Monday, September 8, 2014

New and Improved

Hey ya'll! So I bet you are wondering if i really cut my hair or not, and the answer is YES!


and i'm loving it.

I have had a pretty good couple of weeks here in Louisiana.
I have been sick the past week and that has been really hard... but I am on the mend and keep me in your prayers that I will quickly be able to return to 100% awesomeness.

Last P-day we went fishin on the scout ranch in Stonewall. Some members of the ward here live on the ranch and wanted us to come fishing!
I caught a fish as big as..... my ear. Haha.







We celebrated Sister Jones' birthday this week. She is one of the sweetest ladies in the ward here and she always drives us missionaries wherever we need to go and comes to all our appointments with us! We also go out to dinner with her sometimes and of course we always love it.
Thank you to everyone that helped provide Sister Jones's birthday surprise!!!
She absolutely LOVED all the new church books, movies, and music.


Funny moment: We had dinner with the cutest little family - the Larsons.
We called them the night before and asked if there was a specific message we could teach their family about when we came for dinner.....
They told us we should share a message on telling the truth. So, we took two empty present bags and told them we had a gift.....so they were way excited and then there was nothing inside.....they were sad and we talked about how when we lie to our parents it makes them feel sad, and how we shouldn't do that. They understood and didn't want to lie anymore....then we gave them a fruit roll up for being so great in the lesson!!

WELL we had transfers last week and we were all sad to say goodbye to Elder Loftin. He has been a great misisonary and a great district leader, and now he gets to go home to his family and start the next phase of his life!!! I am still here in Stonewall, and I am guessing I will be here for a couple more weeks, but we never know!
I also got to say goodbye to my good friend and my companion from Brownlee - Sister Matson!
She finally got her visa to Brazil after waiting for a year and I am so happy for her! She has greatly blessed so many people here to be serving in the Mississippi Jackson Mission and we will all miss her.




Saturday we were biking back home and were almost there when I looked up and saw this red truck and had this feeling it hadn't see us (the still small voice was warning me!) and in a matter of seconds he rolled through the stop sign and came about 6 inches from hitting Sister Sowards and I head on....talk about an adrenaline rush! I am so glad we didn't get hit and as he sped away - embarrassed to even stop and say sorry.... I had the thought that my guardian angels were looking out for me and jumped in front of the truck because it stopped so abruptly... I said a silent prayer that we would continue to be safe because there are no sidewalks here in Louisiana... It's always a game of balance as we try to ride the line and not get in the cars way.

We went visiting Teaching with Mattie (our recent convert) and got to meet someone new always fun!! then she came tracting with us! She is such a trooper! I love Mattie very much and although she has a lot of reasons to not join the church, she has one of the strongest testimonies, she really is amazing! She gives me hope to find people like her to teach that are just ready to hear the gospel and will accept it, no matter the cost!



We have been having lots of people come to church lately which is very exciting. I love to see the members that haven't been to church for a while remember why they love their Savior and man i'm telling you... sometimes all people need is some love.
We need to all love those around us! There is too much hate in the world! It's amazing what a little love can do.
We asked one of our members Sister Jackson to call and invite one of our investigators Miss Kirby to come to church with her Sister Jackson called us back and said "When I called Kirby to invite her to church she picked up right away telling me that she was just about to call me and tell me that she is ready to give it a try!"
We were so happy to hear that because we have been wanting Miss Kirby to come to church for quite a while... she always tell us that she believes in what we teach but she is too old to change! SO it was a miracle! And she came this past Sunday as well! 2 weeks in a row!

Our Relief Society President - Sister Adams does so much for us, and takes out to Logansport (a 40 min drive) to teach some people that we have out there! So we tried to "repay" her this week by scraping paint off her walls for a couple hours!



Oh did I tell ya'll that I ate some frog legs??? They were okay. Not quite as flavorful as I wanted them to be!




Well, I got pretty sick a couple days ago and we got home from working that night... walked into our apartment and hit a WALL of heat! Our air conditioner had gone out.... it was about 90 when we went inside. Well it was late, so no one could come fix it that night. We got permission to have a sleep over at a member's house and of course we stayed with Sister Jones since she loves our company so much.


The next morning I fell asleep during study time because I was pretty sick... Sister sowards of course put her quilt on top of me and snapped a picture.


Other exciting news is that our dear friend Bailee Glass got her mission call!!!!!



She has been called to serve in the Provo, Utah mission.... speaking Spanish!
Haha it's pretty funny she's going to Utah but there are lots of people up there that need the gospel too! She is going to be a wonderful missionary and I have loved the great friendship that we have made since I got to live with their family for a while and we got very close to them :)



There is a funny cat - his name is Max, and he sits on my shoes every time we go visit the Quick family. I find it quite hilarious and guess that he must love stinky missionary shoes because this is not the first pair of shoes he has loved to sit on... in fact he sits on all the missionary shoes.


One more cool missionary moment for the week. We try to go about once a week to visit a Sister in the ward who is very sick and has a lot of health problems. Her name is Sister Williamson and a lot of the time when we go over there, her physical therapist CJ is there helping her.
Well CJ has been sitting in on our spiritual messages and has been curious about our beliefs and about what we do. We have been able to share a bit with him. Well this last time we went, CJ was there again and we talked about the Book of Mormon and read a bit with Sister Williamson. As we were about to leave - Sister Williamson went to the bathroom and Sister Sowards and I offered CJ a Book of Mormon to read for himself.

He surprised us by smiling and saying "I already have one.... I picked one up from a friend last week from the missionaries that visit her because I have been curious. I haven't read it yet but I am excited to."

WELL that made us pretty excited! And then - of course Sister Williamson comes out of the bathroom and asks CJ if she could give him a copy of the book of mormon.... haha we all laughed at the funny moment and we are excited to see CJ again and see what he is thinking about the book!


That is all for this week but I hope I am feeling better next week! Please keep me in your prayers as it has been a struggle lately and Satan is discouraging me!
I know the best medicine to get rid of Satan is to get out and work and share the gospel but it has been hard since I have been so sick!

I love you, I love this gospel. I love the peace it brings to a world full of turmoil!
Talk to you soon,

Sister Marissa Brown

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