September 8, 2014 

I think getting people to come to church has been the most difficult part of my mission. I still remember the very first day we had someone come to church- January 5th, 2014. I cried when I saw her coming up to the doors. I think perhaps people don't grasp the magnitude of why church is important... we obviously try to teach the doctrine, people say they understand and that they will go, but it is once in a blue moon that people actually do. Oh, my heart.

I wrote about Chris way back when I was in Venus. He was baptized in July!! I knew he would be. I finally got in contact with him. It was wonderful talking to him again! He actually said "Sister Munro, I'm sorry I didn't open my eyes sooner and come to church when you and Sister Gentry were here". He talked about how he decided to close his store on Sundays and felt that it wasn't right to sell tobacco anymore. He goes, "Sure, I lost some customers but God blessed me with new ones." What faith! 

Report on the vegan week- successful! I mean we had to break it when we were fed by seniors, but other than that we were very diligent. I lost 6 pounds! 10 total since coming back from Texas. I'd never go completely vegan but hey, the Word of Wisdom is pro-veggies and says to eat meat sparingly, so I want to live that more fully. 

We had a sweet lesson with a less-active woman named Maggie. She believes in the Trinity, which is what we talked about in this lesson. We showed her 4 or 5 scriptures from the Bible that show that God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are separate. With each scripture, she got more and more open to the idea that God could be a person instead of a fog, and that they could all actually be separate. We read about Stephen in the book of Acts, who saw God with Jesus on his right hand. I said, "This is talking about two separate people that Stephen saw. And how could God have a right hand if he doesn't have a body?" Then Sister Etherington asked, "What would it mean to you if God did have a body?" After a long pause, Maggie says, "I guess that would mean that life has a lot more meaning to it than I thought." Halleluiah! The spirit was very strong, it was a sweet moment. 

Sister Etherington's family is here! They arrived Saturday and we gave them a tour of Carthage yesterday. We realized, leaving the Jail, that it was probably our last tour of Carthage as missionaries. So, if I've counted correctly, I've given 97 tours of Carthage Jail. :) I love that place.

Love, 
Ashley

Maggie, the less-active, wrote us an email shortly after her lesson. Another miracle!

We went to dinner with President and Sister Jones (he was the 1st counselor, going home this week), they are in my top 5 favorite senior couples here.

The Clements, some senior missionaries, invited us over one night so Sister Etherington could practice a piece that Elder Clement wrote. Sister Clement and I chilled out.