Monday, December 1, 2014

Thanksgiving is not Thanksgiving without Mac and Cheese

Welcome to December, and this week's edition of The Lord's Vineyard: Summerville, South Carolina Edition...I'm your host, Sister Smith and I'll be filling you in on the miracles, adventures and happenings of my time serving as a full-time representative of our Savior Jesus Christ, hope you enjoy and feel a little more joyful after reading!!

Nov 24th:
The Cicon’s had Morgan over for FHE tonight. I love how we’re on such a steady schedule with morgan. Every Monday we go over and he follows us to a members house to have FHE, then every Friday at 10:30am we meet in his driveway on camp chairs and have a lesson. He’s the greatest. He told us he’d finally finished 2 Nephi, he’s a little nervous for his baptism, but he’s getting excited as well. The Cicon’s had no idea he was getting baptized, so when they started asking him how he was feeling about the church and such, he piped in, well I’m getting baptized Dec. 20th. They were like, “WHAT!?”, they had the peeeerrrfect reaction, as they both shouted and congratulated him with jubilance. Which is how it should be, this is one of the most life changing decisions, he’s making an eternal covenant with God, I think it deserves a few emotional pyrotechnics.

Nov. 26th:
After unexchanging with Sis Havens, we went to the Haynes for our lesson. We taught the little munchkins about the plan of salvation. We started with having them color their own, and I did my best to help the 6yr old not “scribble-scrabble” all over, because as she told me, “you can’t scribble-scrabble, it’s dangerous!”. We cut them out, and laid it out piece by piece explaining it all. I love breaking things down to a child’s level, that’s the simplicity we should all be looking at things with. We mixed up all the pieces and challenged them to put it all back together again. Izayah, the 10yr old was great, we’d only asked him to rearrange the pieces in order. He not only did that, but proceeded to explain to us about what each piece was, and how it fit into the plan. He was a little confused about what temples are, and told us that’s where all of our bodies are kept, we quickly cleared that one up, haha.

Nov 27th:
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!
HAPPY HAPPY THANKSGIVING! I couldn’t be more grateful to be where I am right now. Smack dab in the middle of the Lord’s vineyard, sporting a shiny black nametag bearing the name of Jesus Christ, and his Church in these Latter Days.
For the first time ever, I got to participate in the Turkey Bowl. It was a blast, and felt so good to play a competitive sport after such a long time. Our ward was combined with the 3rd ward, so we got to play with the other sisters and elders as well. We layered up, and headed out. Sis Wheelock was so pumped, the day before she’d been sick with the flu, but sure enough she shook it off, and said there was no way she wasn’t playing in the turkey bowl because of some little flu. Sis Mathias was a little unfamiliar with it all, but she caught on fast. We randomly split up the teams, making sure companions stayed together to make sure companionship unity was maintained. We played 2-hand touch, only sisters could guard sisters, but if a sister caught a pass it was an automatic down. We did pretty good, and I think represented the face of all sister missionaries everywhere. Sis Burbank caught a touchdown pass, I played more on the defense and tipped a few passes, took down a few runs and caught a interception, and Sis Wheelock had the same. haha, and this was sis Mathias' first time playing american football, and she didn't do too shabby.

Our first thanksgiving meal was with Doris, her son and her 6 grands. It was so much fun! They’re just a good ‘ol southern black family. The meal consisted of yams, rice, collard greens, potato salad, mac-n-cheese and a Tur-duck-hen. Not all of your traditional western thanksgiving foods, but when we told them that back home I’d never had a thanksgiving with mac-n-cheese they were appalled. Keenan exclaimed, “what?! That’s the only thing I look forward to eachthanksgiving!” The rest of our Thanksgiving was with the Blonquist family.

Nov. 29:
All afternoon we were struggling to find anyone to let us in and teach. We pulled up to our last plan, and it was only 7:30…I prayed for a miracle, and that some way these people would let us in, and we’d be able to teach them. We knocked in the Peterson’s neighbor’s door. We’d tried before to meet with her, because the Peterson’s told us they might be interested. She answered and let us right in! We got to teach her, Amy, and her boyfriend, Joe! They’re middle aged, with families of their own and were the sweetest little miracle of the night. Looking back I can tell how the spirit guided us, we were lead in our questions and we taught in a different way than we ever had. It was doctrine focused, but applied in a casual way that testified of how ultimate truth is out there, and it can bless their individual lives. They areed to read from the Book of Mormon, and said we were welcome to come back, and even sent us on our way with a big bag of chex mix! I’m smiling just thinking about how sweet Heavenly Father was in leading 2 cold, lonely, rejected sisters to their home, so we could be an instrument in His hands.

ok, this episode ended up being an extended addition! But there was just too much goodness and blessings this week! hope y'all experience the same! miracles are out there, go get em!!

Love y'all!

Sister Smith

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