Marissa In Mississippi: To Tract

"One curious example of Mormon vocabulary is the verb “to tract,” by which we mean to knock on people’s doors in order to proselytize."

Our companionship decided we needed to change the way we tract.

We can be a little more guided as we do so, and make sure we are exactly where the Lord wants us.

We have seen so many miracles as we have been planned and prayed about which streets we are going to knock doors!!

We had a cat follow us for a really long time. It followed us from a house we tracted. The people there weren't interested in hearing a message about Jesus Christ, but their cat must have been because it followed us for about half an hour! It followed us all the way back to our car and so we decided to return it to it's people and drove it back.

We had dinner with one of my favorite families, the Crandell's this week, and all the missionaries love to play with their kids.

One of our investigators who was going to get baptized named Cheyanna just moved back to Arkansas and we were so sad because we love her so much! But she told us that we have changed her life!

We had a Zone meeting this week and then all the missionaries went to get burritos at this place called Free Birds!

We had SO many tracting miracles this week but I only have time to share one with you.....

Yesterday we felt really good and we all prayed about the street we ended up picking and felt really good about it.

The very first house we went to was a million-badjilionare.

THEIR HOUSE WAS HUGE. And They showed us their car collection. I guess the husband used to be a race car driver and now he owns his on electrical company. But they had lambouriguinies and restored cars.... it was crazy! They even had cars in their house on display.

Oh, and Elvis too! :)

So they were pretty nice to us, but weren't really interested in religion.

An hour and a half went on, and each door rejected us.

I started to get discouraged and wondered why the Lord wanted us on this street.

We tracted the whole street, and no one would let us get two words out.

So we are now supposed to be leaving for our dinner appointment so we aren't late, but we walk across the street and try one more house.

A Methodist man answers... again not interested.

We ask him for referrals and he says he doesn't know anyone really, that the house next to him - no body lives in.

But as we start walking back to the car, we see three cars at the house.

So on a hunch- we decide to be late to our dinner appointment and try this last house.

A very nice woman named Regina answers and immediately invites us in. We tell her we only have a few minutes, but that we are missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

She responds with "Oh, my great-grandfather was a Mormon! I've always wanted to learn more about my family history!"

WE found who the Lord wanted us to find, and it was a miracle!

The little things like this that happen every day let me know that Heavenly Father is 100% in control.

On Saturday we helped Bill knock/tear his burned house down.

It was a little sad, but half the ward from our church showed up to help.

Everyone that was there helping is from the ward and I was talking to Bill about it and everyone that was there helping, and he looked around at everyone that loves him and said:

"This is why I joined the Mormon church!" with tears in his eyes. It was a really tender moment.

It's true that the church is so big on service and helping those in need. We honestly want to be more like our Savior.

Jesus Christ and his apostles did went about doing good works and people noticed. It was such a great feeling to be a part of that!

I love this ward! I love this Brownlee area!

I am glad that I get to serve in the States because it won't be to hard for me to come back and visit!

Here are some of the members of the church... my best friends!

I just wanted to let you all know that Heavenly Father loves you. God hears your prayers. I know with a surety that he has a plan for each one of us.

Although I had to go through a lot of trials before my mission, it has made me appreciate and enjoy it so much more.

Some of the missionaries come out here and they have never been away from home or had a hard experience in their lives!

So I am now grateful I had those experiences before so that now i can just focus on being a missionary and doing the Lord's work :) Having trials before hand has made me be able to just ENJOY missionary work and serving my brothers and sisters!

Scripture of the week: Alma 32:21

"Faith is to hope for things which aren't seen"