So Long, Farewell

Dear Family,

 

Transfers always make me so anxious. We had to wait extra long last night to hear the news and since we hadn't heard anything by 10pm Sister Greenfield was hopeful that we would get another transfer together (I wasn't convinced we'd be that lucky). And I was right. Sister Greenfield is leaving Gillingham after being here for 6 months to go and white wash train. She's going to be amazing but I will miss her tons. No training or follow-up training for me. I will be getting a new sister, Sister Som (sp?), who has been out for 2 transfers (just one less than me) and just finished her training and who is from Cambodia. President Jordan says she has pretty good English but I will have to help her learn more. I didn't really expect I'd have so many opportunities to help my companions with the language. I am a bit nervous to take over the area and being in charge of everything. I just pray that I can stay organized enough to make sure we do everything we need to, but I know the Lord will help me. It was interesting because yesterday morning we had flat checks. Elder and Sister Sill (the senior couple serving in Canterbury) came to check our flat and Sister Greenfield asked Elder Sill for a blessing because she was feeling nervous. He offerred to give me one too. I am so grateful for the Priesthood being restored. Blessings are so wonderful. It was interesting because he mentioned in mine that I would be a great strength to the members... well, this week at ward council it was devestating; so many of the strong members are suddenly falling away.. I mean, A LOT of them. After the blessing, Sister Greenfield said she figured I would stay here because the members here really need strengthening. I guess she was right and I really hope that I can help to strengthen the ward. So Robert, I will still have the same apartment address for the next 6 weeks atleast :)

Shayla is amazing! She is progressing so well, especially for coming from an agnostic background. We taught her Word of Wisdom our third lesson with her. We had gone to a cafe to meet and she had ordered coffee. We had just had a training that day in district meeting about how we needed to do better to help our investigators prepare for baptism by teaching them commandments early on, especially when we know they will have to make changes. We had planned to teach her Law of Chastity to start working on teaching commandments within the first three lessons and I just really felt that we need to teach her Word of Wisdom as well. So we went for it. And she said that she had a feeling that we were going to tell her that she had to give up coffee and then a few weeks ago she was actually thinking that she needed to cut down anyway. She said she would live it and then she didn't drink any more of the cup of coffee she had in front of her. She is so prepared! She came to church for the first time on Sunday. I think it went well. I thought Sister Greenfield might murder our Ward Mission Leader though because instead of teaching gospel principles, he said he thought Shayla should just go into the YSA sunday school class (I think because that's just where he wanted to go and didn't want to teach a lesson-- but I shouldn't judge). So we went with her there and the lesson was on celestial marriage. Celestial Marriage is great and wonderful and such a wonderful thing that we are able to have because of the restored gospel, but it was way too much for someone who was there for their first time to any church ever. Shayla felt really overwhelmed after that and I think she felt out of place because it was all from the Doctrine and Covenants, and then Sacrament Meeting was all about Temple work and baptisms for the dead. She said she had read a bit on mormon.org about that already so she wasn't too confused, thankfully. And maybe it was something that she needed to hear. Then we went to show her the baptismal font... there were tons of dead bugs in it and a huge spider!! Wow, talk about opposition and definitely not the kind I would have expected, but I think she handled it ok and after church she said that it helped her feel even better about her decision to be baptized. I know that the Lord is in charge and that if Shayla is truly prepared then the Lord will help her to get there regardless of confusing sunday school lessons and bug-infested fonts. She really is so amazing!

Some funny things from this week: part of our area is strood and we were catching a train there to help a member (the crazy, can of beans lady- Sister Hankin) clean her house (she's a hoarder and let me tell you I went into my organizing mode and just wanted to throw everything out, but Sister Hankin wouldn't let me), well we caught the wrong train and it didn't stop in Strood so we ended up going out of our area and having to back track and switch trains a few times but eventually we got to Sister Hankins (just a little late). It went well and then Sister Hankin gave us 4 referrals!! One was her neighbor so we stop by after the Hankins. At first the lady's son answered the door and was asking us all of these questions to try and trip us up and the Lady, Tracy, was just  laughing and not interested. Well, we somehow were able to get in and show them the Restoration DVD and then we had an amazing conversation and the spirit was really there. Tracy even commented about how there was a different feel in her house and asked us to come back. Then we found out that the Hankins and her are in a fued because the Hankins called the police on Tracy because she parked in their disabled parking spot. To think Sister Hankin referred us to her neighbor that she was fighting with... and to think her neighbor let us in and asked us to come back! The Lord works in mysterious ways.

This week we saw a snake! (No, I didn't try and catch it)

We started teaching a Chinese lady. She seems really good, but it sure is difficult to teach people who don't speak very much English.

 

The work is going great and hopefully will continue to go well!! I'm going to miss Sister Greenfield so very much but I am looking forward to the wonderful experiences I will be able to have with the new sister.

I am so grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ and all that is possible because of it. And I am grateful that the church was restored through a prophet so that we can have access to the blessings of eternal life.

 

I love you!!

Love,

Sister Davis

 

"Men captained by Christ will be consumed in Christ... they set fire in others because they are on fire. Their will is swallowed up in His will. They do always those things that please the Lord. Not only would they die for the Lord, but more important they want to live for Him. Enter their homes, and the pictures on their walls, the books on their shelves, the music in the air, their words and acts reveal them as Christians. They stand as witnesses of God at all times, and in all things, and in all places." -Ezra Taft Benson

Oh What a Beautiful Morning!

Dearest Family,

The weather has been much better this week, but I am trying to enjoy the heat because I know that soon I will be complaining of the cold (but when it is cold, I bought some delicious dark hot chocolate! )

Our ward finally watched some of the broadcast (S. Greenfield and I watched all of it last pday. So good!!!) HOpefully it will get our ward more motivated to share the gospel with their friends. IT's so true that our efforts as missionaries are meager without the help of the ward. We have kind of seen that this week. So much of our ward is on holiday (vacation) or going to se ethe British pageant that we have very few feeding us(don't worry, we feed ourselves fine) and few member lessons, no one teaching with us, etc. And I honestly think it is showing in the success of the work, but we press on and have seen the Lord blessing us for our efforts. WE found an amazingly prepared girl in her 20's, Shayla. She is amazing. She has no religious background but said that recently she really has wanted to build faith in God. She was asking what all she can do to build a relationship with god, what commandments she needs to keep, and what things she should be doing between appointments!! Amazing! We just pray that she will overcome the opposition that may come!

The very austere couple, Reginald and Kitty, dropped us this week. It was very sad because we could tell that Reginald knew that what we were sharing is really good, but he claims he is too old to change his views. One day. Maybe not in this life, but I know he will accept the gospel. They were so nice about dropping us though. They gave us a very nice donation for the church and gave us presents! A big box of ferrero chocolates!!!! Wow! Don't worry I'll enjoy some for all of you! And Sister Greenfield decided this week that she's giving up chocolate for the rest of her mission (crazy, I couldn't do it), but so she gave me the rest of her box as well! I may get fat from all that chocolate, but I couldn't let it go to waste.

However, even when people don't make it to baptism or choose not to learn more, I still love seeing how much their hearts have softened just from the little time we have spent with them. The spirit really does work on people and change them.

Yesterday while we were tracting, SIster Greenfield started asking me about spiritual experiences I had had. It was so wonderful to share with eachother all these wonderful experiences. It really helped me to be more enthusiastic, even when many people turned us away. And it made me so thankful for all of you, especially Mom and Dad. Thank you for raising me in the gospel and thank you for creating so many opportunities for me to learn and feel the spirit!

The longer I am out here (can you believe it's been 4 months?!) the more I LOVE the Book of Mormon. I loved it before, but I love it even more now! I am going through and marking every reference to Jesus Christ (Mom, I think you said you just finished doing this, right?). It's amazing! The Book of Mormon truly does testify of Christ and it really is written for our day! I'm so grateful that Joseph Smith knelt down and prayed and asked God which church was true and that he had enough faith and obedience to be called as the prophet of the restoration. I'm grateful for the priesthood that was able to be restored to the earth and the wonderful blessings that come as we can make sacred covenants with our Father in Heaven. I know this gospel is true, that this is Christ's church on the earth, and that as we apply the gospel in our lives we can have immense JOY!

I love you all so very much!!!!

Love, Sister Davis