Pizza Party!

Hello friends and family and happy Monday to you!

This week seemed to go really fast! One of the things that made it all blur together was that we had pizza about four times this week. People kept having things come up when they were going to have us over so they were kind and ordered pizza instead. Now, don't get me wrong, pepperoni pizza is one of my favorite foods. But since we only eat two slices each usually, each pizza is two meals' worth of food. Plus the frozen pizza in the fridge, and, well, you get the idea. We are all pizza-ed out. 

Tuesday this week was pretty exciting. We were riding to Book of Mormon class with M and it started getting really stormy-looking, with a little bit of rain and some SUPER dark clouds rolling in. We had to drive toward the storm to get to the church, and before we knew it it was raining so hard I couldn't even tell if the road was flooded or just wet. We were on a two-lane highway with not really many options to turn, so we kept going. Then it started hailing, and I literally thought that the windsheild was going to crack open and all the water would come pouring in (I may have been exaggerating a little in my head). There was thunder and lightning all over. Then, as we were in the home stretch toward the church, it stopped. All around the church building the clouds were thinning and the sunset was coming through, and it was totally clear. M joked that she would talk about it in testimony meeting, but it actually was pretty neat. 

Thursday we combined interviews and district meeting at the Gastonia building, so we wouldn't have to get more than one ride. Both were very good. Hopefully I can send a district picture next week. Interviews were excellent as well. I love talking to President and Sister Alexander.

On Sunday, we had a returning less-active member come to church with her nonmember husband, which was great! Then we went to Sunday School in Chester at a member's house way out in the country. It was a very beautiful drivem especially since spring is on the way and things are starting to "leaf."

Spiritual thought of the week! Since we won't be having regular church on Sunday (GENERAL CONFERENCE ) we had a very Christ-centered program.  One of the things they talked about was the document The Living Christ, which was put out by the prophets and apostles on January 1, 2000. It is their testimony, built on scriptures, of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If you have never read it, please do so! It is AMAZING! One of my favorite parts is when it quotes the writing of Joseph Smith:

“And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives!

“For we saw him, even on the right hand of God; and we heard the voice bearing record that he is the Only Begotten of the Father—

“That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God" (Doctrien and Covenants 76: 22-24). 

I know that Jesus Christ lives! That's what I'm out here telling people. I can't wait to celebrate His Ressurection this Easter, and to hear from our prophets and apostles, who are witnesses of His reality and divinity. I've lost a few people over the course of my mission, and the knowledge of Christ's atonement and resurrection brings me great peace. 

I love y'all! Hope you have an amazing week and take advantage of this amazing weekend. 

Love,

Sister Reay 

Sorry I don't have any exciting pictures, just our pizza boxes...

Believe in Good Things to Come

Good Monday everyone, from South Carolina!

I'm not gonna lie, this week really had its ups and downs. Let's start with some of the highlights:

This week at Book of Mormon class we had more people than usual, which is great! Also the elders used Oreos to bribe their recent convert's two-year-old son to behave. Solid parenting skills gained. 

The elders gave us a referral that became a new investigator! Her name is T and she is very eager to learn. We are excited to keep working with her. 

Saturday was a very exciting day as the elders had a baptism! It was for a young man named J who has only been investigating for a couple months, but he knew the truth when he found it. He is super sincere and an amazing young man. The baptism was a wonderfully spiritual experience. J has cerebral palsy and has had many surgeries on his knees, so they had an extra person in the font to help him up out of the water. When he came up after being baptized, the first thing he said was, "That was awesome!" He is just so great. 

Saturday was also St. Patrick's Day, as you may have noticed. We didn't think too much of it until we came home and found out the street below our apartment was blocked off for the city's St. Patrick's Day party. We went down to check it out, but once we figured out that 90% of the people there had a beer in their hand we decided to go back up. We did get to listen to some rockin' Irish fiddle music though. Lots of it. LOTS of it. Luckily it ended before bedtime. 

We also found a beautiful park this week and were able to talk to some people there and also see a few turtles. 

But I want to say something on the serious side. On Thursday morning, I got an email from my mom (and later a call from my mission president) saying that my beautiful, talented cousin Ashley had passed away. It was a huge shock and I was just devastated. I'll be honest, I cried a lot. The whole day I just felt a heaviness and an ache in my chest. As awful as I felt, my heart hurt imagining what her parents and sister were going through. But after all that is said and done there are a few things I've come away with:

First, access to the priesthood is an amazing gift from God. That afternoon the thought of getting a priesthood blessing crossed my mind, and as soon as I thought it I felt tremendous peace knowing that it was available. We asked the elders to do it, and as I recieved my blessing, I felt that peace again knowing that God was aware of me and could help me. 

Second- and this is something my Mom has been telling me- tell people you love them. Tell them why, and tell them often. You never know when you might be seeing someone for the last time. One thing that has hurt me this week is that I can't remember, specifically, the last time I saw Ashley. It's hard. Never let a chance go by to tell someone you love them. 

Third, sometimes life isn't fair as we see it. Bad things happen to good people. Great and beaufiful things are taken from the world. We don't always see the miracles we were hoping for. But I was reading the Book of Mormon on Thursday after I found out. Our mission is reading it together, and that day I just happened to be reading Mosiah chapter 3, which talks about the Savior and his atonement. I've read this chaapter before, of course, but what really impressed me this time was that Jesus Christ can heal EVERYTHING. He suffered all that a person can suffer and more, and He can heal us- the sickness that took Ashley's life, the heartache of her parents, everything. Everything bad or wrong or unfair will be made right in the end. 

I hope everyone has a good week (and remembers to tell their family how much they are loved. "Trust God and believe in good things to come." 

Love,

Sister Reay 

Here comes the rain again

Hello friends and family! Things are looking a little bit like winter again in Rock Hill, but hopefully all this rain will bring more flowers in the spring. 

Someone reminded me this week that I haven't really been talking about the people we've been teaching! I guess when it's your day-to-day life as a missionary, it doesn't seem so noteworthy, but it's actually the most important thing we're doing! My bad, haha. I'll do better to keep y'all updated. The main people we're working with are:

B, who is a neighbor and friend to one of the recent converts in our ward. She was able to come to church with her friend a couple of times and she enjoyed it! She has a pretty hectic schedule so we've only been able to meet with her once so far, but we've been keeping in touch. 

Z is a young woman who attended our ward once with her friend, who is a member in Charlotte. She unfortunately just moved from Rock Hill back to Charlotte, and she's not quite sure she's ready to meet with missionaries there yet. We were able to meet up with her this week though! She is very sweet and could be truly blessed by the gospel in her life. She's also planning on attending the Gladys Knight fireside in April, which is something we missionaries are very stoked about! 

K came up to the church building on Christmas Eve after our services had been let out and only the bishopric and the elders were left. They referred her to us, and we were able to teach her a couple of times before she got a new job that gave her a demanding work schedule. It got to the point where we could hardly contact her at all. This Sunday she called us during ward council meeting (we must have been inspired to forget to put the phone on silent ) and told us she finally had a day off work and could come to church! She was really happy to be there and the ward welcomed her with open arms. We were so excited that she was finally able to make it! 

Of course we're also still working with less-active members and new converts, helping strenghten their testimonies and come closer to Christ. And we've been doing service! This week we helped clean up around a group home for foster children. On Wednesday we and the elders helped the food bank unload a bus full of canned goods from a food drive. And when I say bus full, I mean it was FULL. We unloaded over 900 pounds and didn't even finish that day! 

We also had a little miracle that evening! We were walking back from service since it's right down the street. Sister Laney wasn't feeling well and we didn't have a dinner for the night, so we were planning on earing dinner up in the apartment and turning in for the night so she could rest. Just as we reached our apartment, we got a call from a member who was driving home from work. He asked if we had a dinner that night, and when we said we didn't, he had us meet him at the sandwich shop a couple buildings down from our apartment and paid for our meal there. It was a HUGE blessing at just the right time!

Another exciting thing that happened this week was daylight savings. It makes just about as much sense to me now as it does the first time I did it, which is not very much. It gives me comfort to know, in this world of change and uncertainty, that at least Arizona time will stay right where it's at. 

Spiritual thought of the week: don't judge, and don't try to help someone without understanding them first. You will never know where someone is coming from unless you listen to them (not another source) and try to have an open heart, to see things from there perspective. Remember, "they don't care how much you know untill they know how much you care."

Love y'all! Have a fantastic week (with more daylight in it, supposedly).

Love,

Sister Reay 

When you meet your former district leader at Wal-mart the week after transfers...

That moment when you totally forgot to put a title and can't think of anything clever

Hello and good day everyone! It's still a wonderful life here in Rock Hill!

We started off the week with transfer calls, and hooray! I'm staying in Rock Hill with Sister Laney. For those of you keeping track, this is the first time I've had a companion for two transfers since my trainer. So it was a little unexpected but good news! It was weird not going to the mission office on Thursday though. This also means I'm going to "kill" Sister Laney at the end of this transfer because she's going home! Hehehe. It will be fun! 

On Wednesday we didn't go to district meeting because of transfers, but we still had a good time doing missionary work. Thursday was pretty busy as well. We got to visit a few members, which is always a good time, especially when they give us snacks! We were able to meet some members we didn't know, too, so yay! New faces!

On Sunday we went to deliver a Bible to a Bible referral WAY out pretty much in the middle of nowhere. She came to the door and said she was too busy to meet with us right at that moment, but she was very enthusiastic about having us back, which surprised us. When we offered her the Book of Mormon, she said, "I LOVE this book!" which surprised us even more. Well, as it turns out, she was actually a member who hadn't come to church in years and who had moved, so we didn't know her address. Just goes to show that if you can't find them, they'll find you. While we were at her house a man walked up and said he wanted a book too and followed us to our car while we got one. Well, it didn't take too long to figure out he wasn't quite all there, but we had a nice conversation anyway. 

Also on Sunday we had a neat experience! It was fast and testimony meeting, so of course that was wonderful. Then for third hour we were invited to join the Young Women for their "musical testimony meeting." The girls had a chance to come up and share one of their favorite hymns and why it was meaningful to them and how it applied to ther testimony. Then we would all sing the song together. It was a wonderful experience! It was amazing to see how music can bring the Spirit in so quickly. The hymns are so amazing. They teach so simply and beautifully doctrines that we spend so much time struggling to learn and teach. I guess that's why Sister Alexander is always encouraging us to sing at lessons!

That wraps up the week. Next week is bound to be even better, if that's at all possible. Love y'all!

Love,

Sister Reay 

Bowling with the new district and Monica 

It's a Team Effort

Hello everyone! Just another wonderful week in the blessed land of Rock Hill. 

The highlight of this week was M being baptized! Even though she is not technically "our" investigator, she is definitely our friend, and we were so happy to see her take this step in her life! 

But first we did some other things, like district meeting. It was great! We focused on using Book of Mormon scriptures and simplifying our teaching. The next day President Sheppard came to interview M for baptism, so afterward we had a little meeting with him about how our areas were all doing. We were happy to report ours was doing great and we have such good support from our members! 

We did some biking this week, as usual. It's getting warm again, so either we are in for an early summer or a late freeze. If the weather stays like this, though, that would be perfectly fine with me! 

Saturday was M's baptism!!!! It was a beautiful service. All the missionaries in the district managed to attend, which was pretty exciting. She was taught in Yorkmfor a while and came to the Book of Mormon class in Rock Hill so we all knew and loved her very well. Her testimony of the Book of Mormon is amazing. She even finished reading it a few weeks before her baptism and has already started the Doctrine and Covenants while re-reading the Book of Mormon. We are all pretty impressed. It makes me want to take my scripture study a little more seriously!

Her baptism also ties in with a challenge that our mission is doing right now. You may remember when we read through the Book of Mormon together, highlighting the Christlike attributes from Preach My Gospel. Now we are doing the same thing, focusing on the Doctrine of Christ, which is faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. It's amazing how central the Doctrine of Christ is to the Book of Mormon. On every page it talks about having faith in Christ, making covenants, repenting, and continuing our righteous decisions to the end. I'm excited to keep up with this study! It's really central to everything we do as missionaries and as members of the church. It's the one path back to our Heavenly Father, and we are so excited to have M take this step! 

That's it for this week. Transfers are coming up so stay tuned!

Love,

Sister Reay