October 21, 2013-A taste of the SOUTH

HAPPY MARRIAGE TO BRANCE AND ASPEN!! I took my sweet time looking through some of the pics mom sent. I teared up a little bit because I just love you guys a lot! I wish I could have been there, but I'm happy to be here. I thought about you two all day on Saturday. So happy for you. The sealing must have been beautiful! I love that I preach about the plan of salvation and then I see you two making those covenants together and being sealed! It's all part of the eternal plan and it is so so happy. I know you know that which just makes it that much better. The man upstairs is so proud! Ah, I could talk about it all day.

This week has been pretty good! We are seeing the fruits of our labor, which is always just really great. We still need to find lots and lots of people to teach. Slowly, but surely, we are building up our teaching pool.

We are teaching this older lady named Shelby. She is so great. She knows it is all true, but she doesn't really understand the power and authority part of it and why we need the priesthood authority to be baptized. She wants to get baptized though, but she has a problem with drinking tea and coffee. So we gave her a plan so she can stop and we are hoping that she follows through with it. Her date for her baptism is November 9th! But it isn't set in stone yet. Mosiah 7:33 is the scripture we gave her for when it gets really hard! It's a good one. I mean, the whole purpose of the Word of Wisdom is to not be dependent (in bondage) on a substance for everyday life and also so we can always be sensitive to the promptings of the Holy Ghost so I think it will help her. Shelby is so easy to love!

We had lunch with a member and a potential investigator (Nelly). It was good, but all of their kids were being super loud and it was hard to have a conversation. We talked about The Family: A Proclamation to the World and how our prophet gave us this 20 years ago, when the family wasn't being tried as much as it is today, which is just a testimony of how the Lord prepares us for the future with prophets. Amos 3:7!

We went and saw Wendy this week too, still having her watch clips on lds.org and reading her scriptures. The language barrier is TOUGH.

One of our less-actives (Sis Jackson) is kind of like a foster parent, but she only takes kids for like a week or less, and she had 3 kids over when we went to teach her so we taught them the restoration. We have this awesome visual with cups, so we did that and taught them and cleared up a bunch of weird rumors. It's hilarious what people think about "the mormons". It was a great lesson though, and they're reading the Book of Mormon chapters we give them. Their names are Dominick, Alex, and Ally. The spirit was definitely there. It's a bummer though because they go back to their foster parents so we gave their information to the church and the missionaries over in Murfreesboro should be contacting them soon. They're about as golden as can be!

Sister Gibson is a sister missionary training leader now so we do exchanges every single week. So Wednesday and Thursday I went to Princeton, KY with Sister Carson (the girl mom and I met at Cafe Rio right before I left). It was great! Kentucky is a BEAUTY. Green as can be and just the best small towns ya ever did see. And Sister Carson and I get along/teach together really well. On Wednesday we went to a Christian care center and talked to this lady about the Plan of Salvation. We saw a bunch of investigators that day too which was awesome. I especially loved visiting Judy and Kristen. We talked to Judy about prophets and cleared up questions about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. We told her to watch the Prophet of the Restoration! It's a good video that is a good faith builder. ALSO, Elder Hollands talk "Safety for the Soul". That one is also super awesome. The spirit was there and she has so much faith! She will get baptized soon. We went and saw Kristen and read Moroni 7 and talked about the Gospel of Jesus Christ (lesson 3) and it was so powerful. The spirit was so strong and you could tell that she just knows! We committed her to baptism on November 2. OH! That day we also had dinner at a penticostal church. They were super nice to us but kind of offensive haha. It's hard not to get frustrated with people. "Where ya from? Out west?" "Did you go to BYU?" "Do you live in Salt Lake?" HILARIOUS. Yes, no and no. Nice people though. They had this weird presentation on dogs, but it's cool.

On Thursday, I was still with Sister Carson and we went to see lots of people but the BEST was Clarence and Betty! Clarence talks and acts like the main guy on Mary Poppins. His smile is the sweetest thing. We taught him the Restoration and he loved it. He is a preacher for a nondenominational church, just conquered cancer, and is as jolly as can be. The best part of the lesson was when he realized that in the bible it talks about the Book of Mormon and how he always wondered what that was! It's Ephesians 37: 15-19 I believe. It talks about the stick of Judah -- the Bible -- and the stick of Joseph -- the Book of Mormon. We weren't even talking about that, and he just said, "Wait I get it!! The stick of Joseph!! This is the stick of Joseph!" It was. AWESOME. He's still reading out of the Book of Mormon every day and he just loves it. That night we ate probably the best meal I have ever had on my mission from Sister Airens. It was great! It reminded me of moms cooking :) I miss those dinners! They live in the most beautiful place in Kuttawa, KY. Right by Kentucky and Barkley lakes near Land Between the Lakes -- a recreation area here. I loved it. Except what I didn't love was how every single house had the worst stench of cigarette smoke. It was so bad. I had the worst headaches. The ONLY house we went into that didn't smell like that was a members and a recent converts. It was.. great. Positive attitude was necessary.

Wow this is a long email.

On Friday we exchanged back! We went and saw Kathy and Francis and their friend Angel was there too! They are new investigators and just the sweetest ladies in the world. We taught them the restoration! It wasn't the best lesson ever, but that is alright. The spirit was definitely there. They came to sacrament on sunday too!! They felt comfortable and it was a great meeting. We'll see them again tomorrow. That night we went to this house and met a guy named Tony. At first he was like "I don't believe what you believe and that John Smith and all that." "And what's that that you don't believe?" "You know just.." They usually don't really know anything about us. It's pretty funny. So we talked to him about where the BOM originated from (a LOT of people think Joseph Smith wrote the book because that's what their pastors tell them) and also the truthfulness of it. Shared 2 Nephi 25:26. It was good! We prayed and his attitude towards us changed like night and day. The next day he drove past us and waved to us like crazy, it was awesome.

On Saturday we taught people near our apartment on foot. We went to this house that we had given a BOM to a couple weeks previous (he was a preacher for the Baptist church) and knocked their door. We asked him if he read the BOM and what he thought. He was happy to see us again! He's super nice. We're going to talk to him about some of the doctrinal differences in our churches because he just doesn't know anything about us and he wants to for "additional study", but really he's going to pray about it and get baptized. So that will be cool :)

Sunday we saw less actives and also the Cannons. The Cannons are really hard because they talk your ear off about things that don't really pertain to their eternal salvation haha. So we have to direct everything back to the gospel and it is hard. They have 3 kids and getting a set appointment with Chris to teach him is HARD. So finally we just went over and asked him again if we wants to take the lessons and that is why we are here is to teach him. He said he would think about it and we gave him a Restoration pamphlet to help him decide. Camilla wants it so bad! It's hard that way with families. We just keep praying. I can just see how the gospel will bless them and it kills me. 

President always tells us to "see them in white" when we knock doors or see investigators-- meaning see them in white for baptism, and for going through the temple and being sealed. It's amazing how, when you look at it that way, your love grows like mad for them. I love these people!

While I was in Kentucky there were a lot of southern-isms that I was exposed to, such as:

1. The Book of Mormon is sometimes referred to as "da book-a narman". HILARIOUS. We always call it that now and it is quite possibly my favorite thing. 

2. Joseph Smith = John Smith

3. EVERYONE smokes except for active members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

4. Dinner = Supper

5. Fried chicken. All day long. 

6. NO TEETH. None. Just straight gums and cigs.

7. No need to bathe. Personal hygiene just doesn't exist.

8. Kentucky = where hoarders first began.

9. Everyone believes that it doesn't matter what religion you go to because God governs all of them. I don't think they understand that there are very important doctrinal differences, but they don't really care.

10. Education isn't even a thing. 

11. And so so many others.

I gotta go, but I love you guys. So much. Please photoshop my face into the wedding pics ;)

Love,

Sister Boren

SORRY for the HUGE email. I just kept going. WHOOPS.