Hello!
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Last Pictures in Front of the Apartment
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What a fantastic week! I love my new companion. Her name is Sister Wevers, (pronounced like weavers, like you weave yarn) and she is from Spokane, Washington. She has been a member her whole life and she is awesome! She wants to be obedient and she is really smart. She is turning 20 in july so we are about the same age! She went to 2 years of school at BYU Idaho before her mission and she is the oldest in her family of 4. I am SO excited that I get to be her trainer. She is ready to work and she has that new missionary fire! I love it!
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| Last Pictures #2 |
So Thursday was Transfers and where we are serving, down in the Lynchburg/Appomattox area, we are in the very bottom right corner of the mission. We are literally on the edge of the mission boundaries. so it takes about 6+ hours
to get all the way up to Charleston, West Virginia, where the mission headquarters are. To save ourselves a little bit of time, we drove to go and stay overnight in Lexington with the Sister Training Leaders out there. We got there at about 9 o clock and night (just before curfew because we are obedient missionaries :) ) and then we all went to bed. We had a sleep over in the living room haha, we all slept on the floor. Sister Tafea and Sister Keller (the Sister Training Leaders) and I stayed up until like 11:15 talking, and then they went to bed. I felt so excited/nervous/anxious about what was going to happen tomorrow (Sister Alligood leaving and me picking up my new missionary) that I couldn't sleep. I remember just lying there and I looked at the clock around 12:30. Then I looked at the clock again around 1. I think I fell asleep a short time after that, but it was bad for me because we had to wake up at 3:00 amto get ready so that we could be to the church to get on the Transfer Train (its actually a big 16 passenger van, but everyone calls it the transfer train. Its how we do transfers in the mission, we go from one end to the other, picking up and dropping off missionaries along the way) by 4:15 am. I only really got 2 hours of sleep! I have never got less sleep before in my life! (You should be proud of that mom) I felt like a zombie, but I was still getting nervous to meet my new companion. When you are training someone new, you have no idea who they are! They don't tell you their name, where they are from and you don't even know what they will look like! That is something that makes me kind of nervous, because I don't know what to expect. Anyway, we get ready and we get on the Transfer Train and we are off! We make a couple stops along the way, picking up missionaries and what not and finally around 10:00 we get to the Charleston Stake Center, where we have the Transfer Station.
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My New Companion, Sister Weaver
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The new missionaries and their Trainers get to have a meeting with President and Sister Salisbury. It was super cool. There were actually only 3 new missionaries coming in, 1 Sister, and 2 Elders. The new Sister obviously knew that I would be her trainer, so we sat next to each other. President Salisbury told the other missionaries who would be training them, and then he started talking to us about the important of obedience. He shared a video from The Districts about the first day for a new missionary. Then we got to listen to a recording of Elder Holland at a seminar for Mission Presidents. He was talking about the importance of following the missionary schedule; specifically the mourning routine. It was so cool! It helped me remind me of the importance of my calling and how everything I do really does effect the rest of my new companion's mission. My obedience and my commitment to the Lord and to Preach My Gospel will speak louder than anything I can say to the new missionary. I hope and pray that I may be able to be the Trainer that Heavenly Father wants me to be, and that I will learn and grow from this experience. I am so grateful for President and Sister Salisbury, for their love and for everything they teach me :)
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Quick! Lets take a picture before the humidity ruins my hair! #southernmissionprobs
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I'm sure you all want to hear about John, because John is AMAZING! Wow. He came to church yesterday and I was actually giving a talk! So it was cool because I talked about Obedience (because I just really love obedience, you know me) and the covenant of Baptism. John said he loved it! YAY! We also went over to see John at his house, because his parents were both there and he wanted us to meet them! They were so nice and they are actually Baptists, but they support John in what he is doing and they know that John wants to be baptized and they are excited for him! So cool! We got to talking to John's mom and we asked her if we could come visit their family and share our message with them. They accepted and we set up an appointment! Then as we were walking out we asked John if he would come to a baptism on Saturday that was being held for one of the children in the ward. John asked us if it was this Saturday and we said yes and then he said, "Does there have to be only one baptism? Can their be two?" He wanted to try to get baptized this Saturday! IS THIS REAL LIFE? THIS NEVER HAPPENS PEOPLE. We are hopefully going to be having his baptism in 2 weeks from now. He is so ready! I can't wait! :)
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| Sister Alligood and I with John, our Investigator |
Another cool thing that happened with John is that he actually drove the Lynchburg Elders up to Roanoke for Transfers this last Thursday! After Transfers, the Elders told us that it was really cool, because John basically bore his testimony to them. He was telling them about how he was going to become a member of our church soon! He told them that he loves how he feels so included and how this church is truly like a family to him. He also said that he likes how we live what we teach, and we are not hypocrites. He likes how we are real and we truly care for him and the other members do as well. WOW! I am so excited for him and I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to teach him. This week were are going to be teaching him about Temples and Families. I am so excited to talk about how he can be with his Grandma again!
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Our Car is About to Die - Hello New Car
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| She is Leaving |
This next week we will not have a car. It's going into the shop, TOTALLY NOT MY FAULT in case you were wondering. Our car is about to 'die' because it just hit 50,000 miles. The church buys brand new cars and then when they hit 50,000 miles they sell it and get a new one. So after our car has some body work done, we will be getting a new car!!! So there are a bunch of scratches all over the front and back bumpers, and anything bigger than a golf ball has to be repaired. The scratches were there when I came to the area, so we were responsible missionaries. We just have to get it fixed. This week we won't have a car, but I know that the Lord is still hastening the work. We will be walking a lot and relying on members to drive us places. I pray that we may have the strength that we need :)
#Ponderize
"That the fulness of my gospel might be proclaimed by the weak and the simple unto the ends of the world, and before kings and rulers."
I may be weak and I may be simple. But I have been called by a prophet of the Lord to come and to proclaim His true gospel. I know that this is His work. I know that this gospel is true. And I know that the Lord qualifies those that He calls.
Love you all so much! Hope you're having fun and staying cool (seriously, stay cool. it is so hot!) :) XOXOXO
~Sister Kayla Marie Willis
410 Alta Lane #11
Lynchburg, VA 24502
