Macon, Georgia: 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