3 Months?! No Way!!

October 1, 2012

Dear Family,

How has your week been? I hope you know that I love you all! A LOT!!! I think and pray and talk about you everyday! If the people here don't know that you are my greatest treasure, then they truly have not been listening.

Oh my goodness! So once upon a time the people that I taught my very first lesson to both came to church on Sunday! Ah!!! From the first lesson I would have never dreamed that he would ever listen to us. He was very closed off to us and told us that he had been forced into religion when he was younger and he was just against all religions. He still swears when he is around us, but he is really nice to us and he is getting a lot better. We haven't set a date with his wife, but she has said multiple times "if/when I become a Mormon..." She just doesn't want to rush into it. She has been coming to church pretty much every week, though. Plus, her and her husband came to a baptism last week, and they both came to the church and watched the Relief Society Broadcast on Saturday! It was after the broadcast that the wife texted us and said that her husband would like to investigate the church! :) 

So basically yesterday I was very much humbled. Here I was thinking what a great missionary I was. People tell me that I am a great missionary, and you know how it is, when people start saying things, you start believing them. Well, at church we sat by this same couple that I have been speaking of. The wife had a really bad migraine and after Sunday School she asked if she could go into the kitchen and said something about a pomegranate. I should have asked her to restate her question, but I figured she just needed to eat something to help her migraine, so I just said, "Sure! That's fine." It turns out she wanted to share it and pass it around in Relief Society. Sweet, right? Unfortunately, yesterday was Fast Sunday. I didn't want to be the cause of this temptation for everyone, so I explained to her the situation. We should have told her it was going to be Fast Sunday. We just assume people know everything. I am kind of having a hard time asking people to make commitments even I know that they need to do them in order to repent and change, and to save them from embarrassment. I went to Relief Society/Priesthood feeling like I was a horrible teacher. Then on top of that, the teacher picked on me. He asked me what fasting was. I said that it was putting our spiritual needs before our temporal needs. He wasn't satisfied. He asked me what fasting was; what we were doing. I said that we were going without food. and water. Then he asked if that was it. I said that we also need to pray before. and after. Then he said something about me adding more and more to what we were supposed to do. That it wasn't just going without food and water. Anyway, you get the idea. It was kind of embarrassing, but it taught me a valuable lesson. When I am teaching my investigators I can't just use big words and expect them to understand what I am talking about. I need to explain things like I would to a child. If I said fasting is putting spiritual things before temporal things to Elysse, she probably wouldn't understand what that meant. Being a missionary really is going to help me with my future career. :)

I'm just glad that the teacher picked on me rather than our recent converts or investigators. We work hard on getting them there, and we really don't need anyone scaring them off or offending them. He probably picked on me because he knew I could handle it and I feel that God was specifically teaching me a lesson.
Guess what, Ladies?! We may not have been in the same part of the world, but we were all watching the Relief Society Broadcast at the same time! Isn't that wonderful! I felt so united with not only all of you back at home, but with all of our Sisters! I love that our church is world-wide! No matter where we go we can find friends and family in the wards and stakes that are around the world. I know I feel that way with the ward I am serving with. Although, no ward will ever replace the Highland 4th Ward in my heart. :)

So yesterday we ran out of miles on our car. And of course on the day that we have to walk everywhere... it storms. One of our neighbors stopped and asked if we wanted a ride. (we couldn't accept it though, because there wasn't another woman in the car.) Even though none of them are members, our neighbors really look after us. One of our neighbors killed a pygmy rattlesnake for us and another one warned us that it was there.
Last night we decided to have a candle light study since we wanted to watch the lightening outside. It was great! Our theme for the night was Light. We sang "Lead Kindly Light" and (not by coincidence) I had been reading about bringing the Book of Mormon to light through the power of God (Mormon 8:14-16 *I am well on my way to finishing before General Conference this weekend!) It was a lot of fun! 

I love you all so much! I hope that you are all doing wonderfully! And I hope that you have an absolutely terrific week!

Love,Sister Scott

p.s. Do we know who our new bishop is?
p.p.s. Who is excited for General Conference?!
p.p.p.s. ME!!!!!!! :)
p.p.p.p.s. I love you! I love you! I LOVE YOU!!!!! :)
p.p.p.p.p.s. Have you made a mormon.org profile? If you haven't, you should! Then I will look you up! (I already looked up Rachel! :)
p.p.p.p.p.p.s. For some reason people can't tell us apart and I have been called Sister Gilbert 3 times in the last week. Oh, dear. They just don't realize that my twin is at home. ;) Also, there is a little girl in our ward who calls me Sister Squott. ha ha

p.p.p.p.p.p.p.s. Sister Scott + Sister Gilbert = Gott Scilbert! :)

candle-lit study

Sister Gilbert on our way home from our District meeting in Fernandina FL

I guess this is where truckers go to church on Sunday
-I was on a trade off with Sister Heslington

Genelle (between Sister Gilbert and I) got baptized on Saturday! Sister Tucker (on my left is our amazing Relief Society President!)
 -we didn't teach her but she wanted a picture with us. :)