you this week.

The best part of the whole week was getting a new companion named Sister Smith! We both came out together and I've been able to serve around her a ton my whole mission so it was pretty easy to click into place with her. :) 

Fun facts:
1. She's from Layton, UT (every companion I've had except for Sister Russell has been from UT...)

2. She's a DANCER and wants to be a Disney Princess one day.

3. We don't have a picture together because i stink and forgot to take one haha

4. She never drinks water....?

5. Her favorite Book of Mormon 'hero' is the Gadianton Robbers..? She's weird, I know.

6. We laugh our heads off basically every hour of every day and it's awesome.

Transfer meeting was SO WEIRD. I got to see Sister Russell (my trainer) because she went home and that seriously was one of the weirdest times I've had on a mission because I realized how LONG it's actually been and that i'm going home in T-minus 6ish months. Gah. Tears were shed, you betcha. Seeing her sitting up there on the stand gave me a chance to really reflect on all the change that's happened in the last year--in myself, in other missionaries, in my family, in my friends, in my testimony, in my perspective on life...Just everything has changed. 

The night before Sister Freitag left, we had a funny/cute experience where we were driving home from her last dinner appointment. She had made this playlist of songs titled "My Last Day" and we decided to just let it blast and as we pulled into the parking lot of our apartment, we just sat and listened for maybe 20 minutes and didn't say anything and just cried. I kept thinking about my life for the last year, and i was SO OVERWHELMED with how many of the chances the Lord had given me to change into someone better that I took, and the ones I didn't take. I felt a lot of love from God for those few minutes and it was like a fire had been lit inside of me to REALLY make the next 4 transfers count. I'm excited to see what happens!

STL life has been a good life so far. We found out we only have to cover 2 others sets of sisters because our zone is a brand new zone this transfer and it's TINY. The Zone Leaders are in our ward as well and are super skressed because they have no clue what they're doing (newbies..) so Sister Smith and I basically are running the zone right now hahaha. Tomorrow we are giving a zone training in which we'll be playing Quidditch (with a missionary spin on it) and we have a plan to make the Powder Springs South Zone the "cool zone". :)

Ummm...I'm sorry, but I really think that's about all I have for this week. Kind of boring I know, but just fill in the gaps with lots of really nice people asking US for our church's info, teaching some bomb lessons, tripling our teaching pool in 3 days, and a lot of laughing and there you have it. :)

I'm out yall, 

Sister Lawson

Baptism Scandals

Hello family and others that I've had some kind of contact with in the last 20 years of my life! This will be a quick one, sorry!

Transfer news: I will be staying here in Carrollton and will become an STL again! I'm excited. STL life was a fun life. :) Sister Freitag will be heading home to go get MARRIED!!!! (probs)

Welp, it was probably the most stressful, exciting weekend I've had in a long long time. Christine got baptized last minute, as you might remember I talked about last week. Everything was looking all great and ready to roll for the baptism the day before. We got there an hour early, the font was filling, sweet prelude music filled the halls....*sidenote: Christine is a...bigger lady.*

10 minutes till the baptism starts, Christine goes to try on the biggest baptismal clothing we had at the church and....it doesn't fit. AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! I died. *scrambles*

*REWIND TO 5 DAYS EARLIER: "Hey Christine! Here are some of the biggest suits we have, will you try them on to make sure they fit?"
Christine: "Nah, I'm good. That one looks big enough."
Me: *the spirit nudges me and tells her to try it on anyway* "...are you sure?"
Her: "Yep, I'm good."

Gah.

FAST FORWARD TO THE BAPTISM: *zipper won't go up.* "crap."

Half an hour passes, we run around trying to figure out a solution and literally can't think of ANYTHING. Then Christy gets this idea to tie a tablecloth around her and be all "Greek Goddess" over the top of the suit, while beneath she is hanging out. 

Us: "K let's try it, I'm out of ideas."

The service starts 30 minutes late...

President Foote was there...

8 sets of other missionaries were there...

Christine goes down under the water, comes back up and the TABLECLOTH COMES OFF. *use your imagination* (sorry to be graphic hahaha.) 

Definitely the most scandalous baptism I've ever been to hahaha.

I'm so happy it's over.

SOMETHING ALWAYS HAS TO GO WRONG IN BAPTISMS. WHY?

Ummmmmm...in other news, I got my first REAL taste of Georgia BBQ and it was the most glorious thing I've ever put in my mouth. Thank the heavens for po-dunk Carrollton

LIFE IS GOOD.

Sorry to be short!
Love you, bye!

Sister Lawson

Life is weird...and awesome

Waddupp!

Majorly cool things happened this week.

1. Christine--I don't think I've talked about her yet. The basics of the story is that Christine is one of those friends we have on parole who couldn't progress anymore than she already has and is a woman who's been coming to church for the last 10 months. She's been unable to be baptized until she received permission from the Prophet himself. I'm obviously not going to say what she did but I'm here to tell you that the Atonement is INCREDIBLE. This woman is completely new and born again and has completely turned her life over to God. Anyway, back to the news. ON FRIDAY SHE GOT PERMISSION FROM THE PROPHET TO BE BAPTIZED! The long awaited, long-prayed for, glorious and celestial day for Christine is coming this Saturday and we couldn't be more excited for her. :) God is good!

2. We got to spend one session watching with Brenda and her kids on Sunday morning. The kids LOVED conference and sat there super intently watching quietly the whole time! it was amazing. Conference Bingo came in clutch haha. After the last session of conference was over, we got a call from Brenda. She's like "Okay i'm ready to be baptized. That last guy I watched on the TV--I like what he said. I'm ready for this." Sooooo Brenda and the kids are all on date for Nov. 19th! WOOOooo!

We spent some fun time doing volunteer work at a local horse ranch and it totally threw me back to my weird youth days of loving horse movies and carrying around horse-stuffed animals. IT WAS AWESOME! 

We found some new geriatric best friends this week! The Huckebas they are so adorable and a member of the ward referred us to them. They had us over for a cute lunch and Southern chat. For whatever reason, old people just really love me. Mr. EJ...Brother Lamb....The Huckebas....I think I am just meant to have old-person best friends for the rest of my life and that's it.

Fact about Carrollton: It's the Meth Capital of Georgia! :)

I feel like I'm kind of all over the place today, I'm sorry. Just....distracted. 

And basically out of time.

We all know that conference was awesome so I don't feel like I need to elaborate too much. BUT! I do want to say that God has been so good to me because a lot of what was talked about in Conference went right in tune with what I've been studying in the last few months--Joy, "becoming", and knowing what you REALLY believe through personal revelation, it's okay to have questions, and not backing down when life gets hard. It's good to know I'm on the right track with what God wants me to learn sometimes haha.

Welp, that's all folks!
I'm out.

Sister Lawson

PS--i went to a scary house this week with at LEAST 50 cats walking around on the outside AND inside. I'm not exaggerating.