Tender Mercies and Little Miracles.....Oh I just love my Heavenly Father!! :)

Dear Family and Friends,

This past week has had its ups and downs, busy day and slow days. I feel like I am learning and growing a lot.. and it is not always comfortable. But with the Lord anything and everything is possible and eventually it will pass.

Tuesday was our zone conference! It was pretty awesome learning from President Cottle. He is a fantastic teacher and knows the Gospel very well! :) He taught us about the "Trust Box" and how in relationships, trust is more vital than love. When we are obedient we will stay in the box, as missionaries the white hand book and Preach my Gospel are what helps us stay within the box. We are more free when we are being obedient, even to the rules that are small and seem silly. Sister Pulsipher and I have committed ourselves to being exactly obedient, even to the small rules... I have noticed so many more blessings even though we were not being disobedient before. :) Later he taught us more about the Temple recommend questions. He explained all of them to us. :) I was so wonderful hearing those questions again and being to fully understand them.  

I went on exchanges with the sister training leaders. I went to Rincon Georgia again, but this time I was with Sister Woodbury! She is so awesome and a great missionary!!! She has only been out one more transfer than me, so we had a good time working hard and keeping busy and talking with everyone! I loved it SO much!!! We both where in missionary heaven! :) (Her companion is also at the tail end of her mission.)  We taught this lady out on her porch at 8:45 pm. the lesson on the restoration went so well! She had questions and understood majority of what we presented to her. She got excited about the Book of Mormon and asked us to come back the next day! We did leave till 9:25 pm! I will have to ask Sister Woodbury how it went the next day. :) 

On Saturday we went and visited Jeanette. She is a friend of an inactive member of the ward. She received a BOM and was reading it. She asked to meet with us. When we met up with her she had finished the BOM and was reading in the index because she wanted to read everything!!! She told us that she had already prayed to know if it is true and she knows it is, because of the dreams she had! It was so neat! :) We talked with her about the restoration, Joseph Smith and the priesthood power. We invited her to be baptized but she doesn't believe in being baptized more than once. (She was baptized as a girl into a Baptist church) We then explained more about the priesthood authority and she really understood and believed it, but was still a little hesitant. (which is perfectly normal) We then committed her to pray if she should be baptized or not. :) We also committed her to come to church and guess what?!?!? She came!!! It was a regional stake conference, being broad cast from Orlando Florida. Elder Russell M. Nelson was there! :) Jeanette LOVED all of the speakers and their messages! (Elder Gay and Elder Kopischke of the 70 and also Sister Carol McConkie of the YW presidency.) Elder Nelson spoke on the doctrine of the Gospel. I love it so much! He made it so simple that Jeanette said she learned a lot. :) 

Also in the Saturday night adult session my zone sang a song and also the stake president invited everyone to fast this coming week for more missionary opportunities! We are all very excited for this! :) 

I love you all! Thank you so much for your prayers!  

~ Sister Tara Willie

 With Sister Woodbury

 At a members house, her bird kept landing on my head lol :)

With my zone after singing!!

A Whirlwind Of A Week!!

Dearest Family and Friends,

So this past week has been super weird and busy and sad and just... crazy! Sister Snow past away Tuesday morning. Her memorial service was Friday afternoon. It was very nice and sort. The missionaries were asked to participate in the program. :) She will be missed very much, but it is very nice to know she is no longer in pain and in a better place.

We did service for sister Summerall (the kinda crazy, less active) On Saturday. She is so sweet, I really like her. :) We helped her go grocery Shopping (she has a fear of leaving the house.) and we also helped organized her house. She is super intellectual and enjoys learning about other cultures and religion. So we had a lot to talk about. :) She also was very sweet and took us out to dinner! (which was awesome cause our appointment cancelled on us.) She is really fun to talk to, but sometimes you can see the "crazy" come out. lol :) She apparently has a fiance living in Egypt... She even showed us his picture on Facebook and another weird thing is, he is 28 and she is 56. She is pretty cool, even tho she is a bit weird! :) 

We did a lot of tracking this week! But not to many takers. :( But we went back to a family that we had tracked into a few weeks ago and they were home and invited us in!!! We got to teach them the first lesson and they invited us back! :) They have 4 daughters and 2 nieces living them, so taught 7 little girls and they all were very attentive and asked good questions. the mom and grandma were standing off in the back but they were listening. :) the 16 year is very excited about it! Her name is Keirra. She has committed to read the Book of Mormon! We are going back later this week to see how she is doing on that. 

So some random things. First tomorrow is Zone Conference in Savannah! This weekend is Stake Conference and they have asked all the missionaries in our zone to sing during the Saturday night adult session. (I will go were you want me to go.) Also our meal calendar is filled for the next 4 weeks!!! Every day! We are pretty excited! lol! :) The Elders are a little jealous... I don't blame them. (The ward is a little particle to sisters right now. Kinda makes me feel bad for the Elders sometimes, but the ward still loves them, they just aren't spoiled.) 

I love you all very much! Thanks for your love and support! Share the gospel where ever you are!

~ Sister Tara Willie

 I saw an Alligator ;) hehe

A boat in the middle of the woods....it's a mile or two from the coast. I thought it was random 

 Some yummy meat stuff in the grocery store....SICK!!!

 With Elder Brimacombe, we are being goofs at a dinner :)

 Us before Sister Snow's Memorial Service!

Lobsters at the Store!

Families Are Forever!!

Dearest Family and Friends,

Today marks being out 2 months... WOW! I cannot believe it’s been that long already! So this week has been pretty busy!!! :) From having a Tornado watch on Saturday (yep the tornadoes are following me!), to being in the Hospital for a couple of hours this weekend  and today to tracking in record low temperatures this week has been a pretty unreal and busy week!

So with the Hospital business. Remember Sister Snow? Well she has Hepatitis C (She has known this for a long time) and this, plus other issues have led to her liver to die. She was doing alright on Saturday when we visited her, but Sunday she took a turn for the worst. Her kidneys are failing. :( So she is in the process of dying. :( The family asked all 6 of us missionaries to come and stay with them at the hospital for as long as we could. So we were there for about 3 hours yesterday and we are going back tonight. The doctors say she doesn't have much longer to live. :( I take such comfort in knowing that we can be sealed to our families, that there is a life after this one and we will have no pains or afflictions. 

We started teaching Kelly last week! She is a single mom with one daughter. She is pretty cool and has many questions. We started teaching her about the restoration, but we only got as far as "the gospel blesses individuals and families." She LOVES that we are family oriented and that we sit together as families in sacrament meeting. (That’s not the norm out here for other churches.) She told us a lot of her past and how she wants to raise her daughter in a strong united household and that it is hard to do when there is only one parent. She wants her daughter to see men for good and that they are supposed to be the provider and protector. She found out that I had grown up in a single mother house hold. She asked me how I was raised and how my mother was able to teach me about how an untied family was like? I got to bear my testimony to her that it is was because of the Gospel, that families are forever and how wonderful my mother is. :) She likes what we are teaching her, but is a little hesitant. She asked us to come back this Thursday! We are pretty excited to teach her again!    

Tuesday was a record low day her in Beaufort! The high was degrees! (Yes I know it’s a lot colder out west but going from 60 degrees to 28 is killer! lol) Sister Pulsipher and I tracked a lot in the cold weather!!! Because we were diligent and worked hard even though we were freezing we were blessed! :) All but 2 of the houses had people home and a lot of people took our cards and some even asked us to come back! We got 2 new 'gators' and like 6 potentials! We old man was pretty anti at first but we kept talking to him and eventually he calmed down and told us his wife is dead and that he believes in God but not in religion. We started talking to him about the Plan of Salvation and he literally was drinking in everything we said! He didn't want us to come back because he was fearful of what his children would say but he did except a Book of Mormon! :) We are giving him a little bit of time before we try back again. :) (His name is Bunny... pretty cool right?!?)   

I am so grateful for the opportunity to have fasted last week. So many blessings and miracles have happened in the past week because we fasted to find more people, to have motivation and to work hard! It is so wonderful to see the small and simple blessings come of it! :) I am so grateful to be part of these miracles! 

I hope you all have a wonderful week! Luv ya! :)

~ Sister Tara Willie

 With Amy and Roshanda

A Super fat cat we saw while tracking

Sister Fife took us out for Sushi! And we are dorks! :)

Transfer Week

Dear Family and Friends,

Another week has gone by relatively quickly. It is also transfers week... I've been out in the field for 6 weeks now!?! Wow that went by fast! It doesn't feel like 6 weeks, maybe 3. The days are long, but the weeks seem to fly by. (Weird!)

For New Year’s Eve we had lock down at 6 pm. During that time we had a zone conference call to discuss our goals and how we can be better. We talked a lot on obedience and how we can always improve. I have made Exact Obedience, and improving my Personal study time my New Year’s resolutions! :) I'm pretty excited about them! 

It has been raining here a lot this past week. So we have has the opportunity to tract in the rain! (I really do love tracking!) Every door was a no or a bad timing, but it still was awesome! We were pretty wet and cold after tracking in this one neighborhood for an hour and a half. We also had a lesson with Roshanda. She is not really progressing and doesn't keep any of the commitments we have given her. We are very sad and frustrated with this. Our lesson with her was going really well! It was on the plan of salvation. We had decided to simplify our lessons and go over them again with her. Well in the middle of our lesson she notices someone pulling up to her trailer and says "excuse me for a minute while I figure out who this is." The she opens the front door and yell at this women sitting out in the car. (Just imagine this enormous black women yelling at you, demanding what you want... She kind of scares me. lol) :) The she leaves the trailer and heads for the car, leaving us alone inside. The next thing we know she is sitting in that random car and leaving us... yep that was weird. We were really confused and not sure what to do, but we decided to leave her the pamphlet with the time we planned on coming back. Ya that was an interesting experience but when we went back she asked us to reschedule but she will try and read the pamphlet herself... We will see what happens when we go back tomorrow! (She won't tell us, but we don't think she knows how to read... it’s hard to help her if she won’t let us address the problem.) 

On Friday we did service!!! All 6 of us missionaries went and helped Sister Cline deep clean and paint this disgusting old house so she can rent it out again. The last person who lived there trashed it! It was SO gross! Food was on the ceiling and walls, along with other unknown stains. So we had a good time cleaning everything and then painting over the walls and trim. It was a lot of fun doing service. We were there for almost 4 hours!  but we love Sister Cline and plus it was a good time being together as a district before two of the Elders get transferred tomorrow. :) We try and do some type of service each week! :)

I really love the ward I am serving in! Fast and testimony was so wonderful and pretty much focused on missionary work. About haft of the congregation are converts and hearing their testimonies of how grateful they are for the two missionaries who walked down that dirt road to find them. They also encouraged the ward to come out with us a lot more and to be bold sand brave about inviting their friends to Church/activities, etc. The spirit was so strong! I love sacrament meeting! :) That evening we (all 6 of us missionaries) held a Preach My Gospel class for anyone who wanted to come. We invited all ages because the Prophet and Apostles have asked us to study PMG in our families to help every member be a missionary. We had 5 young men and a single sister in her 30 come. It was a great class! (but I have forgotten how rowdy teenage boys can be.) We discussed how to keep commitments and then to extent and follow up on commitments. We also did lots of role play! Cause as missionaries we always are role playing to help us become more comfortable with teaching! :) 

I love you all so much and I am so grateful for your support and love! :) Remember to study Preach My Gospel this year and if you don't have one they are only 4 to 6 dollars! No excuses! :) You and your family will be blessed because of your dedication to studying PMG, I can promise you this! :)

~ Sister Tara Willie

In front of the House!

 All of us inside of the Bathroom doing service....ya it was pretty fun :)

All the rain flooded our driveway!