Dear Family and Friends,
So much has happened this week. We found an AMAZING ice cream/ snow
cone place. It's called Jerry's Snow cone and apparently from what
everyone has been saying it was in the movie American Graffiti. It has
the best snow cones I have had in my life.... better than Zeppes or
Davids. It is famous here in the south and it is delicious they put
cream on the snow cones and it is just delicious. It's in the sketchy
part of Memphis so you only go there during the day and it is probably
just as busy as carlo's bakery.
I included another funny marqee sign
from one of the churches here. Apparently it is a sign from God. This
week was stake conference and it was pretty amazing! We passed what we
have nicknamed the great and spacious building because it is probably
one of the biggest churches on the face of the earth and on Sundays all
the Memphians that never answer their doors to us all swarm there like
flies. I will probably send a picture next time we pass it.
So much has
happened this week. We ran into the elders pretty much every single day
this week. It is kind of awkward coming from only seeing the elders on
sunday to seeing them everywhere. I swear they are stalking us. We drive
to a dinner appointment and all of a sudden the elders call us and say
they will see us there. We pretty much have dinner with them every night
at a members house because I guess the members sign up to feed both of
us. We went to visit all of the less actives in the branch and it was
kind of sad to hear their stories whether it be the missionaries stopped
coming by or they got antied or their baptism was a shady baptism and
they were bribed to come to church and get confirmed. The hardest part
of this area is undoing what other people have done. I'm not saying the
missionaries here previously were bad missionaries because I know for a
fact that they aren't but It is difficult trying to fix it. It made me a
little frustrated this week because if only the members had done a
little more fellowshipping or if the missionaries had gone out of their
way a little bit more than this person would still be an active member.
We had an awesome experience. We pulled up to our investigators house
and they came outside and started smoking. It was kind of awkward and we
debated just leaving and ended up deciding to go talk to her. Funny
thing. People here in the south apologize for smoking around us. I don't
know what it is but it happens all the time. She apologized. Put the
cigarette out then started to talk with us. We got to teach her, her
daughter Blanca, and her Niece Jazmine and we are meeting with them
again on Tuesday. If we didn't follow that prompting we wouldn't have
gotten to teach them.
This week has been challenging with my companions
and I had to learn patience but I noticed that as I was patient with her
and just learned to deal with things and she learned to not leave me
and our new companion hanging out to dry we had more success. I had to
remind her we are in a companionship and although she is helping train
me to train on my own, she is still an important part of our
companionship and we still need her. As soon as I said that to her and
she applied it our numbers more than tripled for the week. I know that
if we do things even though we may not like them that we will be better
off.
This week has been awesome having so much success and I have
really learned to love the mission and I seriously am dreading the day I
have to take off my badge. The good thing about serving a mission is
that even after you take off the badge you are still a missionary for
life. My work still isn't going to be over after the mission. I can
still do a lot to share the gospel with people. I love you all and hope
you have a good week.
Love,
~Hermana Larissa Johnson