Smiling Faces, Beautiful Places: Week 61 - Latta, SC

Hello everyone :) It's been a pretty good week in Marion! Nothing that Sister Parker and I can complain about, that's for sure!

We had ZTM this week and it was kind of an... interesting one. Mostly because our trainings were about district leaders and one training was about how sisters can have appropriate, non-awkward phone calls with their district leaders. It was kind of funny mostly because it totally happens. It was a good meeting but the trainings were very unique!

We've been doing a lot of finding lately. And by "a lot", I mean a ton! We are trying to find new people to teach but we keep finding people who aren't quite ready for the gospel yet. But we keep going! We know that our area is ready to baptize now! There's actually a quote by an apostle that says there are five people who are ready to be baptized in your area every day! Those five people can change from day to day but we just need to go out and find them! And that's what we're trying to do :)

But we do have some people that we're currently working with! One is R. She is the sister of a recent convert who was baptized last year and then passed away a short time after that. She's really sweet and totally understands what we're teaching her! We've taught her the first two lessons and she's on date to be baptized on the 27th of this month! She wasn't able to come to church this week though because of some health problems unfortunately...

And then there's M. We've been working with her for about a month to a month and a half. She's very elect. She's come to church twice already and she says she knows that The Book of Mormon is true! We've taught her the first three lessons, tithing (Because she had some questions about it) and the Word of Wisdom. We invited her again to be baptized last night but she said she's not ready yet. She has a history of finding a church she likes, joining it and then not going back. So we're just trying to help her become more comfortable with the church. Please keep her in your prayers!

You know, I love being a missionary! I love it so much! I've had a lot of great experiences with a lot of great people! At church yesterday, we had some members thank us for the visits and how much it meant to them. It really made me feel like everything I've been through, good or bad, on the mission has been worth it. I know that I'm here for a reason and it's great to be able to feel like I'm accomplishing my purpose - whether it's with members or nonmembers.

I love y'all! Keep on looking for missionary experiences! I know that y'all will be blessed for helping the Lord hasten His work! Have a blessed week!

- Sister Amy Christensen