The New Call!

In Carthage, after the Pageant ended, I was introduced to calling. We call people all over the world when their friends or family recommend them to get a CD of the pageant or if they want missionaries to talk to non-members, inactives, or less-actives. Do you know how awkward it is to call people up and tell them you want to talk about Jesus? It takes serious tact, which I lack. I don't know if I'm getting better at it or just becoming more immune to awkward situations.

We went tracting! (Tracting is just going up and down streets and knocking on peoples' doors, trying to talk to them. It's less awkward than the phone calls). My group, all six of us, went over to Macomb, about 35 minutes away from Nauvoo and worked with the elders covering that area. They told us that there are 'red zones' in that area because they have literally been ran out of there before. So, yeah, I avoided those places like the plague. We ended up giving away about 5 Book of Mormons and got a few new contacts for the elders.

Around the time we went tracting, I was very much concerned about where I would go on my outbound mission (we go outbound anywhere in the 48 states for 6 months in October, then come back to Nauvoo in April). I decided to follow the scripture, 'ask and ye shall receive' and I made a list of every single state we were able to go to and categorized them into Yes, No, and Neutral lists. Basically everything in the Yes was east of the Mississippi and everything west was No. In my neutral list was Arkansas, Michigan, Missouri, Florida, Texas, Kansas, and West Virginia. All the sisters said if I prayed about where I wanted to go, I would be sent to Billings, Montana. :) But I "pressed forward with a perfect brightness of hope" (2 Nephi 31:20) and did it. I took out my list and told Heavenly Father exactly where I did and did not want to go, but "nevertheless, thy will be done" (Matthew 26:42). So I jumped into bed and got all snuggled, when I realized, you have to wait for revelation after prayer! So I got up and sat quietly, and the thought came to my mind- Texas. Sister Searle came in the room and I said, "Sister Searle, I think I'm going to Texas. Fort Worth." And so, life went on.

It was President's birthday not too long ago and we were all requested to give him a little something when we all met at his house. All us Carthage sisters decided to give him the 'fruits of our labor'- a laundry basket with all kinds of fruit in it. I got him a pineapple, someone else got a watermelon, a can of peaches, a papaya (which we found out later that he didn't like), and a box of Froot Loops.

THEN WAS MY FIRST REAL TRANSFER. We were all moved up to Nauvoo for the last transfer here. I was put with Sister Mills- she's a singer from from Cache Valley and we overlapped a semester at Utah State without ever seeing each other. We live in a house with 10 other sisters- meaning 12 total. There's another house with 7 sisters. The house we live in now used to have 19 sisters in it. Crazy.

So, at church, us sign language sisters sit in the front right-most row so we can all interpret sacrament meeting for each other to get some practice. We have time slots that we interpret for, then we switch off. I don't think a week goes by without one of the senior missionaries going, 'Oh! I've seen you up there doing the sign language thing!' (followed by a poor imitation of sign language). Well, this one Sunday, after sacrament meeting, all four of us ASL missionaries are standing, talking, and one of the senior elders comes up to us. 

Senior Elder to me: "Are you the newest sign language expert?"

Me: 'Well, Sister Allred and I are both newer. I've been in Carthage so you probably haven't seen me a lot."

Senior Elder: "I see. I know a little bit of sign. Enough to know what you guys are saying." Then he says to the other sisters: "You guys are doing really well!" and then to me: "You keep practicing, you'll get there." and he walks off.

It took every ounce of self-control all of us had not to laugh as he was walking away. Little does he know...

Oh! A cool calling experience: A man named Randy from the deep, redneck south of Georgia calls from mormon.org about getting a free Bible. We have a little conversation and I asked why he called. He told me that he "got home, took my knife and my gun and my pen and put it on the table, and I was taking off my shirt when this card fell out of my pocket with your all's number on it. I put it on the mirror for a few days, then told my buddy, 'I oughta call that number and get me a free Bible', so I did." This man mysteriously got a pass-along card in his shirt pocket! Weird. He ended up accepting a Book of Mormon and missionaries, as well.

Have you all ever heard of Honeycrisp apples? They apparently only come into season for a short time in the fall so they're pretty expensive ($5 per apple or $16 for a peck, where I was at- I didn't notice the price until after I had bought them) but they are literally the best apple I have ever had. Also, they are the size of my face. One apple is a whole meal. Phenomenal.

So life is progressing, moving on just dandy, up until about a week before we got our outbound calls. I was in President's office a couple days before, and he asked where I thought I was going. I rehearsed the story I told you earlier and he bends down to get a folder out of a drawer, sits it on his lap, and tells me to get out so he can see where I'm actually going. :) I could not TELL you the anxiety I had. Why? I don't know, I figure worrying will make things better? Go figure. The time finally comes for us all to meet at President's house for the big announcement of who goes where, starting backward alphabetically.

Sister Wood- West Virgina, Charleston

Sister Searle- West Virginia, Charleston (two people going to the same mission doesn't happen)

Sister Ross- Arkansas, Little Rock

Sister Richardson- Arkansas, Little Rock ASL (imagine our shock, two pairs going to the same places)

Sister Newell- Virginia, Richmond

Sister Munro- TEXAS, FORT WORTH!!! (Yeah, that happened.)

Sister Mills- Maryland, Baltimore (my companion is going where I'm from!!)

Sister Hughes- New Mexico, Farmington

Sister Holt- Michigan, Lansing

Sister Hansen- Massachusetts, Boston (She had said the only place she didn't want to go was Boston. She's a Yankees fan.)

Sister Hall- North Carolina, Raleigh

Sister Gines- Iowa, Des Moines
Sister Etherington- Iowa, Des Moines (THREE pairs)

Sister Allred- Idaho, Pocatello (she is a city girl through and through. I think she was a bit devastated to be sent to the country.)

I AM SO PSYCHED TO GO TO TEXAS. I got a short bio on my mission president and he is 45- I think that might be younger than my parents. (Mom, aren't you like, 30? ;)). I'll arrive there on October 8th, and I'll get my Texas address for you all then. Try to only send letters if it'll arrive here before October 8th! :) (Thank you all for your letters and emails, they are so thoughtful. I usually have more time to answer letters than emails, though.) Thankfully my Preparation days will be much more predictable from then on- Monday for six months!

The Second Month

Could my time here in Nauvoo have gotten any better? Yes. It could. And it did.

So my last post ended with me getting transferred out to Carthage. It's about a half hour outside of Nauvoo (a six hour horse ride for Joseph Smith back then). We lived in a house, divided into four apartments, within walking distance of the jail. The jail is original, never rebuilt or moved. We got to clean the outside stone walls for the first time in 100 years, so now it sparkles. I'm not going to tell you all about it because y'all need to come and see it. One tough thing about living 30 minutes from Nauvoo was we had to leave extra early for everything. Church here is at 8:00 am so we would have to leave the house by 6:50 to get there by 7:30 because the sisters have to be there a half hour early. I had to get up around 5:15two or three times a week.

One of my goals, coming on my mission, was to have a stronger testimony of Joseph Smith. When I told President that, he laughed and said 'You'll get that here, don't even worry about it'. He was right. (I am coming to learn that he is always right). There wasn't an exact day or turning point where I was like, 'Wow, Joseph Smith was a prophet'; it came so gradually that I didn't even notice. Well, that's kind of a lie. About a month into being there at Carthage, I was home studying. I read something about how we as missionaries should tell investigators how we, ourselves, came to know that Joseph Smith was a prophet. I realized I had never prayed about it, so I decided to do it right then and there. I went in my room and knelt, praying, kind of bawling the whole time while I was telling God why I had come on a mission and how I needed to know, without doubt, if this was true, because I could not and would not tell people lies. Then I asked the million-dollar question: "Was Joseph Smith a prophet?" And immediately- and I mean immediately- I stopped crying and I felt this peace and stillness in my heart. The thought came to my mind, 'You know it already'. So I was able to say, with complete surety, in all the remainder of my tours at Carthage and even up until now, that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God.

Some other cool experiences happened at Carthage, too. One time, I was taking a middle-aged couple into the video room (there's an 18-minute video before the 20-25 minute tour of the jail) and I asked if they had anyone else coming with them. The woman said "Well, our sons are outside. See if you can talk to them. They're a bit lost." I knew she didn't mean physically lost. I went outside and talked to them, they were 15 and 17. They immediately asked if their mom had sent me to get them and, pfft, of course I lied and said "No! I just wanted to talk to you guys." They said that God punishes liars :) hahahaha. It took some convincing but they finally joined the tour with their parents. So we get up to the Martyrdom room, I play the tape, and the time comes for me to testify at the end. All I could think about during the tape was the Atonement and repentance. So I testified on that. I told them how the gospel had turned my life around and that no purer happiness could come from anything else. It was much more moving and eloquently stated than that- probably because it was the Spirit speaking, not me. The tour ends and I'm at the bottom of the stairs, holding the door open for everyone as they left. The dad stopped, tearfully looked me in the eyes, and said "Thank you for your testimony. That's exactly what my boys needed to hear. They have some things they need to change in their lives. Thank you." and left. Those kinds of moments are what make missionary work worth it. 

And it seems like most of my spiritual experiences happen with people who are already LDS. There was a family that came in one day- I think it was the grandparents, their two daughters, and the daughters' four kids (two and two, respectively). It was my turn to have a tour- the last tour of the day- so I walk up to greet them and, oh my goodness, this family was not going to be entertained. My jokes only resulted in a polite chuckle, MAYBE. I hurry and put them in the video room and go pray, asking for charity to love this family and to give them a good experience. We go through the tour, the kids are angels (they are between like 7 and 12 I guessed), and finally we get to the Martyrdom room (have you noticed a theme here with this room? Yeah). The tape plays, I testify, it's all fine and dandy and normal. I go to open the door when I realize that, because the tour is just one family, they're all members, and it's the last tour of the day, we have time to have a little testimony meeting in there which we can't normally do. So I close the door and tell them that, and I wait for a few minutes in (semi-awkward) silence. Then I thank them for coming and go to open the door when someone pipes up and gives a short and simple testimony. That opened the floodgates for everyone else. I sat back down and it became a full-blown testimony meeting. The next thing I know, everybody including all four kids are crying- I had never seen kids cry from the spirit like that before. We were there for quite a while before we had to leave. Outside, the grandma told me that all of them had been praying for the kids to have a spiritual experience on their Nauvoo trip. The next three days on Pageant grounds, the kids looked for and found me every time. :) It was so sweet. The last day of Pageant, they found me early and I was torn between wanting to talk to them and doing my missionary duties, so I invited them to be mini missionaries with me. We went up and talked with people, asked for referrals, all that jazz. A couple days ago, I got a letter from the 12 year old girl saying she's thinking about going on a mission and she wants to be "just like you because you are so nice and kind". MELT MY HEART WHY DON'T YOU. 

One more Martyrdom Room story. The tape we play, towards the end, describes the events that happened in there- who got shot and how, basically. So my companion, Sister Searle, and I, are in there and the tape is going and there's this little girl, probably about 5 years old, sitting on the bench front and center. She's the type that doesn't like holding still but knows she'll get in trouble if she doesn't. So the tape starts describing the shots and she starts acting it out. With every shot, she silently screams in pain. She's falling over from the blows. "Willard Richards looks out the window..." and she looks out a pretend window. Sister Searle and I are trying our hardest to not laugh. She gets bored with this and starts swinging her legs under the bench, when out of nowhere, the bench entirely flips over on top of her. Her mom rushes over and rights the bench, scooping up the sniffling little girl who is trying to keep her cries of surprise under control. The tape ends soon after this and a non-member, who has been a little sketchy the entire tour and witnesses all of this, immediately gets up, says "I gotta get outta here" speed-walks to the door, and evacuates the building. It was quite the memorable experience.

Well, that's all, folks. I'll have more time next week! Trust me, I'll have more stories to tell. ;)