Kenz in Knox: WHERE ARE WE???

Sister Allen and I had the experience the other day of talking to a man over the phone that was making close to no sense and then at one point said in his thick Tennessean drawl "Well maybe when I get some money we can go to Burger King..." I had to bite my tongue and when we ended the call I just looked at her and said "Where are we?" And then we both lost it, fall over rolling on the ground belly laughter. Ever since then that has become the quote of our transfer, "Where are we?"

Here are some of this week's "Where are we?" Highlights:

Talking to a man up a tree
While tracting we talked to a former investigator who drives a semi and wasn't interested at the moment but assured us he had "our Bible" and said he'd call if he ever had questions. We asked him if he knew anyone around who could benefit from our message he told us about his neighbors one of which was a Hispanic family. Of course we decided to go there! We knocked on the door with no answer... bummed we went to the next house. As we were walking back after getting completely rejected there, we heard a loud pounding sound coming from the sky and looked up at a tree to see a man with a machete chopping off branches. The closer we got we realized he was Latino and so I started yelling to him, he yelled back that he didn't live and was just working there for the day, a little too busy to discuss religion from the perch of a 30 foot tree but was super nice... tracting trees, who knew?! WHERE ARE WE?

Waiting for a man to fix a taillight and talk to us.
We went to followup with a guy who flaked on our lesson this week. He didn't answer the door but we did find him around the side of his house getting something out of his car (Sneaky Sisters I know:) he asked if we could wait for just a few minutes while he finished up some things, we said of course and went to sit on his front porch. We waited and waited and then heard a drill... after peeking around the corner of the house we see him changing a taillight on his car. Sister Allen said to me, "if you told me a year ago we'd be sitting on a front porch in Tennessee waiting for a Porto Rican French man to change a taillight before he comes and talks to us... I'd have thought you were crazy!" I almost fell off the bench laughing. WHERE ARE WE?!?!?

300 carloads of food
We went on powerups with the STL's where we both went to their area and split up. One goes with one the other with the other, we help "powerup" their area and learn from them. We went with them and a bunch of nearby elders to a local church's food bank and helped load over 300 cars with food. It was a really cool experience. We'd get a "buggy" (shopping cart or wagon) and workers would fill it with food and assign us a person to deliver to and they would walk out with us and we'd load it in their car or truck. It was extremely humbling and also such a great way to meet people and share about the church and missionary work. I absolutely loved it and again was once again impressed at the way I have repented and changed to the point of being able to immediately show an interest towards and love people I might have once turned away from. Helping a woman with a prosthetic leg get groceries for her family, meeting a disabled young man that told me all about his nerf guns, giving a hug to a woman who needed reassurance. All in the blazing sun... WHERE ARE WE?

Wrastlin marriage advice
Oh this one, I don't even know how to describe... a less active family reached out to us and said they wanted to get back into church and that the dad wants to prepare to receive the Melchizedek priesthood and become an elder... We can definitely help with that!!! So we went over there and had a nice meal and a really good lesson on the priesthood and talked to them about preparing to go to the temple. Of course the conversation eventually leads to the famous question "So how'd y'all meet?" In Utah that usually is the safest question in the book, out here in Tennessee, it can be soo sketchy. But we asked it anyway, the story of how they met wasn't all that bad but when it was followed up by the line (read in your best southern accent "you'uns remember this when you find nice men to marry... we have had a successful marriage of 17 years because we never stop wrastling..." Sister Allen and I both nodded and pulled the "ohh okay uh huh" in that classic uncomfortable sugary sweet voice, because we had noooo idea what that meant! We were nervous it was something along the lines of law or chastity but no no their daughter explained that she has to come in between fights when they start headlocks and flipping each other out of chairs and body slamming each other out of no where... WHERE ARE WE?!

Plarn
This woman, bless her heart has had previous contact with missionaries and loves family history. She said that we shouldn't get our hopes up because she is southern Baptist but that she was interested in coming to our enrichment night on indexing and family search this upcoming week. We were way excited at that but not so way excited when she then went off on a half hour tangent about crocheting and "plarn" (plastic yarn) She ties knots in plastic grocery bags and crochets them into mats for the homeless to sleep on. Pretty cool right? Yeah, until you have a lesson to get to in 5 minutes and she will not stop talking even after you thank her for the visit and stand and start side stepping to the door, ahhh WHERE ARE WE?!?!?!

Learning Chinese
Some recent converts in the ward are from China and we have been trying to get in contact with them for a few weeks now, we met the husband but couldn't get a hold of the wife and then finally did. We visited with her and her mom who speaks no English. We had picked up a Chinese Book of Mormon from the mission office and went to give it to her but she already has one, way to go missionaries!! Anyway we shared with them the classic John 14:27, gets me everytime, so much power in that verse. But we shared it and talked about the peace that comes from having faith in Christ and we learned some Chinese words along the way, peace = Hépíng and love = Ài... Sister Allen has started doing language study with me and we joked we should just forget Spanish altogether and work on Chinese! WHERE ARE WE?!

Browning fans
We found a member's house just in time for a bathroom break, we were very hydrated and dying while at an appt near them. On their truck was a buckmark sticker and in their home were mounted whitetails, I played the Browning card and showed a couple of hunting pictures, let's just say the ward is shocked at this "sweet sister missionary that's a huntress" I found some of my people out here!!!! And my hunting stories apparently were a topic in priesthood because when we had dinner at our Bishop's house he made it a point to go get his old Browning over and under 22 rifle. He was pretty excited, so was I. WHERE ARE WE?!

Dear Elder Classic
Ok so there is this website where you can write missionaries letters and they print them off and deliver them all around the world. Convenient right? Well in addition to that there is my personal favorite feature on the site the tab: "Dear Elder..." which is a collection of "dear johns" elders receive and submit over time. Ah man I read through a ton of them when I was home one summer. Some are so bad they're sad, some are so funny and some are downright rude. I remember reading one in particular that was from an Elder in behalf of a girl to her boyfriend a different Elder serving in another country. It was very formal and talked about how they were developing a relationship with each other and with Christ and praying about their decision and date... FOR BAPTISM!! It had me hook, line, and sinker!!! I thought it was so well played. But anyway long story short the person that received that letter while in the field and later submitted it is our Bishop!!!! He began telling the story and I knew exactly how it went I was so excited I asked if I could have a signed copy. I'll definitely attach a picture, but what a small world!!! WHERE ARE WE?!?!?!

Midnight referral and golden boy
So this is the climax of the email, hopefully you've gotten a good chuckle so far but this one will hopefully bring the Spirit... Friday night we were sound asleep until 12:58 a.m. when a text came in... our ringer was on and so it woke both of us up. I groggily opened it and saw that some sister missionaries in a far off land sent us a referral... a guy had requested a book of Mormon online and when asked why he said "I just wanted to try it out. I heard it does great things for people." To be honest I thought I was dreaming, when I woke up 5 hours later I remember praying that that had actually happened and then looked at the phone and saw it was indeed true. I felt the strongest sense of hope and excitement than I have felt in a long time, I was a little scared to trust it but decided to. We called the number and set up a time to go deliver the book to him, we both felt really good about it when we hung up. After getting lost on the way to his house and calling him again we eventually found him and gave it to him with a brief introduction and overview of the Restoration. He said he would get started reading and that it sounded interesting. We invited him to church and then headed on our merry way. On the drive back we discussed how we both felt "really good about him" that was confirmed when he texted us later asking what he should wear to church on Sunday. We responded letting him know that normally it's shirt and tie attire but he would be welcomed no matter what. We then asked him how reading was going and he said that he had read the intro, testimonies, and first chapters... We grew more and more excited as time passed. Sunday came and we anxiously waited for him to show up, 15 minutes, 10 minutes, 5 minutes, 2 minutes, 1 minute... nothing, we texted asking him to let us know when he got there and then he called us, and said he was turning down the street, PHEWF!!! We walked out to meet him in the parking lot and walked in with him giving him a brief overview of the sacrament and how meetings were set up. We sat down and prayed our brains out when the meeting was on girls camp and testimonies. I exercised every ounce of patience when the out of control four year old behind us would not stop whining and was so distracting and kept kicking the pew. Some kids need the classic Travis Hall "BREATHE THROUGH YOUR NOSE" reprimand and some adults need to take their kids outside! My goodness we were dyinggggg. But God is good and the influence of the Holy Ghost is real. Because our investigator said he enjoyed it and after asked "So what's next, what should I do?" We explained we teach the next class and he was welcome to stay and he did. Gospel Principles hasn't been taught in months and so we started on lesson one: "Our Father in Heaven" which couldn't have been more perfect. This guy has been confused about God his whole life, but said he felt something when we talked to him the other day and delivered the book of Mormon. He said he wasn't sure if it was because he hasn't had any coffee (because he quit drinking it when he read we don't drink it.... what...WHAAAAAAT?!?!?!?!) or what but he felt "fulfillment, hope, and clarity." The rest of our lesson was fantastic Sister Allen did SUCH a good job explaining and guiding the lesson to his specific needs, she is becoming such a talented teacher, I'm so mama hen proud of her!!! But anyway it was a good lesson and 3rd hour was combined so he stayed for that as well. It was on welcoming and fellowshipping new and returning members, how convenient. Afterwards the Bishop's wife invited us all over for dinner and we went and had another really good lesson and went over most of the Restoration lesson and answered many of his questions. Someone had mentioned a baby blessing and I felt prompted to explain that, we contrasted the difference between a baby blessing and infant baptism and explained the age of accountability. He turned to me and said "So what happens if you've missed the age deadline of 8?" I reassured him it's a minimum requirement not a maximum age requirement and he said "Oh ok good" and then asked another question. Sister Allen and I made eye contact and were both trying not to let our inner giddiness get the best of us. We know that he is who we have prayed for. I feel so at peace with him and his intent and desire, HE GAVE UP COFFEE WITHOUT US SAYING A WORD!!!! HE HAS READ 20 PAGES OF THE BOOK OF MORMON!!! He explained to us that "if I'm going to try this out I wanna see if I can do it" OHHH MY GOODNESS, WHERE ARE WE?!?!?!

My mission scripture is Alma 26:37

Now my brethren, we see that God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in; yea, he numbereth his people, and his bowels of mercy are over all the earth. Now this is my joy, and my great thanksgiving; yea, and I will give thanks unto my God forever. Amen.

I thought I knew then but now know more than ever that God is so perfectly aware of us.
We may not understand where we are most of the time but He does ALL of the time.
We may not understand why we are where we are or how we got there but the important thing to remember is that He knows. He has not forgotten us, He will not leave us comfortless, He wants so badly, so desperately to bless us, to show us He is mindful, but we have to be willing to receive the blessings and be changed enough to look for His tender mercies and beg for His mercy and miracles. Every miracle that His perfect son, our older brother Jesus Christ ever performed was preceded by faith. And it is after the "trial of our faith" that blessings come. Sister Allen and I in our 6 weeks in Oak Ridge have seen and experienced the trial, the test, and the great reward of faith. In small ways we are understanding our Savior's life and his own trial, test, and great reward. We know that through faith in Him we can be recipients of great rewards and miraculous blessings.

This is my joy and my great thanksgiving. I, like Ammon, will give thanks unto my God forever, for allowing me to have the opportunities in my life to see and experience change and to be a part of the greatest decision people will ever make in their life: to choose Christ and His gospel.
That y'all make that choice each day is my prayer.

Please have a blessed week!
Remember He's mindful... from Tennesee to Utah and everywhere around and in between He knows, He lives, He cares, He is merciful, He is mindful.

Love,
Hermana Hall