I Hear You!

August 20, 2012

Dear Family,

I hear you! This was a pretty crazy week. ...Although, it seems like I start out all of my e-mails that way. But I really mean it this time. I don't even know where to begin. On Tuesday we had Family Night with a recent convert, Rachel, and her husband who is not a member, Jesse, and their son, Copper. Jesse apparently wants to be a part of the church and get baptized, but he doesn't want to give up smoking. (I don't understand why anyone would want to smoke. ...Alright. you idiot. ;) Anyway, we shared The Family: A Proclamation to the World and then made wheat thins for an activity and wrote thank you notes to people in the ward. The next day in class Rachel told us that her and Jesse had been talking about gospel topics with each other. The Elders are going to teach them this Wednesday. Sister Gilbert and I wanted to teach him, because we just love their family so much! But Rachel thinks that having male role models would be good for Jesse. You should have seen them during family night though. While we were making the wheat *cough* thicks, Jesse and Copper where playing in the living room. They were laughing and having so much fun. I just want them to be a family forever so bad!

On Wednesday we had District Meeting. And in our meeting we learned how to effectively drop people. I think this lesson was meant for Sister Gilbert and I. We have a ton of investigators. Which is awesome! However, there are so many that we have a hard time helping any of them progress because we just don't have the time. So we had to go through our list and pray about who we should continue to teach and who we needed to drop. During our lesson I kept thinking about Kandi. She isn't progressing and she never follows through with commitments or appointments. Each companionship picked decided on an investigator that they felt they needed to drop and role played with another companionship. Sister Gilbert and I role played dropping the Zone Leaders' investigator, Gwyn. I cried. And it wasn't even my investigator! Therefore, Sister Gilbert played Kandi in the next role play. I love Kandi. And it breaks my heart that she won't progress. I don't know if you remember or if I told you, but she was supposed to get baptized my second week here. However, she hadn't been to church yet. She wanted to get baptized so bad. She cried when we said that we needed to postpone the date. Then when we tried to pick a new date she said she wasn't sure she wanted to get baptized anymore. We have been trying to work with her. I thought we were finally starting to progress, but we aren't anymore. I can't help feeling that it is my fault, but I don't know what I could have done differently. Hopefully if we give her some space she will come back.

We ran into a man named Larry. He told us that he prays to his mom who died a year or so ago. We talked to him about the Book of Mormon and he told us about what he likes to do. When we started to leave he said, "you know I don't say this very often, but God bless you. Come back some time." That had been kind of a hard day with a lot of appointments that fell through, and something about that just made me feel so good inside. We actually just ran into a couple that dropped us last week, here at the library. Even when they think they get rid of us, they don't really get rid of us. We are everywhere! Mua ha ha ha :)

I love you all!

Love,

Sister Scott

How are You? Alright! (pronounced ah-right)

August 6, 2012
Dear Family,

How was your day yesterday? I mean how has your week been? Can you believe it has already been a week since I wrote you? On Friday President Barry asked where July went and said, "Time sure flies when you are having fun!" :)

Wow! This week has been crazy! We had another baptism on Saturday. Wahoo! We couldn't find a piano player, so I had the opportunity of playing. :) Our weeks are packed with appointments before we even get to that week. Ha we are already going to have to start scheduling appointments for next week and it is only Monday! We just need to get these people baptized so that we can make more room in our schedule for other people. Yesterday a family in our ward called us and asked if we had time to go over to their house for dinner this week. We looked at our schedule and Saturday is the only day we weren't already having dinner with people. So you don't have to worry about us not being fed. The people in our ward are fantastic! We had dinner with a family last week that had four boys that were all pretty much the same ages as Spencer, Ryan, Kyle, and Tyler. With Sister Gilbert there and the Mom we were just missing the Dad and I would have felt practically at home. :)

Remember Lena, the Catholic woman who makes us dinner every Sunday? I love that woman! Well, we went over to her house and helped her clean the other day and she asked us what we like to eat. When we told her she said that she was going to have such a surprise for us on Sunday. She was so excited to give it to us last night, it was kind of funny. She made us this really yummy parmesian, sausage, and chicken pasta with vegetables and rice. We talked with her for a while and for some reason I decided to ask her if she does genealogy. She said that she didn't like it, which made me wonder why I was impressed to ask her that question. But then we ended up talking to her about it for 20 minutes and I was able to share a scripture from the Book of Mormon with her. 2 Nephi 26:33, which talks about how God loves and accepts all of us no matter what color we are. And she let us pray with her over the food with her. Sister Gilbert and I really want to find a way for her to let us teach her about the Gospel. She has been feeding missionaries for ten years. What can we do that the other missionaries haven't already done? I don't know, but we are going to find out. :)

Last night as we were talking to her we asked her if she knew of any service project that were happening in around where we live. She asked us if we knew how to sew. Do I know how to sew?! It just so happened I was wearing the skirt Grandma Scott helped me sew! :) I'm not entirely sure what we will be doing, yet, but I am excited! Thank you, Grandma, for teaching me how to fish, rather than just giving me a fish. :)

That reminds me Lena knows the woman that we taught the first night I was here, Chantay. When we went over to dinner at Chantay's house that night she offered us some tea, because she knew we couldn't drink beer. When we told her that we don't drink tea either she apparently did some research and called a bunch of people about it. We called her last week to tell her good luck on her surgery and she asked when we were coming back over for dinner, and she told us that she found us some tea that we could drink. Sister Gilbert and I don't really care even if it is okay for us to drink it, we just want to stay away from all tea. However, we don't want to offend her, especially after all her hard work trying to find it for us. I think she even ordered it from somewhere... so we are still trying to figure out what we are going to do about that.

It seems that we find all of our new investigators when we are actually looking for someone else. We were trying to find this man and we called the number that we had for him. Instead of getting him we got a woman whose husband just died. We thought, we have the perfect message for her. When we got to the appointment we set up with her she told us that she doesn't even go to her own church, so she really didn't need to get involved with ours either. Too bad Sister Gilbert and I don't give up that easy. We set up another appointment with her and went back last Sunday. We talked to her about her job and her paintings and then when we started to get into our message she told us that she didn't have much time and that she wanted to take a nap. We shared some encouraging scriptures with her and her son and gave her The Book of Mormon and marked them so she could look at them throughout the week. Just as we started to leave, that is when her and her son started asking us tons of questions: "How did we get the Book of Mormon? Who is Joseph Smith exactly? Who is Mormon?" These were just the questions we wanted to answer in our lesson, but we were going to be late for another appointment. We set up another appointment for yesterday to go back, and Terri, the mom, wasn't feeling well. I was disappointed. This message will bless all of their lives! Hopefully we can get in to see them on Thursday.

The Book of Mormon speaks to everyone and it is amazing! We went to see a woman named Sue a couple days ago. (another person that we found while trying to find someone else.) Sister Gilbert felt impressed to read the passage of scriptures where Aaron is teaching Lamoni's father that there is a God. We each took turns reading a verse, but Sue got so into it that she would read multiple verses before she would pass the book to the next person. When we were done reading she asked us, " Where do I get one of those?" I love having moments like that! I love my calling!

I hope that all of you are doing well. I pray about you all the time. Dad, I hope you had a wonderful Birthday!! Mom, I am excited for you to be done with that class and all the stresses that come with it! Rachel, I hope you are loving Mill Hollow and that the fires are dying so you can go running again! Spencer, I am excited for you to be a senior this year! Make the most of it! Ryan, I hope you are having fun with Baseball! Kyle, I still meet people all the time that remind me of you, and I love it! Tyler, Will you please draw me a picture and send it to me? I love you!

That reminds me! We contacted a referral this week named Harley. Harley has 4 children who are super cute! Her oldest three kept coming out of the house with pictures for us. The little boy would draw a couple circles on the page and then give it to us. Pretty soon we had half of her stack of printer paper with pictures of circles. It made me happy. Harley told us that she believes in God, but doesn't believe in a certain church. She said that she doesn't believe in the Book of Mormon, but if she did have to pick a church to join, it would have to the "Mormon Church" because we focus so much on families. We left her with a copy of The Family: A Proclamation to the World that I just happened to have in my scriptures.

I love you all!! Thank you for your love and your support and letters and e-mails and memories and basically everything!! Have a great week!

Love,
Sister Scott

p.s. I put together a box with all of the kitchen stuff Matt can borrow. I know it has pots and pans in it, and I'm not entirely sure what else. He is more than welcome to use anything in that box. Ask him to please return them when he leaves on his mission, though. Please. :) Thank you.

p.p.s. I just wanted to say that that the Book of Mormon is amazing! And you should read it everyday! I really liked 2 Nephi 22:2, although the whole chapter of about six verses is pretty great. Trust in the Lord, and there is no reason to be afraid.

p.p.p.s. Go to the temple for me. :)

p.p.p.p.s. Can you please send me pictures of all of your beautiful and handsome faces? Please?

p.p.p.p.p.s. I love you!

p.p.p.p.p.p.s. I think that I'm actually done now... :)

I, Sister Scott, ate Crab.

July 31, 2012
Dear Mama,

I'm not sure if you actually know what day my p-day is, so I will tell you. I have p-day on Mondays. Except for when there will be a transfer and then it is on Tuesday. And I shouldn't have a transfer for about 3 months. I am so glad I got to hear from you this week!! :)

Thank you so much for sending me my charger! I was taking pictures the day before I got it and my battery said that it was low. Ah! I was so worried. I said a prayer that night that you would be able to find it. The next day when we picked up the mail, lo and behold there was a package in the mailbox for me. Prayer works! God knows each of us personally, and he does answer our prayers no matter how dumb they might seem. A couple days ago we met with a man named Joel. He is so great. He lives with Kandi, one of our investigators. I think he is the friend of her husband... anyway, we finally convinced him to pray after one of our lessons. It was so powerful. I felt like the Spirit hit me with a ton of bricks as soon as he started the prayer. The only thing he said in the prayer was, "Thank you for the sisters," because he felt like he couldn't do it. He just needs a little more practice. I told him the experience with my camera charger and that I know that God listens and answers our prayers. I think his eyes got a little teary. We are hoping to go fishing with them later. It's kind of stormy though, so I guess we will see.

Oh, another Joel and Kandi story! So we went over to share a lesson with them. We asked them how they were doing, what they had been up to. They led us into their kitchen where they had a huge box full of crabs. They asked us if we liked crab. I told them that the last time I had crab I threw up. Well, that didn't matter. They had us crack open the crabs with nut crackers and try some. It took me a few minutes, but I tried some. It tasted good, but it was still kind of hard to swallow. I didn't throw up though. In case you were wondering.

I don't know how close I live to the beach actually. We were told that our mission ends where the sand starts. We did go to the water front to write letters last week, which is a boat dock place in St. Mary's. 230 is my apartment number. Don't worry, your package made it here safely. :)

I really liked your object lesson with the harmonicas! And I like Spencer's definition for harmony. We are told that we should be living in harmony with God. Meaning that our note should be working with His note to sound good. And if there is dissonance, that is our fault. I'm sorry that Trek didn't go as planned. How does the Bishop feel it went? Was it the spiritual experience he was hoping for?

I love you so much!! Thank you for your love and prayers!

Love,

Janielle

Dear Poppy-Woppy,

I am living my dream! I'm straight from the MTC! The Mormon Tabernacle Choir!! :) It is a little harder than I expected. But if it was easy then it would be boring, right? :) How did you like Trek?

I love Sister Gilbert! We get along really well. Although it seems that when we are in the car we don't have anything to talk about and then we hop in bed and we can't stop talking and laughing. We drive a white car... Sister Gilbert thinks it is a Toyota Corolla. I really do miss my mountains. I have no idea which way is North, South, East, or West. I get so lost as we are driving. I really like the area we are in. Everyone here is pretty nice. Whenever we are out in public, rather than just in the neighborhoods, people stop us and talk to us. They ask us who we are and where we are from, and sometimes a random guess to what organization we are with. ummm... it's on the name tag. ;) I really like talking about how God is our loving Heavenly Father and how he blesses families, because that one is just the most personal, I guess. I haven't had any Bible Bashes, yet, and I'm hoping I never get into one to be quite honest.

Right now we have four progressing investigators, and I think technically five. Three of them have baptism dates. One of our investigators was supposed to get baptized on Sunday, but she hasn't been to church yet. We had to tell her that we needed to postpone the date until she started coming to church. That was hard. Another investigator started smoking again, and we had to set that one back too. I think that has been the hardest thing I have had to do so far. They both want to get baptized, and telling them they couldn't yet was heart breaking.

The humidity is unbearable at times. Apparently we are in a drought here. I'm just thinking, go to Utah then tell me you are in a drought. Everything here is so green! I am working with the Kingsland ward. The ward is great! I think there are 600 people in the ward, but I think there are only 200 that are really active. That's why we are working so hard with Kandi and Tiffany. I know that if they build up their testimonies on Jesus Christ and keep God's commandments, then they won't break down when Satan throws his storms at them like it says in Helaman 5:12. I know that the more you work for something the greater appreciation you will have for it and the more you will take care of and treasure it. I know that Kandi was feeling discouraged, but I hope that will motivate her to become ready so that she can take care of her testimony.

I have eaten crab and that is just about as crazy as we have gotten. We aren't allowed to go to the beach. Our mission ends where the sand starts. As for the weather, it has been pretty rainy the past couple days. By rainy, it pours for about 15 minutes and then it is cloudy and with a lot of thunder, which is great. :)

Those games sound fun. You will have to teach me how to play Pop, Pop, Pop when I get back. :) Are you ready for school to start?

Well, I think and pray about you everyday! I love you so much!! Thank you for all you do for me!

Love,
Sister JaniWani Scott

To Be Read in a Southern Accent ;)

July 23, 2012
Hey Y'all! (Just so you know, I don't actually talk like that... yet...)

How are all of you doing?! How was trek? I miss all of you so much! I'm sorry that I wasn't able to talk to you longer last week. One of the elders was getting a little anxious to get on the plane. I think I could have had at least two more minutes. It was great hearing all of your voices, though! Did Rachel get my message? :) I don't think I was really supposed to call from the Atlanta airport, but I really wanted to wish her a happy birthday. ha ha I think I got some funny looks from the people around me at the phone when I started singing. I would have started out with a whisper and ended singing with a loud Southern accent somewhat like she did, but I didn't know if that would be a reverent thing that a missionary representing the church should do...

Oh, and did you get the letter that was in the package with Spencer's shirt? I hope it didn't get thrown away. That would be sad.

Well, I heard that someone called you to tell you that I made it to my mission safely. I don't know if they told you where I am serving, though. I am in St. Mary's Georgia. Which means that my companions from the MTC and I are in the same state. However, they are at the top and I am at the bottom. My new companion's name is Sister Gilbert. She is fantastic!! We have so much fun together! She is from Richmond, Utah and she has been out here for five months now. She is so nice to me! The first morning she made me a shake for breakfast, and the blender accidentally exploded. She is great at teaching and she has a really good relationship with all of our investigators, which makes it easier for me when we go over there because then we become friends immediately. Okay, so I came into this area and found out that there 4 baptisms, 6 including the elders, coming up this weekend! Holy cow! Two of them might need to be postponed until later, though. There are two ladies who want to get baptized this weekend, but they haven't come to church yet, and that is kind of important.

I have seen so many gators here! Okay, so they aren't really gators or at least the kind you are thinking. They are investiGATORS. ha ha ha Sister Gilbert is so brave, she will go up and talk to everybody! I am such a chicken. I'm going to make it a goal this week to go up to someone and just start talking to them. I don't know why I am so nervous.

We taught a lesson the other day to a mother and her daughter. It started off really well, but then the two of them started arguing. The Spirit left the room. It was awful. Eventually we were able to get everyone to calm down and we shared a message, but we left still feeling terrible. I never realized how much contention really offends the Spirit. When we got back into the car, we said a prayer and we were able to feel the Spirit come back immediately. Even though it was really an unpleasant experience, it was interesting to feel how the Spirit can enter and leave so quickly.

The mosquitos absolutely love me here! Especially my ankles. One of our investigators saw how bitten my legs were and she searched her house looking for anti-itch cream for me and then gave me some insect repellent that she made from a couple different oils. I haven't tried it yet because it is just in some tupperware, but it smells good. :)

A catholic woman fed us dinner last night. Apparently she has been feeding the missionaries every Sunday for the past ten years! Crazy, huh? It was really good. I'm looking forward to next week.

We are planning on going fishing with one of our investigators next Monday. I don't know what we are going to do with the fish we catch, because apparently Sister Gilbert doesn't like sea food either. I'm sure the elders would love them.

I can't remember if I told you, but my companion, Sister Sanders, and I totally bonded over Kid History. We quoted it for about 20 minutes. Sister Markowitz had never even heard of it, and I think she kind of got sick of us. I will send you a picture of us doing "Want to have a party at my house?" and there is a picture of the three of us smelling the cream soda tree. It really does smell like cream soda! And a picture I drew of me getting eaten by mosquitos. And just some other random pictures.

Sorry my letter is kind of all over the place, I was kind of just writing my thoughts as they came.

I love you all!!! I hope you all have a blessed week!

Love, Sister/Daughter Scott

p.s. my address is
230 Lighthouse Reach
St. Mary's, GA 32063