Dear Family
Hello! Hello! So well we found out last night what will be happening in transfers which are tomorrow. And guess what?! I get to stay in Christiansburg for 6 more weeks!!! YAY! And no wait there is more!!! Kurt you were right I am training! (how did you know?!) I’m going to have a daughter!! (That’s mission lingo. When you come into a mission you are born, when you leave you die, so Sister Peck is dying tomorrow. And your trainer is your parent) Oh and I am going to have a sister too! Sister Hill is going to be training this transfer too. Ha ha so much fun. Elder Richards is going to be a father, so there are going to be two greenies in Christiansburg. I’m excited to have a greenie, maybe she will relight my greenie fire with hers.
So Sister Peck hasn’t been able to tract because she has not been feeling good. That has been super hard, because when you don’t have people to see you go tracting. Well when we don’t have people to see, we have to try and find people to see, so we end up wasting a lot of miles and trying to see a lot of people who aren’t home. So I look forward to breaking my new greenie into tracting!!
This has to be short because I don’t have much time. This week we taught a lot of lessons, or at least the numbers say we did, but we didn’t really teach any of our main investigators. They cancelled on us. I did learn some important lessons this week though. At church on Sunday we talked about serving and the teacher said that when we serve we should expect nothing in return except the joy of serving someone else. Well that hit home to me because lately I have been struggling because a lot of people don’t work with us. They cancel all the time, or tell us to come back but then they are never home or too busy. And I have gotten super frustrated. And our numbers have been terrible lately. And no it isn’t all about numbers, its about the people we are teaching. But the numbers show that we haven’t been teaching! I realized though that I am serving people, whether they accept it or not. And I be happy for the opportunity. It doesn’t matter the response. And by being frustrated with them for not letting us teaching them I just make myself unhappy and uncharitable towards them.
We finally are getting back in with Tonia and her family they have been super busy lately. We have decided to turn them over to the elders, because they are actually in the elder’s area, we just started teaching them because originally we were teaching Tonia and she was a single woman. And we have really struggled to get them to commit and progress so we have decided that maybe the Elders could do better with them. The boys might respond better to the Elders. So we have been taking the elders to teach them. It has been really fun. It’s kind of sad to me though. Tonia and her boys are my favorite investigators and we have gotten to know them really well. I would love more than anything for them to be baptized. So it’s been hard to decide to let the elders take over. But I feel that this is right and if the Elders can get them to commit than more power to them. I have written to you about the power of prayer and Tonia and her family need your prayers. They need to Gospel so bad, but they don’t know that yet. And Satan is working really hard on them to keep them too busy to find time for church, their prayers, and the scriptures. Another one of our investigators, Sheila, was progressing really well and all of a sudden she is really busy and we haven’t seen her for a while. We think she might have been antied. And Satan is also working really hard on her to keep her too busy as well. So please pray for her too.
Another thing I have noticed this week is that people always have excuses to not come to church or do callings or serve people. And sometimes they are pretty good excuses, they have to work or they have health issues. Well there are always going to be trials and excuses, the point of those trials is are you going to let them stop you? Or are you going to work through them and be a stronger person in the end? So quit making excuses! Excuses are like armpits, everyone has them and they ALL stink! It’s all about your priorities. Focus on the most important things. And there are good things, better things, and the best things. You can’t do them all, focus on the best things.
I LOVE you all! I will send you some pictures next week of my new little girl!!
Have a wonderfully fabulous week!!!!
Love, Sister Nicole Polatis
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Good News And Bad News
Hello Family!!!
Hey so guess what we actually got a semi good snow fall yesterday. Well at least it stayed and didn’t melt immediately and was more than a skiff. It was super nice, but people around here kept telling us to drive carefully, there wasn’t even any snow on the road! Crazy. And the snow here is mostly slush.
Okay some crazy things happened this week. First the happy news! One of our investigators Greg Farmer is getting baptized on February 15th!! We set the date last night. His wife is a less active and we’ve actually been teaching her for a long time, but she never really seemed interested and she never came to church. And then we started teaching her whole family and now they’ve started coming to church and getting more involved in the lessons. I think I have told you about them before. Their youngest son is 2 and let me tell you he is going through those Terrible Two’s. He is a TERORR. We’ve gotten very used to dodging the toys he throws at us or talking over his yelling and screaming. He is actually very hilarious, but his poor parents are probably frazzled. I think he might have ADD, he can’t sit still for more than a few seconds. I really have to admire the Farmers for their patience! But last night the terror was actually a lot better than usual and the Spirit was so strong! It was awesome!!!
Second thing, that is not quite so happy. Sister Peck has decided to go home after this transfer. She is only one transfer short so she had a really hard time trying to decide if she should stick it out for a few more weeks, but she is been in a lot of pain lately and decided to go home and try and figure out what is wrong. She has been a lot happier lately and I think she is very relieved to be going home. That she has lasted this long is amazing, she’s really had to endure a lot of pain. So going home a transfer is nothing to be ashamed about especially when the doctors told her to go home at the beginning of her mission. Also it’s been kind of hard because we haven’t been able to work as much. And let me tell you it has made me kind of lazy! When we do go out and work it is a lot harder because we have been taking it easy. So transfers are next Wednesday on the 28th. I will most likely being staying here again so that it isn’t 2 new sisters here, but it has happened before. But I really think I will be staying. Three new sisters are coming and so there will be a new sister’s area opened and then 3 sisters will have to train and there will be a trio somewhere. My prediction is that I will stay here and be in the trio, we will see what happens though. I will know next Tuesday and I will email you about what happens. If you send any snail mail, send it to the mission office address so it will get to me if I get transferred, just do that until I let you know what happens.
Last P-day we played dodgeball and it was super fun. There is one Elder that throws super hard. He is actually really good at everything, we call him the All-star. And there is a joke going around the mission that he can breathe life back into a dead horse he is that amazing. And now the joke is that his companion, Elder Ericksen, can sell you that dead horse. We play Settler’s of Catan sometimes and he can make any trade sound good. It’s hilarious. And I have seen him teach and he is great! Between his smooth talking and the Spirit, no one stands a chance!! Ha ha Anyway the point of that was that Elder Stice, the All-Star gave us all bruises from the dodgeball.
Yesterday we went and saw Theresa, I’ve told you about her before, she is a less active who is becoming very active. We didn’t have an appointment with her but we went by her house and both Sister Peck and I felt we should go see her. So we went and I’m not really sure why we were supposed to go, she wasn’t in need or having a bad day or anything. We talked about the importance of the Book of Mormon and where it came from. And how the Book of Mormon was preserved for hundreds of years. And that it is only a hundredth part of the records that Mormon abridged it from. It’s such a blessing that we have it today. And it is a testimony of how much God loves us that He would bring it forth. We watched a Church History movie about how Parley P. Pratt found the Book of Mormon. When he first found it he read all day and all night and then immediately went to find Joseph Smith. He said that the book was more precious than any home or land or anything he could have in life. It’s hard to tell you the discussion we had last night, but the Spirit was so strong. And when we were talking I felt very powerfully of the truthfulness and power of the Book of Mormon. And I also felt that God loves us very much. And just like He led one man, Parley P. Pratt to find the Book of Mormon, so has He made it possible that each of us should find it and have the opportunity to read it. It has power and if our investigators have never read it than they will never be converted. And every time we read it we too can gain a stronger testimony. It’s our testimony that changes us and our hearts. (Mosiah 5:2) Really go read Chapter 5 in Preach My Gospel it says it all.
I love you all. Have a wonderfully, fabulous week!!!
Sister Nicole Polatis
Hey so guess what we actually got a semi good snow fall yesterday. Well at least it stayed and didn’t melt immediately and was more than a skiff. It was super nice, but people around here kept telling us to drive carefully, there wasn’t even any snow on the road! Crazy. And the snow here is mostly slush.
Okay some crazy things happened this week. First the happy news! One of our investigators Greg Farmer is getting baptized on February 15th!! We set the date last night. His wife is a less active and we’ve actually been teaching her for a long time, but she never really seemed interested and she never came to church. And then we started teaching her whole family and now they’ve started coming to church and getting more involved in the lessons. I think I have told you about them before. Their youngest son is 2 and let me tell you he is going through those Terrible Two’s. He is a TERORR. We’ve gotten very used to dodging the toys he throws at us or talking over his yelling and screaming. He is actually very hilarious, but his poor parents are probably frazzled. I think he might have ADD, he can’t sit still for more than a few seconds. I really have to admire the Farmers for their patience! But last night the terror was actually a lot better than usual and the Spirit was so strong! It was awesome!!!
Second thing, that is not quite so happy. Sister Peck has decided to go home after this transfer. She is only one transfer short so she had a really hard time trying to decide if she should stick it out for a few more weeks, but she is been in a lot of pain lately and decided to go home and try and figure out what is wrong. She has been a lot happier lately and I think she is very relieved to be going home. That she has lasted this long is amazing, she’s really had to endure a lot of pain. So going home a transfer is nothing to be ashamed about especially when the doctors told her to go home at the beginning of her mission. Also it’s been kind of hard because we haven’t been able to work as much. And let me tell you it has made me kind of lazy! When we do go out and work it is a lot harder because we have been taking it easy. So transfers are next Wednesday on the 28th. I will most likely being staying here again so that it isn’t 2 new sisters here, but it has happened before. But I really think I will be staying. Three new sisters are coming and so there will be a new sister’s area opened and then 3 sisters will have to train and there will be a trio somewhere. My prediction is that I will stay here and be in the trio, we will see what happens though. I will know next Tuesday and I will email you about what happens. If you send any snail mail, send it to the mission office address so it will get to me if I get transferred, just do that until I let you know what happens.
Last P-day we played dodgeball and it was super fun. There is one Elder that throws super hard. He is actually really good at everything, we call him the All-star. And there is a joke going around the mission that he can breathe life back into a dead horse he is that amazing. And now the joke is that his companion, Elder Ericksen, can sell you that dead horse. We play Settler’s of Catan sometimes and he can make any trade sound good. It’s hilarious. And I have seen him teach and he is great! Between his smooth talking and the Spirit, no one stands a chance!! Ha ha Anyway the point of that was that Elder Stice, the All-Star gave us all bruises from the dodgeball.
Yesterday we went and saw Theresa, I’ve told you about her before, she is a less active who is becoming very active. We didn’t have an appointment with her but we went by her house and both Sister Peck and I felt we should go see her. So we went and I’m not really sure why we were supposed to go, she wasn’t in need or having a bad day or anything. We talked about the importance of the Book of Mormon and where it came from. And how the Book of Mormon was preserved for hundreds of years. And that it is only a hundredth part of the records that Mormon abridged it from. It’s such a blessing that we have it today. And it is a testimony of how much God loves us that He would bring it forth. We watched a Church History movie about how Parley P. Pratt found the Book of Mormon. When he first found it he read all day and all night and then immediately went to find Joseph Smith. He said that the book was more precious than any home or land or anything he could have in life. It’s hard to tell you the discussion we had last night, but the Spirit was so strong. And when we were talking I felt very powerfully of the truthfulness and power of the Book of Mormon. And I also felt that God loves us very much. And just like He led one man, Parley P. Pratt to find the Book of Mormon, so has He made it possible that each of us should find it and have the opportunity to read it. It has power and if our investigators have never read it than they will never be converted. And every time we read it we too can gain a stronger testimony. It’s our testimony that changes us and our hearts. (Mosiah 5:2) Really go read Chapter 5 in Preach My Gospel it says it all.
I love you all. Have a wonderfully, fabulous week!!!
Sister Nicole Polatis
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Testimonies and Magic Tricks
My Dearest Family,
So this last week I have learned some important lessons. Let me begin. Well I think I have mentioned that Sister Peck has some health issues. Pretty much since she entered the MTC she has been struggling. The doctors think she might have multiple sclerosis. Anyways it really bothers her when she works too hard and has too much stress. Well she masks a lot of her pain because she doesn’t want to hold up her companion. So I really had no idea about most of this and let me tell you I have been working her hard. And we haven’t been getting along as well as we should (we don’t fight or anything we just aren’t buddy buddy) which I’m sure doesn’t help with the stress. So last Wednesday she felt terrible and was out of commission for a few days. Well Thursday we had a lot of important appointments that I didn’t feel we should cancel. So we found her a “babysitter” and I went out with another member. It was an interesting experience, really fun actually. But now I know why you go out two by two. It really helps to have two people bearing testimony of the things we teach. Of course the member is there but they don’t really have any idea what we are teaching. One of the appointments we were going to teach about the Priesthood to an investigator who has a lot of questions about it and doesn’t understand why only our church has the Priesthood. Well I didn’t feel comfortable tackling that one by myself. So we called in the Elders! Elder Lundin and Elder Richards came with me and the lesson went really well. It was really fun and I learned a lot by seeing someone else’s teaching style. I don’t know if you have heard this but a lot of people told me this before my mission, that the Lord called me to this mission, not so that I could become a robot and teaching a certain way, but because I had special gifts, talents, and ways of saying things that would help someone. And so I should be myself and not teach in a stiff way. Well I can definitely see how these two Elders let their self come out in their teaching. Elder Richards has a super strong testimony and feels very strongly about everything he teaches and says. And has a way of saying things simply and understandably. Elder Lundin likes to have fun has all kinds of magic tricks that he uses in lessons to teach principles. This is a great way to keep people interested and also help them to understand by the example the things that are taught. We enlisted the Elders help another time to go teach Tonia and her 3 boys, and they LOVED the magic tricks. We got our first solid return appointment in the last few months with them because we said we would bring the Elders back with more tricks. Ha ha. I have served around Elder Richards and Elder Lundin for a long time now and some of us will probably be transferred in the next 3 weeks, so that will be sad.
I think I have mentioned Rachel before, but she has said she would like to be baptized. She set the date for January 18th but when she found out all that it would entail she decided that it was too soon and asked for it to be postponed a little. We taught her the Word of Wisdom and turns out she has a few things that would have to change in her life. She said that it would be a big change and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to make those changes. But she said she would study about it and pray, so I know with time she will gain her testimony of the importance of doing these things. Rachel has come a long way in so short a time any ways. A month ago when we first started teaching her she hadn’t prayed in 4 years. 3 weeks ago she started praying again. Saturday she said the prayer without any hesitation. Last week when we taught her we knew we needed to commit her to baptism, but we had no idea that she was ready. Her fellowshipper had asked us to take it slow because she hadn’t prayed in so long. So we felt a little nervous because we didn’t want to go too fast or be too pushy. But the Spirit was so strong in our lesson and I knew that we needed to invite her. When we asked her she replied that when she started investigating she had no intentions of joining or changing but she couldn’t ignore what she was feeling and she really did want to be baptized. Wow!! We took her to the University (singles) Ward on Sunday and I think she was liked it. And we also took her to the CES Fireside where President Monson spoke. I tried to listen to the fireside from her point of view and all I could think of was how powerful and bold a message he gave. It was great!!!
So from my experience this week with Sister Peck and her being sick I realized that I need to be a lot more aware of what other people around me are feeling. Sister Peck has been through a lot and she still has a lot to go through. She only has 8 more weeks of her mission and she really is fighting to finish. It was truly a humbling experience to realize that I can learn a lot from her and that there were so many ways I could serve Sister Peck that I hadn’t been taking advantage of. Oh mom you would be pleased, I cross balanced her, hope I did it right. Let me know if there is anything else I can do for her. I also had some other experiences this week where I realized that we are going to get no where with people if we are thinking only of ourselves and the success we want to have. If we don’t do the things we do out of love they are going to see right through us. So this week I am working on having Charity and Humility (from Christlike attributes chapter 8 in Preach My Gospel, really an excellent chapter)
Well I got to go we still have grocery shopping to do. And then we are going to go play dodgeball. Ha ha this is going to be funny!!! I’m terrible at dodgeball!!
Love you all!! Have a fabulous week!
Sister Nicole Polatis
So this last week I have learned some important lessons. Let me begin. Well I think I have mentioned that Sister Peck has some health issues. Pretty much since she entered the MTC she has been struggling. The doctors think she might have multiple sclerosis. Anyways it really bothers her when she works too hard and has too much stress. Well she masks a lot of her pain because she doesn’t want to hold up her companion. So I really had no idea about most of this and let me tell you I have been working her hard. And we haven’t been getting along as well as we should (we don’t fight or anything we just aren’t buddy buddy) which I’m sure doesn’t help with the stress. So last Wednesday she felt terrible and was out of commission for a few days. Well Thursday we had a lot of important appointments that I didn’t feel we should cancel. So we found her a “babysitter” and I went out with another member. It was an interesting experience, really fun actually. But now I know why you go out two by two. It really helps to have two people bearing testimony of the things we teach. Of course the member is there but they don’t really have any idea what we are teaching. One of the appointments we were going to teach about the Priesthood to an investigator who has a lot of questions about it and doesn’t understand why only our church has the Priesthood. Well I didn’t feel comfortable tackling that one by myself. So we called in the Elders! Elder Lundin and Elder Richards came with me and the lesson went really well. It was really fun and I learned a lot by seeing someone else’s teaching style. I don’t know if you have heard this but a lot of people told me this before my mission, that the Lord called me to this mission, not so that I could become a robot and teaching a certain way, but because I had special gifts, talents, and ways of saying things that would help someone. And so I should be myself and not teach in a stiff way. Well I can definitely see how these two Elders let their self come out in their teaching. Elder Richards has a super strong testimony and feels very strongly about everything he teaches and says. And has a way of saying things simply and understandably. Elder Lundin likes to have fun has all kinds of magic tricks that he uses in lessons to teach principles. This is a great way to keep people interested and also help them to understand by the example the things that are taught. We enlisted the Elders help another time to go teach Tonia and her 3 boys, and they LOVED the magic tricks. We got our first solid return appointment in the last few months with them because we said we would bring the Elders back with more tricks. Ha ha. I have served around Elder Richards and Elder Lundin for a long time now and some of us will probably be transferred in the next 3 weeks, so that will be sad.
I think I have mentioned Rachel before, but she has said she would like to be baptized. She set the date for January 18th but when she found out all that it would entail she decided that it was too soon and asked for it to be postponed a little. We taught her the Word of Wisdom and turns out she has a few things that would have to change in her life. She said that it would be a big change and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to make those changes. But she said she would study about it and pray, so I know with time she will gain her testimony of the importance of doing these things. Rachel has come a long way in so short a time any ways. A month ago when we first started teaching her she hadn’t prayed in 4 years. 3 weeks ago she started praying again. Saturday she said the prayer without any hesitation. Last week when we taught her we knew we needed to commit her to baptism, but we had no idea that she was ready. Her fellowshipper had asked us to take it slow because she hadn’t prayed in so long. So we felt a little nervous because we didn’t want to go too fast or be too pushy. But the Spirit was so strong in our lesson and I knew that we needed to invite her. When we asked her she replied that when she started investigating she had no intentions of joining or changing but she couldn’t ignore what she was feeling and she really did want to be baptized. Wow!! We took her to the University (singles) Ward on Sunday and I think she was liked it. And we also took her to the CES Fireside where President Monson spoke. I tried to listen to the fireside from her point of view and all I could think of was how powerful and bold a message he gave. It was great!!!
So from my experience this week with Sister Peck and her being sick I realized that I need to be a lot more aware of what other people around me are feeling. Sister Peck has been through a lot and she still has a lot to go through. She only has 8 more weeks of her mission and she really is fighting to finish. It was truly a humbling experience to realize that I can learn a lot from her and that there were so many ways I could serve Sister Peck that I hadn’t been taking advantage of. Oh mom you would be pleased, I cross balanced her, hope I did it right. Let me know if there is anything else I can do for her. I also had some other experiences this week where I realized that we are going to get no where with people if we are thinking only of ourselves and the success we want to have. If we don’t do the things we do out of love they are going to see right through us. So this week I am working on having Charity and Humility (from Christlike attributes chapter 8 in Preach My Gospel, really an excellent chapter)
Well I got to go we still have grocery shopping to do. And then we are going to go play dodgeball. Ha ha this is going to be funny!!! I’m terrible at dodgeball!!
Love you all!! Have a fabulous week!
Sister Nicole Polatis
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Miracles and Scarves
Dear Family,
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! As wonderful as the holidays are I am so happy they are over because now things are getting busy again. Last week we went tracting a lot and this week we are really busy and have lots of appointments. New Years Eve our appointment fell through and so we had absolutely nothing to do and no one wanted to see us. The Elders had nothing to do either and we had permission to stay out until 10:30. So we went and planned our stop smoking workshop and then played Settlers of Catan with the Blacksburg and University Elders too. It’s an awesome game. But I was in bed by 11 on New Years Eve.
Yesterday we went tracting, and it is probably one of the best experiences I have ever had tracting. Everyone was super nice to us even if they didn’t want to talk. And we got 3 follow ups!! Two of them aren’t for a few weeks, but hey pretty cool! It was in a new neighborhood with younger people. On Sunday we went tracting and it was in an older neighborhood and most of the people we talked with were older and they were NOT receptive at ALL. And some of them were not outright rude but they weren’t nice, mostly they were kind of smirking. It’s really weird the things I have found out that people believe out here. There is one religion that teaches that you only need 9 words, it’s something like “I believe in Jesus Christ as my Savior” (I know that is only 8 but I can’t remember it exactly) and then once you have said that you are saved. And if you are truly saved then you will live a Christlike life. But if you say it and then you don’t live a Christlike life then obviously you weren’t really saved, you just faked it. They believe that nothing you do will save you except accepting Christ. And if you believe that works save you then you obviously don’t believe in the power of Christ’s Atonement. It’s really interesting, but I don’t know where they get this because I think they believe in baptism and in the Bible and in James it says faith without works is dead. We run into that a lot out here, where people don’t really understand the scriptures and so they take one part of the scriptures and base their whole religion around it. They do have part of the truth, like that Christ really is the only way back to God, but they don’t understand the rest of it. How truly blessed we are to have the fullness of the Gospel. I have watched the Restoration on my mission several times (I should start counting, we watch it a lot) and each time I get something new out of the Joseph Smith story. How terrible it would be to be confused and lost because you don’t know where to find the full truth. Many people we talk to say “No thanks, I already have a church. I am happy where I am at.” If only they knew they could have so much more!
On Saturday we went to Riner which is about 15 minutes from Christiansburg and it is very back hills country. The roads have been put wherever they fit which is usually in the valley where two hills meet. They are very windy and sometimes narrow. There is a member lady who lives there, Sister Lester. She’s probably in her 60’s. We went to visit her and she was using a chain saw to cut down trees. She kills her own deer and skins it herself and cans the meat. One Sunday she came to church with a black eye because she had shot a deer and the scope hit her in the eye. She’s really funny and loves to talk and has a wonderful accent. Sister Lester is amazing, her husband is a nonmember and all her children are less active. She comes to church no matter what even when she has to come alone. We went and visited her daughter, Raggan, and she said we could come back and teach her. This is another example of the impact family members can have if they set a good example. We know a lot of people who quit coming to church because their family is not active or not members. It is hard to go to church alone. They don’t realize that the best thing they can do is set the example and go any way. It’s part of our baptismal covenant to stand as a witness at all times and all places (especially in our homes).
So lately I have gained a huge testimony of miracles. Miracles do happen, most of the time we don’t realize it because we aren’t looking for it. But when we start being grateful for the wonderful things that happen to us, we start to realize that it’s a miracle. When you start thinking of all the little things that lead up to events in our lives, it’s a miracle everything works out so well. On my mission it’s a miracle that we run into the people we do. It’s no coincidence that we tract into less actives who have been lost for years or people who have had friends who were members. And it’s amazing to me all the events that happen for just one person’s conversion. Jason is a great example, his wife being apart of his life for so long even when people told her to drop him, his son and his incredibly sweet spirit, and us going to see him at a point in his life when he was ready to hear it. God cares about us each individually and has great plans for us. I am also learning that prayers are answered and things work out for our good. We just need to be patient. Patience means do hard things without expecting God to take it from us quickly. Lately I have been ashamed about how impatient I have been with the hard things I have been asked to do, because then the next day I am abundantly blessed. I feel I don’t deserve the blessings because I balked at the hard stuff.
It’s been ridiculously warm here, I don’t like it, I want some snow and cold. I got several scarves for Christmas and I really would like to wear them. So I got 5 letters the other day and they all said pretty much the same thing: “yesterday we went snowboarding, it wasn’t very good, we are going again today hopefully it will be better.” So with all that build up for the next day, I really wanted to know how the snow was, but not one of you wrote me about it. So I have to know, how was the snow?
Love you tons. Have a wonderful week.
Sister Nicole Polatis
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! As wonderful as the holidays are I am so happy they are over because now things are getting busy again. Last week we went tracting a lot and this week we are really busy and have lots of appointments. New Years Eve our appointment fell through and so we had absolutely nothing to do and no one wanted to see us. The Elders had nothing to do either and we had permission to stay out until 10:30. So we went and planned our stop smoking workshop and then played Settlers of Catan with the Blacksburg and University Elders too. It’s an awesome game. But I was in bed by 11 on New Years Eve.
Yesterday we went tracting, and it is probably one of the best experiences I have ever had tracting. Everyone was super nice to us even if they didn’t want to talk. And we got 3 follow ups!! Two of them aren’t for a few weeks, but hey pretty cool! It was in a new neighborhood with younger people. On Sunday we went tracting and it was in an older neighborhood and most of the people we talked with were older and they were NOT receptive at ALL. And some of them were not outright rude but they weren’t nice, mostly they were kind of smirking. It’s really weird the things I have found out that people believe out here. There is one religion that teaches that you only need 9 words, it’s something like “I believe in Jesus Christ as my Savior” (I know that is only 8 but I can’t remember it exactly) and then once you have said that you are saved. And if you are truly saved then you will live a Christlike life. But if you say it and then you don’t live a Christlike life then obviously you weren’t really saved, you just faked it. They believe that nothing you do will save you except accepting Christ. And if you believe that works save you then you obviously don’t believe in the power of Christ’s Atonement. It’s really interesting, but I don’t know where they get this because I think they believe in baptism and in the Bible and in James it says faith without works is dead. We run into that a lot out here, where people don’t really understand the scriptures and so they take one part of the scriptures and base their whole religion around it. They do have part of the truth, like that Christ really is the only way back to God, but they don’t understand the rest of it. How truly blessed we are to have the fullness of the Gospel. I have watched the Restoration on my mission several times (I should start counting, we watch it a lot) and each time I get something new out of the Joseph Smith story. How terrible it would be to be confused and lost because you don’t know where to find the full truth. Many people we talk to say “No thanks, I already have a church. I am happy where I am at.” If only they knew they could have so much more!
On Saturday we went to Riner which is about 15 minutes from Christiansburg and it is very back hills country. The roads have been put wherever they fit which is usually in the valley where two hills meet. They are very windy and sometimes narrow. There is a member lady who lives there, Sister Lester. She’s probably in her 60’s. We went to visit her and she was using a chain saw to cut down trees. She kills her own deer and skins it herself and cans the meat. One Sunday she came to church with a black eye because she had shot a deer and the scope hit her in the eye. She’s really funny and loves to talk and has a wonderful accent. Sister Lester is amazing, her husband is a nonmember and all her children are less active. She comes to church no matter what even when she has to come alone. We went and visited her daughter, Raggan, and she said we could come back and teach her. This is another example of the impact family members can have if they set a good example. We know a lot of people who quit coming to church because their family is not active or not members. It is hard to go to church alone. They don’t realize that the best thing they can do is set the example and go any way. It’s part of our baptismal covenant to stand as a witness at all times and all places (especially in our homes).
So lately I have gained a huge testimony of miracles. Miracles do happen, most of the time we don’t realize it because we aren’t looking for it. But when we start being grateful for the wonderful things that happen to us, we start to realize that it’s a miracle. When you start thinking of all the little things that lead up to events in our lives, it’s a miracle everything works out so well. On my mission it’s a miracle that we run into the people we do. It’s no coincidence that we tract into less actives who have been lost for years or people who have had friends who were members. And it’s amazing to me all the events that happen for just one person’s conversion. Jason is a great example, his wife being apart of his life for so long even when people told her to drop him, his son and his incredibly sweet spirit, and us going to see him at a point in his life when he was ready to hear it. God cares about us each individually and has great plans for us. I am also learning that prayers are answered and things work out for our good. We just need to be patient. Patience means do hard things without expecting God to take it from us quickly. Lately I have been ashamed about how impatient I have been with the hard things I have been asked to do, because then the next day I am abundantly blessed. I feel I don’t deserve the blessings because I balked at the hard stuff.
It’s been ridiculously warm here, I don’t like it, I want some snow and cold. I got several scarves for Christmas and I really would like to wear them. So I got 5 letters the other day and they all said pretty much the same thing: “yesterday we went snowboarding, it wasn’t very good, we are going again today hopefully it will be better.” So with all that build up for the next day, I really wanted to know how the snow was, but not one of you wrote me about it. So I have to know, how was the snow?
Love you tons. Have a wonderful week.
Sister Nicole Polatis
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
