It's Fall Y'all!

October 14, 2008

So if I wasn't sold to live in Tennessee someday already, Tennessee in the Fall has me sold. It is soo beautiful here and my favorite part is that while the leaves are changing and it's so pretty, it's still warm!! We are still wearing short sleeve shirts and loving the weather. Even at night it's still so nice! We slept with our window open last night and my comp even was hot a little. But word is that it's going to cool down quite a bit this week, but it's beautiful right now. I hear that UT has snow, that's weird to think about here. I'm definitely not looking forward to wearing a skirt every day in the freezing cold weather that Tennessee apparently gets in the winter. Oh, well, there are worse things in life right? And being a missionary is amazing, so it'll be worth it anyway.
Speaking of being a missionary, it just gets better and better. So this last week we found out (through District and then Zone Conference, which was yesterday, which is why we're emailing today, FYI) that the First Presidency has asked (or commanded, really) all US missions to double their baptisms. This is huge. Our mission (TNM!) has an average of about 40 baptisms/month, give or take a few, and we are shooting to have an average of 70 a month (that doesn't sound like it's doubling, but with the different months goals now, and different totals, etc., it is, just trust me:). So we are really focusing on working with the members and with certain little goals within each companionship to accomplish this. Because if it came from the Prophet, it came from God. And God never gives a commandment without making a way to accomplish that (1 Nephi 3:7), this I know. So things are going to start picking up real quick I hope, I'm really excited about this new goal. Things in our area are going really well. We were told to pray to find the elect in every single prayer we say, and since we've been doing that, we keep finding them, it's amazing. Every single day last week we found at least one person. Oh, and I forgot to include in my email last week that I discovered the week before (my comp was kindof still discovering this herself) that my comp has the Gift of Discernment. If there is any gift of the Spirit that you would want as a missionary, it's this one. She can tell with almost any one we talk to, if they are elect or not (ready for the gospel or not). It's amazing. So after we talk to someone I ask her something like, "what about them?" or "Are they?" and she either says no or yeah! And now we have a communication system to know while we are talking to someone, so if I'm talking to them, for example, and they are not elect, she lets me know by clearing her throat and then we can end the conversation and not push to teach them and we move on. It's so awesome. So now with potentials, we are weeding them out more effectively and don't worry about going back and going back to try to teach them if they aren't an elect. We just drop them and find someone else. However, being elect doesn't always mean they will accept the gospel, just that they are ready, we have concluded.
Well, i'm almost out of time, but to update on some of our investigators:
Erin is doing awesome!! We have taught her the Plan o' Sal and the first lesson (Restoration), and she hasn't successfully quit smoking yet but she quit drinking coffee through the stop-smoknig-workshop we did with her (that's one of the steps--no coffee, tea, or alcohol for those 7 days). She had been drinking 6 cups a day, and is not drinking any now!! But there are a lot of stressful things going on in her life right now, including her husband not being supportive at all of her quitting smoking. So please pray for her to be able to quit because she wants to so bad. But with her husband, we've been praying for him to have a softened heart toward us and the Church, because she feels like she is restricted on how involved with the church she can get because of him, and miracle last night!! We went over to take them brownies and thank you cards, mostly for him to thank him for copying this really neat picture of Christ for us, and then he ended up coming out and sitting with us and listening to us sing hymns to them, and chatted with us for a few minutes before going back to bed (yeah, he had been in bed). She said after that she never thought that was possible that he would do that. And when we got there, she was a wreck--had been smoking, drinking, sweating like crazy, crying; and she'd asked her husband (Joe) for a divorce earlier that evening; and by the time we left, she had apologized to him, told him she didn't mean it, that she loved him, and he had come out and joined us, and then by the time we left she was completely at peace, composed, didn't need to smoke, and said she was happier then than she had been in years. And I can testify to you that these miracles we saw last night in the life of Erin are because of the power of God. God is so real and is so aware of all of us. And He led us to her because He loves her so much and wants her to have this joy in her life, which we are so privelaged to be able to bring to her.
I know that God lives and that He loves us all so much. Please pray for her and for Joe to have a softened heart and to want to learn what she's been learning.
I love you all, thank you for your support and prayers, really, miracles come from the power of prayer.
Love, Sister Gurr