I am so sorry I have been so awful and not written. I keep thinking that I have all the time in the world now that I am home, but somehow time slips away from me and I get nothing done and I feel so overwhelmed by everything that I need to do to get my life organized again. Those planning and goal setting skills you learn on the mission are really important. I think I have been forgetting to use them. Wow, it feels really crazy to be home, really surreal. Sometimes it feels like I never left, which I really hate that feeling because I learned so much on my mission and had major life experiences, my life should be different now! I think things will get better when I get a job. I have been home for 11 days now and it’s been crazy busy.
So I wanted to tell you about our last week because it was so amazing. We had gotten a referral from the Florida mission for a guy named Mike. He had been taught twice and come to church and set with a date, but he was only there visiting, he had just moved to Marietta, which is where his wife and 4 kids are. We called him and set up an appointment, but when we went the address was an apartment complex and he hadn’t given us a number and we couldn’t get a hold of him. So we knocked on all the doors and narrowed it down to #9. We went back several times but no one was ever there. So on P-day, we were in the laundry mat, at a different time than we usually go there. I am kind of a chicken about the whole open your mouth thing, but I have been getting braver. But I opened a door for a lady and didn’t give her a card. I mentally was beating myself up about it as we were getting in the car and it came to me, “You need to go back in there and give her a card.” So I did. Turns out she was Mike’s wife!! She called him over and he said, “You were supposed to come over the other night.” I replied, “Who are you?” and then it hit me. They both said it was a sign. We went over that Saturday and had an amazing lesson with them and committed them to be baptized March 14th. They both said they had a lot to repent of and wanted to make changes for their kids. Mike knew a lot already and was so excited about it. He had really loved the family feeling at church. His 1st wife had died, when their twins were only a few weeks old, so he was so excited about being sealed forever.
On that same P-day, we had a few minutes left at night and so we went to the gas station to fill up and talk to people. I talked to a lady and given her a card. There were some guys next to us gathered around the open hood of a Camaro. That was a super intimidating situation for me, I know nothing about cars and they were about my same age, so I didn’t talk to them. Then when we were getting in the car, one guy looked over at me and smiled. “Okay God, I get the hint.” So I went and talked to them. One guy told me I had already given him a card several months ago, I didn’t remember so I told him it must have been some other missionaries, but he remembered me. And then it hit me, when I first got to Marietta Sister Hamaker and I had been doing a follow up and 2 guys had been outside working on their truck and I had given them a card. I asked him if he had gone to the website and he said no, but he should have because he was interested in religion and was very religious himself. He said we could come visit him. We went over and taught him and his wife on Super Bowl Sunday, it was a great lesson and he said it made so much sense to him. Wow! Opening your mouth really does work! I had 2 other situations that week where we opened our mouth and they said we could come visit. One girl we talked to at a gas station, said it was interesting we had come and talked to her because her and her friend had been going to different churches looking for the right one. God places people who are prepared in our paths. I know President was very inspired to encourage us to open our mouths because we saw amazing things come from it.
You probably already know all this, but because of the crazy weather, President called us Tuesday morning and said we needed to be ready to leave by 1 o’clock to come to Charleston to beat the storm. I hadn’t even started packing yet! So we hurried and got that done. God really helped us get ready quickly and I think it was because He wanted me to keep my hair appointment at noon, I thought I was going to cancel it but we got things done and I really really needed my haircut. Well I’m really glad we went, we had found this obscure little self owned salon that was a really good deal. Her name was Angie and I gave her a card about strengthening our families, she said she could really use that because she was recently divorced and her daughters were taking it really hard. She said that missionaries could come back and visit her. So then we got to Charleston, and the new missionaries had just arrived. We got to have dinner with them and participate in their testimony meeting. The next day, we went to their orientation meeting. The 2 new elders’ trainers were there to they went out with them. And President had me take the new sister, Sister Craft, out tracting. I had thought I was never going to go tracting again, but I got to experience that great thrill one more time! We did loan out a Book of Mormon. Then President sent Sister Craft to be with the sisters in Teays Valley so we could do our going home stuff. We made scrapbook pages, had dinner, talked, and had a testimony meeting. We were afraid our plane wouldn’t be flying out because there was a huge storm coming in. The Elders were all freaking out, but we made it out on time. The flight was uneventable. We meet several other Elders in the Atlanta and Salt Lake Airports.
My sister’s reception was the first day I was back and I got to see a lot of my friends and family. So Friday I wore a dress to that, Saturday we went snowboarding (yay! No dress), then Sunday back to the dress, then Monday we had family home evening and went bowling, Tuesday we went to the temple (I wanted to go Friday or Saturday but my family had other plans), Wednesday I reported to the high council, Thursday I went to Utah with my older sister and went to a Stake Women’s conference were a woman from South Africa spoke to us, she translated the Book of Mormon into that language where they click their tongue, she talked about how God made certain events happen in her life to prepare her to translate because she is one of the very few people who can read, speak, and write that language. I had to wear a dress to that too. I was a little annoyed having to wear dresses (and those blasted nylons) so much, but at least I get to wear high heels now. I painted my fingers bright blue to celebrate my freedom to wear what I want.
Being home has been good I guess. I love seeing my family and wearing jeans, but the rest of it has been an adjustment. I would explain it as being overwhelming. The first day I made a complete disaster of my room going through my clothes. I’ve been trying to organize the rest of my life, get housing at BYU, register for classes (I’m going back to BYU in April), find a job, find a car, etc. I’ve gotten some awesome snowboarding in (that’s one thing I’m glad feels like I never left, it all came back to me). I went down to Utah to look at housing at BYU and that Sunday I went to Elder’s Dix’s welcome home and saw Elder Pinder, Elder Horrocks, and Elder Webb. It was good. I am applying to be a census taker, it pays good and it will be a good in-between job before school.
When I first got home and I was driving I kept looking for someone to back me up. And whenever I am in a store with my family and I want to go look at something I keep wanting to tell them where I’m going and asking them to come with me, or trying to keep them within sight and sound. I’ve really missed having the Gospel be the whole focus of my life. I feel so apostate sometimes because I only spent a half hour studying my scriptures and I’m not serving people all the time, or thinking about missionary stuff. I feel like I’m doing something wrong, I guess that comes with adjustment. It has made me really appreciate that time in my life and having the Holy Ghost with me so strongly. I realize I need to do wholesome and uplifting things so I can have the Holy Ghost with me in real life too.
I am so grateful for the experience of going on a mission. What a wise and all-knowing God to send me to West Virginia. I needed to learn the lessons I did and meet the people I did. It’s changed my life and who I am. A mission is like a time out from life to get some extra training. Love and treasure your mission. Work hard!!!!
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Baptism!
Dear Family,
Mike got Baptized!! Hooray! He got baptized on Sunday after church and it was just wonderful! He played his violin (have I told you he is a professional violinist?), he played How Great Thou Art. So beautiful! Brother Gray baptized him and Sister Gray gave a talk. The Gray’s joined the church about 15 years ago and they are way awesome members. Their son is on a mission right now in Italy, he is the first in their family and I’ve never seen parents so excited to have their son serve. Well they are also a very close family too so it’s been hard for them to have their son gone. They were so great about helping us out with Mike, and I thought it was so appropriate that they got to so closely participate in a baptism. It’ll give them something to write him about and I think they loved being so involved. Anyways Sister Gray gave the talk on baptism and she read a quote from Joseph Smith (I think) that said that when you get baptized and become a member of this Church you leave neutral ground in this war between good and evil, and you will never be able to return to that neutral ground. At baptism we declare that we are joining the Lord’s side. I thought that was such a cool way of putting it. Now we must decide how valiantly we will fight and heaven forbid that we change sides. There seemed to be a theme during the baptism. One of enduring, pressing on, of challenges up ahead, of a battle, of a great struggle. Many of the speakers admonished him to turn to his new ward family for help, to God and Christ, and to follow the Holy Ghost. Ted, who is always so in tune with the Spirit gave the opening prayer. His prayers are very unique, it’s like he is having a conversation with God. He told God that Mike was struggling and needed His Help. The opening song was “Nearer My God to Thee” which I thought very appropriate since baptism is coming closer to God through Covenants. And then the closing song was “Abide with Me” which seemed to foreshadow something to come, it talks about challenges ahead and asks that God help. All of this got me to thinking about how hard it is to become a member of this church and all the changes and growth that Mike will need to go through in the next little while. And it seems that there are great trials ahead for Mike. And it got me to worrying about if he is truly converted and ready for this. Ready to leave that neutral ground. Mike is very quiet and shy and he doesn’t say much about how he is feeling or what he is thinking, so I was really hoping that he really wanted to be baptized and not just us encouraging him to do it or pressuring him to do it. As I was pondering on that, he called. And thanked us for inviting him to be baptized and keeping on him. WOW! This is coming from the guy who never expresses himself! He must have felt something at his baptism to spur him into making such a heartfelt expression. I felt so happy and good. I love seeing people change! And it was an answer to my prayer wondering if we had done the right thing in baptizing him!
So we got a referral for a Jason, his member friend had ordered him a Book of Mormon. It kind of looked bogus because the number was goofy, plus we get referrals for people all the time and most of them are fake. So we went to see him and he invited us in and said that his friend had asked if he could send the missionaries and that he would talk to us. Turns out he is Pagan, but he thinks it is silly and wants to get out of it. He said that waving a stick around and chanting wasn’t going to keep some guy in Afghanistan from shooting him. (Must have been some prayer they teach soldiers.) He has decided to give Christianity a chance again. He was Baptist until he was 7 but then decided he didn’t like feeling scared all the time. (They preach a lot of God being an angry God, and of fire and brimstone. ) This guy has had a crazy life it sound like. He said his mom says he’s done it all and should now retire. He has 6 kids from several different women. He only gets to see one. One of his past wives or girlfriends tried to stab him in the heart with a butcher knife. Currently he is separated from his current wife because she has been cheating on him, and then he tried to commit suicide when he found out and now he is living with his mom. Crazy. We had an excellent lesson with him. We talked about God and how he is our Father. He really seemed to like everything we taught especially the idea of a loving God that is a father figure. He said his father died when he was young. We talked a little about prophets and the Book of Mormon. He seems open and willing to learn. I think he has a lot of potential!
We have a busy week ahead of us because last week we did a lot of tracting and we have a lot of really good follow ups now. President Thornock has really been encouraging us to use the Book of Mormon in our finding, by showing people how it can answer questions about life. It has been making a big difference and tracting has become much more enjoyable because we aren’t just giving people a spiel but we are teaching them about the Book of Mormon, so even if they don’t say yes, we still taught them something and planted a really good seed. It’s also taught me a lot that when I have a question I can find it in the scriptures.
Love ya like a missionary loves baptisms!
Sister Nicole Polatis
Mike got Baptized!! Hooray! He got baptized on Sunday after church and it was just wonderful! He played his violin (have I told you he is a professional violinist?), he played How Great Thou Art. So beautiful! Brother Gray baptized him and Sister Gray gave a talk. The Gray’s joined the church about 15 years ago and they are way awesome members. Their son is on a mission right now in Italy, he is the first in their family and I’ve never seen parents so excited to have their son serve. Well they are also a very close family too so it’s been hard for them to have their son gone. They were so great about helping us out with Mike, and I thought it was so appropriate that they got to so closely participate in a baptism. It’ll give them something to write him about and I think they loved being so involved. Anyways Sister Gray gave the talk on baptism and she read a quote from Joseph Smith (I think) that said that when you get baptized and become a member of this Church you leave neutral ground in this war between good and evil, and you will never be able to return to that neutral ground. At baptism we declare that we are joining the Lord’s side. I thought that was such a cool way of putting it. Now we must decide how valiantly we will fight and heaven forbid that we change sides. There seemed to be a theme during the baptism. One of enduring, pressing on, of challenges up ahead, of a battle, of a great struggle. Many of the speakers admonished him to turn to his new ward family for help, to God and Christ, and to follow the Holy Ghost. Ted, who is always so in tune with the Spirit gave the opening prayer. His prayers are very unique, it’s like he is having a conversation with God. He told God that Mike was struggling and needed His Help. The opening song was “Nearer My God to Thee” which I thought very appropriate since baptism is coming closer to God through Covenants. And then the closing song was “Abide with Me” which seemed to foreshadow something to come, it talks about challenges ahead and asks that God help. All of this got me to thinking about how hard it is to become a member of this church and all the changes and growth that Mike will need to go through in the next little while. And it seems that there are great trials ahead for Mike. And it got me to worrying about if he is truly converted and ready for this. Ready to leave that neutral ground. Mike is very quiet and shy and he doesn’t say much about how he is feeling or what he is thinking, so I was really hoping that he really wanted to be baptized and not just us encouraging him to do it or pressuring him to do it. As I was pondering on that, he called. And thanked us for inviting him to be baptized and keeping on him. WOW! This is coming from the guy who never expresses himself! He must have felt something at his baptism to spur him into making such a heartfelt expression. I felt so happy and good. I love seeing people change! And it was an answer to my prayer wondering if we had done the right thing in baptizing him!
So we got a referral for a Jason, his member friend had ordered him a Book of Mormon. It kind of looked bogus because the number was goofy, plus we get referrals for people all the time and most of them are fake. So we went to see him and he invited us in and said that his friend had asked if he could send the missionaries and that he would talk to us. Turns out he is Pagan, but he thinks it is silly and wants to get out of it. He said that waving a stick around and chanting wasn’t going to keep some guy in Afghanistan from shooting him. (Must have been some prayer they teach soldiers.) He has decided to give Christianity a chance again. He was Baptist until he was 7 but then decided he didn’t like feeling scared all the time. (They preach a lot of God being an angry God, and of fire and brimstone. ) This guy has had a crazy life it sound like. He said his mom says he’s done it all and should now retire. He has 6 kids from several different women. He only gets to see one. One of his past wives or girlfriends tried to stab him in the heart with a butcher knife. Currently he is separated from his current wife because she has been cheating on him, and then he tried to commit suicide when he found out and now he is living with his mom. Crazy. We had an excellent lesson with him. We talked about God and how he is our Father. He really seemed to like everything we taught especially the idea of a loving God that is a father figure. He said his father died when he was young. We talked a little about prophets and the Book of Mormon. He seems open and willing to learn. I think he has a lot of potential!
We have a busy week ahead of us because last week we did a lot of tracting and we have a lot of really good follow ups now. President Thornock has really been encouraging us to use the Book of Mormon in our finding, by showing people how it can answer questions about life. It has been making a big difference and tracting has become much more enjoyable because we aren’t just giving people a spiel but we are teaching them about the Book of Mormon, so even if they don’t say yes, we still taught them something and planted a really good seed. It’s also taught me a lot that when I have a question I can find it in the scriptures.
Love ya like a missionary loves baptisms!
Sister Nicole Polatis
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Sacrifice Brings Forth the Blessings of Heaven!
Well hello my dear family,
I have had a very excellent week, with some very unfortunate events. So I told about an investigator named Caitlin Love last week right? Isn’t that a cool last name. Well we had a most excellent lesson with her on Monday that I wrote you about and then we went back on Friday and again a most excellent lesson. We taught her the Plan of Salvation, she said it made so much sense. She also talked about wanting to get on the right path to heaven. And she talked about the crazy things in this world and how wrong they were. It was just so great. And then we committed her to be baptized on February 7th (We thought Feb 14th would be an appropriate day, Valentine’s day, her last name is love, she is showing a great expression of love for her Savior, etc, but we decided if she could make that day she could make the 7th so that I could be there for it! I mean just in case I get transferred, it’s not like I’m going home or anything). Anyways, she totally said yes!! And it wasn’t like a maybe I’ll think about it, but like a “yes, that is really something I would like to work towards” kind of yes! Then she said she was baptized when she was young in the Catholic church, and asked if it was okay to be baptized twice, so we explained all about authority and how we don’t baptize little kids. And she agreed with it and said it was weird that she had been baptized so young and she told us being Catholic was like a chore because her family believed it so she had to believe it. She said she would be at church on Sunday. On Saturday night we called her to make sure she was still coming and she said she couldn’t find anything to wear and felt uncomfortable coming in jeans. Luckily, she is about our size! So we gathered together our most unmissionarish clothes and headed over. Well in the hour it took to get there after calling her, I guess she had talked to her mom and then her grandma. And they told her they did not want her talking to us or coming to church with us. She is Catholic and the family it Catholic and that’s what she should stay. So she told us she couldn’t come to church. We asked her to pray about what was right, remember how she felt, and we would come back next week and see if she still wanted to meet with us. MAN!!! She was so Cool! And So Golden! And so GREAT! And she tanked, in just one hour!! Hopefully when she has more time to think about it she will change her mind. So I was very upset and sad, and I got very frustrated about the whole thing. A thought something like this crossed my mind, “If God is so powerful and the Gospel is so true, how come we never find anyone who accepts the Gospel and gets baptized without any problems. I have never taught anyone who got baptized that it wasn’t an uphill climb.” You could say I was bitter and doubting. And when I calmed down and really thought about it I realized it’s because “salvation is not a cheap experience” (Elder Holland said that). There is opposition to test and try these people to make sure they are serious about it. To prepare them to live their covenants despite opposition. The opposition when they are investigating the church is the refiner’s fire. And maybe Caitlin will overcome this and get baptized on Feb 7th , 2010. Or maybe it won’t be until Feb 7th, 2030. But this is one step in preparing her to make correct choices and accept the Gospel. In Mark 10:29-30 it reads “And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s, But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, . . and in the world to come eternal life.” She is learning how to give her will to God. It’s no easy, one step process. It will take time. As missionaries we are helping people to go to the Celestial Kingdom, not the Terrestial, to live with God, to be eternally happy, to become like God, this is no little thing. Anything worth having will take work, time, effort. In this case it will take our all. And the opposition is preparing her to give herall for the Gospel’s sake.
But I have another story. Of someone who has overcome the opposition in their path and is coming into the waters of baptism! Four months ago, we could hardly get Mike to keep an appointment. During our lessons he had a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I don’t think we ever had a lesson with him when he was sober. He also used to swear up a storm. I’m not sure what changed, and I think it came over time. But he has changed. He is now sober, hasn’t had a smoke in over a week. He doesn’t swear in front of us. He just looks like a changed person. He seems happier and calmer. We had been a little worried about him, we weren’t sure if he was ready and if he could keep up the no smoking thing and if he really understood what we had been teaching him, he is not very open with how he feels or on the subject of religion so its hard to know. We had a lesson with him on Saturday, and before we prayed to know if he was ready. After that lesson we had no doubt he was ready. He told us he knew the Book of Mormon was true and he believed that Joseph Smith and Thomas S. Monson were prophets. He asked several excellent and insightful questions. He talked about how he used to do things thinking he would repent later and now he knows and feels that isn’t right. He seemed excited about his baptism. He said he had had a really good week! Hmm I wonder if that is because of the blessing he got and all the prayers we have been saying for him! Pray that everything will keep going well, that he can overcome the opposition and he will get baptized on Sunday!!!
We had Zone Conference on Friday and like always, full of the Spirit and so very inspired to help us be better missionaries in this part of the vineyard. At a missionary’s last Zone conference President Thornock asks you to bear your testimony. I was scared spitless for this one, don’t know why. I’ve never had my mind draw blank before, it’s kind of a new experience for me, I always have something to say. All I could say was I am so thankful for what I am learning, for how much my testimony of the Restored Gospel has grown. The words that came out of my mouth were not mine and after I said them I realized they were so true. That we are helping people to come unto Christ and to receive exaltation, and when we are so blessed to participate in something so sacred, it changes us. I felt those words very well wrapped up the wonderful experience I have been having as a missionary. In our lesson with Mike this week, I felt this feeling of being apart of the Lord’s great work and how truly wonderful it is!
Love you all! Thank you for your love and support!
Sister Nicole Polatis
I have had a very excellent week, with some very unfortunate events. So I told about an investigator named Caitlin Love last week right? Isn’t that a cool last name. Well we had a most excellent lesson with her on Monday that I wrote you about and then we went back on Friday and again a most excellent lesson. We taught her the Plan of Salvation, she said it made so much sense. She also talked about wanting to get on the right path to heaven. And she talked about the crazy things in this world and how wrong they were. It was just so great. And then we committed her to be baptized on February 7th (We thought Feb 14th would be an appropriate day, Valentine’s day, her last name is love, she is showing a great expression of love for her Savior, etc, but we decided if she could make that day she could make the 7th so that I could be there for it! I mean just in case I get transferred, it’s not like I’m going home or anything). Anyways, she totally said yes!! And it wasn’t like a maybe I’ll think about it, but like a “yes, that is really something I would like to work towards” kind of yes! Then she said she was baptized when she was young in the Catholic church, and asked if it was okay to be baptized twice, so we explained all about authority and how we don’t baptize little kids. And she agreed with it and said it was weird that she had been baptized so young and she told us being Catholic was like a chore because her family believed it so she had to believe it. She said she would be at church on Sunday. On Saturday night we called her to make sure she was still coming and she said she couldn’t find anything to wear and felt uncomfortable coming in jeans. Luckily, she is about our size! So we gathered together our most unmissionarish clothes and headed over. Well in the hour it took to get there after calling her, I guess she had talked to her mom and then her grandma. And they told her they did not want her talking to us or coming to church with us. She is Catholic and the family it Catholic and that’s what she should stay. So she told us she couldn’t come to church. We asked her to pray about what was right, remember how she felt, and we would come back next week and see if she still wanted to meet with us. MAN!!! She was so Cool! And So Golden! And so GREAT! And she tanked, in just one hour!! Hopefully when she has more time to think about it she will change her mind. So I was very upset and sad, and I got very frustrated about the whole thing. A thought something like this crossed my mind, “If God is so powerful and the Gospel is so true, how come we never find anyone who accepts the Gospel and gets baptized without any problems. I have never taught anyone who got baptized that it wasn’t an uphill climb.” You could say I was bitter and doubting. And when I calmed down and really thought about it I realized it’s because “salvation is not a cheap experience” (Elder Holland said that). There is opposition to test and try these people to make sure they are serious about it. To prepare them to live their covenants despite opposition. The opposition when they are investigating the church is the refiner’s fire. And maybe Caitlin will overcome this and get baptized on Feb 7th , 2010. Or maybe it won’t be until Feb 7th, 2030. But this is one step in preparing her to make correct choices and accept the Gospel. In Mark 10:29-30 it reads “And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s, But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, . . and in the world to come eternal life.” She is learning how to give her will to God. It’s no easy, one step process. It will take time. As missionaries we are helping people to go to the Celestial Kingdom, not the Terrestial, to live with God, to be eternally happy, to become like God, this is no little thing. Anything worth having will take work, time, effort. In this case it will take our all. And the opposition is preparing her to give herall for the Gospel’s sake.
But I have another story. Of someone who has overcome the opposition in their path and is coming into the waters of baptism! Four months ago, we could hardly get Mike to keep an appointment. During our lessons he had a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I don’t think we ever had a lesson with him when he was sober. He also used to swear up a storm. I’m not sure what changed, and I think it came over time. But he has changed. He is now sober, hasn’t had a smoke in over a week. He doesn’t swear in front of us. He just looks like a changed person. He seems happier and calmer. We had been a little worried about him, we weren’t sure if he was ready and if he could keep up the no smoking thing and if he really understood what we had been teaching him, he is not very open with how he feels or on the subject of religion so its hard to know. We had a lesson with him on Saturday, and before we prayed to know if he was ready. After that lesson we had no doubt he was ready. He told us he knew the Book of Mormon was true and he believed that Joseph Smith and Thomas S. Monson were prophets. He asked several excellent and insightful questions. He talked about how he used to do things thinking he would repent later and now he knows and feels that isn’t right. He seemed excited about his baptism. He said he had had a really good week! Hmm I wonder if that is because of the blessing he got and all the prayers we have been saying for him! Pray that everything will keep going well, that he can overcome the opposition and he will get baptized on Sunday!!!
We had Zone Conference on Friday and like always, full of the Spirit and so very inspired to help us be better missionaries in this part of the vineyard. At a missionary’s last Zone conference President Thornock asks you to bear your testimony. I was scared spitless for this one, don’t know why. I’ve never had my mind draw blank before, it’s kind of a new experience for me, I always have something to say. All I could say was I am so thankful for what I am learning, for how much my testimony of the Restored Gospel has grown. The words that came out of my mouth were not mine and after I said them I realized they were so true. That we are helping people to come unto Christ and to receive exaltation, and when we are so blessed to participate in something so sacred, it changes us. I felt those words very well wrapped up the wonderful experience I have been having as a missionary. In our lesson with Mike this week, I felt this feeling of being apart of the Lord’s great work and how truly wonderful it is!
Love you all! Thank you for your love and support!
Sister Nicole Polatis
Thursday, January 14, 2010
It's Snowing
Dearest Family,
Did you know that many people call us Idahoans, Potatohos? Yes I’ve been called that many times on my mission. Anyways so this last week was absolutely frigid! It snowed almost everyday this week and was in the 20s or below. Burr! And we had pretty much nothing to do because we stopped teaching a good majority of our investigators because they weren’t progressing so we went tracting a lot! Can you say cold. Let me just say we were Sistersicles. We wore lots and lots of layers. It’s amazing what you can put on under a skirt. We had pretty good success, people had gone into hibernation and so a lot of people were home, however, they also weren’t too keen to open their doors and let the cold air in. But we had some success which hopefully we will reap some rewards this week. Haha, people out here are funny about the snow. The schools only were in session one day last week! And this week they have had a 2 hour delay both yesterday and today. It hasn’t even snowed that much, maybe 6-7 inches, but the roads are clear. The country roads are a little worse but not to have cancelled almost a week of school! Man oh man!
So I’m not going to lie, last week was a very rough week for us. Lets just say yesterday we taught more other lessons than we did all last week! We did have 4 member present lessons, which 3 of those were with Mike. We did have an awesome day yesterday, we finally caught up with several people and had 3 lessons. We got a new investigator, named John. He is going to school right now. He has 2 boys and another one on the way. We tried to get his wife to sit in but she said no, she said she was okay with us coming and talking to him though. He already has read to Mosiah, since we left him a Book of Mormon about 10 days ago. Although I’m not so sure he read it as just skimmed it. But he really seemed to like the idea of having a prophet. We also taught Caitlin yesterday. We had tracted into her mom back in November and taught them both a lesson. We had been unable to get a hold of them since. Well her mom is moving in with her boyfriend and will be hard to teach now but we finally got Caitlin to sit down with us, she is 19 and is still living at that house. She is so great, she called us on Saturday and said she wanted to come to church but when we returned her call we couldn’t get a hold of her. So we stopped by yesterday and had a good lesson with her. She is so cool! She looks just like Andy on Mottocross, she has a blue mustang and is very down to earth. She says she would like to be closer to God and has some questions. I am so excited about her.
Mike is doing good, he came to church again, Yay! I don’t know if you remember Ted Hill. He got baptized in November and he is amazing. He will do anything for the ward. He helps us so much with our investigators. We took him to a lesson with Mike, and has now adopted Mike and is getting him proper church clothes and picking him up for church, and talks to him on the phone. It’s great. And then we took the Gray’s with us to a lesson and they were wonderful. It’s so great to have members who are friendly and open and readily volunteer their testimonies of the Gospel. I think Mike really liked them. He looks pretty solid to get baptized on the 24th. He just needs to stay clean from the alcohol and cigarettes from here on out. So far so good, but keep him in your prayers.
Sister Young is doing very well! She had to speak in church on Sunday (they already caught her!). And I was so surprised by her insights and testimony. She is so unsure of herself in lessons and doesn’t talk much. I think it’s because she knows I’m there and I do talk a lot. So my goal is to talk less and get her to share her testimony.
So Amy got baptized in August and has really been struggling in her testimony and in keeping the commandments. We have had a hard time teaching her because she won’t keep appointments and avoids us when she knows she’s done something wrong. And she didn’t show up to church again on Sunday even though she promised, she’s missed a lot! So we went and visited her after church and told her whether she liked it or not we were kidnapping her and taking her to the church for a lesson, (where she is living is not a good environment for a lesson, she lives with her son’s grandmother temporarily, and it’s tiny, and smoke filled, and the tv is always on, and her kids won’t sit still). So we did. And we had a great, no distraction lesson. And the Spirit was there so strongly, and afterwards she was such in a better mood and had a resolve to live the Gospel. She thought she was doing good, until she sat down with us, looked at what she was doing and realized she was really missing something by not going to church every week and reading her scriptures everyday. It showed me that it is so important to learn and go to Church and read our scriptures so we can have that sustaining influence of the Spirit, because without Him we lose our resolve and desire. We must do it everyday otherwise we get off track. The Spirit is so vital, it’s like our spiritual food and water. Can’t live without it. Don’t starve your Spirit.
Hope you all have a great week! Love ya like snowmen love snow, like peanut butter loves jelly, like missionaries love teaching lessons! Sister Nicole Polatis
Did you know that many people call us Idahoans, Potatohos? Yes I’ve been called that many times on my mission. Anyways so this last week was absolutely frigid! It snowed almost everyday this week and was in the 20s or below. Burr! And we had pretty much nothing to do because we stopped teaching a good majority of our investigators because they weren’t progressing so we went tracting a lot! Can you say cold. Let me just say we were Sistersicles. We wore lots and lots of layers. It’s amazing what you can put on under a skirt. We had pretty good success, people had gone into hibernation and so a lot of people were home, however, they also weren’t too keen to open their doors and let the cold air in. But we had some success which hopefully we will reap some rewards this week. Haha, people out here are funny about the snow. The schools only were in session one day last week! And this week they have had a 2 hour delay both yesterday and today. It hasn’t even snowed that much, maybe 6-7 inches, but the roads are clear. The country roads are a little worse but not to have cancelled almost a week of school! Man oh man!
So I’m not going to lie, last week was a very rough week for us. Lets just say yesterday we taught more other lessons than we did all last week! We did have 4 member present lessons, which 3 of those were with Mike. We did have an awesome day yesterday, we finally caught up with several people and had 3 lessons. We got a new investigator, named John. He is going to school right now. He has 2 boys and another one on the way. We tried to get his wife to sit in but she said no, she said she was okay with us coming and talking to him though. He already has read to Mosiah, since we left him a Book of Mormon about 10 days ago. Although I’m not so sure he read it as just skimmed it. But he really seemed to like the idea of having a prophet. We also taught Caitlin yesterday. We had tracted into her mom back in November and taught them both a lesson. We had been unable to get a hold of them since. Well her mom is moving in with her boyfriend and will be hard to teach now but we finally got Caitlin to sit down with us, she is 19 and is still living at that house. She is so great, she called us on Saturday and said she wanted to come to church but when we returned her call we couldn’t get a hold of her. So we stopped by yesterday and had a good lesson with her. She is so cool! She looks just like Andy on Mottocross, she has a blue mustang and is very down to earth. She says she would like to be closer to God and has some questions. I am so excited about her.
Mike is doing good, he came to church again, Yay! I don’t know if you remember Ted Hill. He got baptized in November and he is amazing. He will do anything for the ward. He helps us so much with our investigators. We took him to a lesson with Mike, and has now adopted Mike and is getting him proper church clothes and picking him up for church, and talks to him on the phone. It’s great. And then we took the Gray’s with us to a lesson and they were wonderful. It’s so great to have members who are friendly and open and readily volunteer their testimonies of the Gospel. I think Mike really liked them. He looks pretty solid to get baptized on the 24th. He just needs to stay clean from the alcohol and cigarettes from here on out. So far so good, but keep him in your prayers.
Sister Young is doing very well! She had to speak in church on Sunday (they already caught her!). And I was so surprised by her insights and testimony. She is so unsure of herself in lessons and doesn’t talk much. I think it’s because she knows I’m there and I do talk a lot. So my goal is to talk less and get her to share her testimony.
So Amy got baptized in August and has really been struggling in her testimony and in keeping the commandments. We have had a hard time teaching her because she won’t keep appointments and avoids us when she knows she’s done something wrong. And she didn’t show up to church again on Sunday even though she promised, she’s missed a lot! So we went and visited her after church and told her whether she liked it or not we were kidnapping her and taking her to the church for a lesson, (where she is living is not a good environment for a lesson, she lives with her son’s grandmother temporarily, and it’s tiny, and smoke filled, and the tv is always on, and her kids won’t sit still). So we did. And we had a great, no distraction lesson. And the Spirit was there so strongly, and afterwards she was such in a better mood and had a resolve to live the Gospel. She thought she was doing good, until she sat down with us, looked at what she was doing and realized she was really missing something by not going to church every week and reading her scriptures everyday. It showed me that it is so important to learn and go to Church and read our scriptures so we can have that sustaining influence of the Spirit, because without Him we lose our resolve and desire. We must do it everyday otherwise we get off track. The Spirit is so vital, it’s like our spiritual food and water. Can’t live without it. Don’t starve your Spirit.
Hope you all have a great week! Love ya like snowmen love snow, like peanut butter loves jelly, like missionaries love teaching lessons! Sister Nicole Polatis
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Happy New Year!
Here are all the sisters in the mission except 4 and the 5 senior sisters.
Here is a picture of me and all my posterity! Left to right, SIster Young (daughter), me, Sister Arnott (first born), and Sister Stapley (grandaughter).Dear Family,
Happy New Year!!! I hope you all made a resolution to write me every week, and if you have not you should repent, and resolve to do so! Come on it’s only 6 letters. You only have 6 more opportunities to write me!!! Whoa that’s crazy to think about. In that case maybe you should write 2 times a week, so you can have 12 more opportunities to be blessed by writing to a full-time servant of the Lord!
So my new companion is Sister Young, she is from Edmund, Oklahoma. She went to BYU and was studying landscaping. She loves Japanese culture, and she’s made me very interesting in things like fungshau and Japanese animated movies. She is not very confidant in her abilities but she is very brave, she will do whatever I tell her even if it is talking to someone in Walmart. And like mother, like daughter, there are so many things about her that I can see in myself, but without being all opinionated and know it all like me. I know that would be great if I would be like that. But its very different training her than Sister Arnott, they are very different people. Sister Young has greenie fire, but in a very small and quiet way. Her quiet faith is already blessing our area. The first couple days we went tracting several times and we got a lot of follow-ups so that has been great!
The poor girl, her first 2 lessons were difficult. One was with Mike Vrooman who is set for baptism, and he was unusually quiet, so our lesson went awful and she got really stuck probably because I was really stuck. But we pulled out of it and it ended well. But it was a rocky start. And then the next day we taught Matt, who is Jennifer’s husband and he is starting to soften towards the Gospel. He has come to church 3 times and to her baptism. And he says that he wants to do what will bless his family and he thinks that them all going to the same church would be it. So he has agreed to take the lessons. He is very bitter though, he grew up very strong Baptist, has read the Bible through several times, but then lots of bad things have happened. And what he doesn’t understand is why it never ends, he says life has been one trial after another for the last 10-15 years. So he is doubting God and if God loves him. He did tell us that he feels that things are going to start changing inside him and for the better, I think he is ready to let go of the bitterness. Anyways all this came out in our lesson, he asked all kinds of hard questions. And him and Jennifer had a very intense discussion on religion in front of us and from what I gather they rarely discuss what they believe or feel. In fact he said they don’t communicate very well. But they had a great communication session in front of us! See the Gospel can help so many things, even poor communication! Look what it’s doing for them! It was an excellent lesson, we made a lot of headway with Matt. It’s just teaching in the MTC is nothing like that! And then we had another lesson with Mike on Saturday. He has been doing really good about not drinking or smoking, I think it has been a week and a half since he drank. Well we showed up and he was completely plastered. Mike has been drinking in our lessons before but not like this, plus not having had alcohol for a while it made it worse. Mike is pretty random sometimes so at first I wasn’t sure, but it became more and more apparent that what was in his cup was definitely booze. So we talked about it. He had broke down and smoked a whole pack of cigarettes and drank 10 beers that day! As we talked he felt really bad and we talked him into pouring out the rest of his beer. Put we didn’t get anywhere with the lesson. So we left. The next day he called and apologized. He felt bad he had messed up. And he had a huge hang over. Serves him right! No I think this might be good to help him realize that he really doesn’t want to do those things and he shouldn’t give in.
The weekend wasn’t so great. A lot of our plans feel through and we did a lot of tracting and it was freezing cold!! The good things is that we now have several inches of snow! YAY! And then to top it off, church was cancelled because the heat went out and it was only 10 degrees. I was really sad not to be able to go to church.
God is really looking out for us though. So the meal calendar didn’t get passed around last week when I was in Teays Valley or this week because we didn’t have church so we didn’t have any meals. But we have had a meal every night this week except one! People have just been volunteering to feed us. They’ll call us up in the morning and tell us to come over. It gives a whole new meaning to that scripture, give no thought to what you shall eat, or what you shall wear. For if God takes care of the birds and the plants than He will take care of us. So that’s an awful quoting job, the scripture is in 3 Nephi 13, but you get my gist. But if He’ll make sure we get feed dinner, then He’ll make sure we find people to teach and to help. I’m just so grateful that I don’t have to go at life and my mission alone because it would be way to hard!
Well I love you and I’m looking forward to the letters you are going to send me! ☺
Love ya, Sister Nicole Polatis
Happy New Year!!! I hope you all made a resolution to write me every week, and if you have not you should repent, and resolve to do so! Come on it’s only 6 letters. You only have 6 more opportunities to write me!!! Whoa that’s crazy to think about. In that case maybe you should write 2 times a week, so you can have 12 more opportunities to be blessed by writing to a full-time servant of the Lord!
So my new companion is Sister Young, she is from Edmund, Oklahoma. She went to BYU and was studying landscaping. She loves Japanese culture, and she’s made me very interesting in things like fungshau and Japanese animated movies. She is not very confidant in her abilities but she is very brave, she will do whatever I tell her even if it is talking to someone in Walmart. And like mother, like daughter, there are so many things about her that I can see in myself, but without being all opinionated and know it all like me. I know that would be great if I would be like that. But its very different training her than Sister Arnott, they are very different people. Sister Young has greenie fire, but in a very small and quiet way. Her quiet faith is already blessing our area. The first couple days we went tracting several times and we got a lot of follow-ups so that has been great!
The poor girl, her first 2 lessons were difficult. One was with Mike Vrooman who is set for baptism, and he was unusually quiet, so our lesson went awful and she got really stuck probably because I was really stuck. But we pulled out of it and it ended well. But it was a rocky start. And then the next day we taught Matt, who is Jennifer’s husband and he is starting to soften towards the Gospel. He has come to church 3 times and to her baptism. And he says that he wants to do what will bless his family and he thinks that them all going to the same church would be it. So he has agreed to take the lessons. He is very bitter though, he grew up very strong Baptist, has read the Bible through several times, but then lots of bad things have happened. And what he doesn’t understand is why it never ends, he says life has been one trial after another for the last 10-15 years. So he is doubting God and if God loves him. He did tell us that he feels that things are going to start changing inside him and for the better, I think he is ready to let go of the bitterness. Anyways all this came out in our lesson, he asked all kinds of hard questions. And him and Jennifer had a very intense discussion on religion in front of us and from what I gather they rarely discuss what they believe or feel. In fact he said they don’t communicate very well. But they had a great communication session in front of us! See the Gospel can help so many things, even poor communication! Look what it’s doing for them! It was an excellent lesson, we made a lot of headway with Matt. It’s just teaching in the MTC is nothing like that! And then we had another lesson with Mike on Saturday. He has been doing really good about not drinking or smoking, I think it has been a week and a half since he drank. Well we showed up and he was completely plastered. Mike has been drinking in our lessons before but not like this, plus not having had alcohol for a while it made it worse. Mike is pretty random sometimes so at first I wasn’t sure, but it became more and more apparent that what was in his cup was definitely booze. So we talked about it. He had broke down and smoked a whole pack of cigarettes and drank 10 beers that day! As we talked he felt really bad and we talked him into pouring out the rest of his beer. Put we didn’t get anywhere with the lesson. So we left. The next day he called and apologized. He felt bad he had messed up. And he had a huge hang over. Serves him right! No I think this might be good to help him realize that he really doesn’t want to do those things and he shouldn’t give in.
The weekend wasn’t so great. A lot of our plans feel through and we did a lot of tracting and it was freezing cold!! The good things is that we now have several inches of snow! YAY! And then to top it off, church was cancelled because the heat went out and it was only 10 degrees. I was really sad not to be able to go to church.
God is really looking out for us though. So the meal calendar didn’t get passed around last week when I was in Teays Valley or this week because we didn’t have church so we didn’t have any meals. But we have had a meal every night this week except one! People have just been volunteering to feed us. They’ll call us up in the morning and tell us to come over. It gives a whole new meaning to that scripture, give no thought to what you shall eat, or what you shall wear. For if God takes care of the birds and the plants than He will take care of us. So that’s an awful quoting job, the scripture is in 3 Nephi 13, but you get my gist. But if He’ll make sure we get feed dinner, then He’ll make sure we find people to teach and to help. I’m just so grateful that I don’t have to go at life and my mission alone because it would be way to hard!
Well I love you and I’m looking forward to the letters you are going to send me! ☺
Love ya, Sister Nicole Polatis
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Cinnamon Rolls and Salvation
This is me, Sister Bischoff, and Sister Harris. We joke that we got new companions for Christmas.
This is almost all of the sisters in the mission except 4. Half of them are going home and the other half are staying here.
This is Jennifer McDougal and her family at her baptism.
My current District, what a bunch of crazy missionaries. Left to right, Sister Hamaker, Sister Taylor, ME, Elder Mills, Elder Smith, Elder Packer, and Elder Hansen
Sister Taylor and I have the same shirt and randomly they are Christmas colors. We look like peppermints.Dear Family
It was so good to talk to you all on Christmas. I know I told you what we did, but I can’t remember all that I told you so I’m going to tell you again. On Christmas Eve we went to the nursing home and visited people, we sang carols, and just chatted. We met one guy who was very bitter and believed that God was cruel and unmerciful, and right after that we met a 95 year old lady that was the most cheerful person I’ve ever seen. She has lots of health problems and is stuck in a nursing home but she still loves life, God and others. Then we went caroling to less actives, and at pretty much every house they offered us cookies. We had dinner with a family who are very musical and they sang us some Christmas songs, they sang O Holy Night and it was the most beautiful thing I ever heard. We then went to Walmart with all the other missionaries in Charleston and sang in front of the store. We handed out lots of cards. At 8 the store closed and we quit singing and helped gather up the carts and helped people with their groceries. One lady I talked to just broke down and cried when I offered to help. She was so frazzled. A lot of people in West Virginia have been without power from a storm that happened the Saturday before Christmas and most people didn’t get it again until Christmas Eve. We then went to the mission home and had cinnamon rolls and chili. We read the Christmas story and then just chatted. We all spent the night in the mission home and just like little kids we were all up early, the elders were up at 5:30 and when we opened the door at the top of the stairs they were all sitting at the bottom of the stairs waiting for President to let them come upstairs. President hid a cookie for all of us around the mission home and so we had to find them and then we opened our presents. President made us pancakes and then we played games until 10. At 10 we had to get going. We went to the Grants house for lunch and played games and took turns making our phone calls. Then we went to the Suttles for dinner and that was completely crazy there were so many people there. That evening we went tracting-caroling. Instead of normal door approaches we sang to them and then gave them a card. We even got offered money, I should never be offered money for my singing. All in all we had a wonderful Christmas.
Tomorrow, I will get my new companion and go back to Marietta. It was nice to be here but I am glad to go back and get back to work. The last few days have been really slow, people are still gone for the holidays. But we have found a lot of people home when we have gone tracting. One Sunday it was nice to go to church and see the members again. It’s a little strange to be back in my old area, but also interesting to see them again and see changes, like new babies, reactivated people, or move in.
Last Wednesday we went and taught Victor, who is from Mexico, and speaks very little English. He works at a Mexican restaurant here and that is where he met the missionaries. He saw their tags and said he had friends who were Mormons and he wanted to learn more. So the sisters here take members who speak Spanish (luckily there are several RMs who went Spanish speaking) and Sister Harris knows a little bit. It was interesting in the lesson because I can understand a little because of the little Spanish I have taken, but I speak even less and my pronunciation is really off. And I could barely understand Victor because he spoke so fast. But the feeling in the lesson was wonderful. It was interesting to not understand and still feel the spirit. And later the member filled us in and Victor had said that his soul is hungry for this and even though his roommates tease him he knows this is very important. It will be interesting for Victor to come to church though with it all in English but he says he wants to come.
So last month our mission hit a record. 30 baptisms in one month, usually we have struggled to hit 20. But after Elder Sybrowsky came and increased our faith and challenged us to baptism in every area every month (which is 56), baptisms, lessons, new investigators have gone up. It’s amazing to see what faith can do.
Yesterday we had a training meeting to train us to train our new companions. It was most excellent. The Spirit was so strong. And during that meeting we were all asked to bear our testimonies. And when I bore mine the Spirit bore powerful witness that God loves me. All of sudden I remember many events of the last week that made me realize God loved me. Examples, so I was really craving some of mom’s homemade cinnamon rolls and I was a little homesick with it being Christmas and all. Sister Harris said well maybe Sister Thornock will make cinnamon rolls for us on Christmas. And lo and behold, what was waiting for us at the mission home? cinnamon rolls! Coincidence I think not! I had really been wanting candy cane Hershey kisses but I am trying to save money and they cost almost $4, but what does Alanna send in her Christmas package? Just a few candy cane kisses. I wasn’t having the greatest Christmas, but then we went to the Grants and had a wonderful time and it totally made my day to talk to you all. There were many other things those are just a few. But my concerns were so silly, they didn’t effect my eternal salvation. Yet God is so loving to even take care of the silly stuff. How much more will He take care of the things that matter, like helping us find those who are prepared to be baptized, or blessing our families, or helping us build our testimony.
So we went to dinner on Saturday to some member who are converts and they shared their stories and testimonies with us. And their son is serving in Boise, Idaho right now! We had a wonderful discussion. Something he said really stood out to me, he said that no other church offers hope for the salvation of ALL of God’s children. And that is how he knows this is the true church. Wow! That really hit me as being an important thing, because as God’s children He loves us and He wants us to return to live with Him so why wouldn’t He have a plan that made it possible for everyone to return to live with Him? No matter what life you were born into there is hope for salvation. And being able to do work for the dead that is offering hope to our ancestors. We have the opportunity to help offer salvation to people, what a glorious role. That is following in Christ’s footsteps, and we are developing Christ-like love. That is the link that Elijah was talking about, it’s love. Love is the welding link. How beautiful God’s plan is for us!
Love you all, Happy New Year!
Sister Nicole Polatis
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Merry Merry Christmas
Dear Family,
Merry Christmas to us!!!! God Loves us! Miracles happen! Fasting Works!! And sometimes God grants us the very desires of our hearts!!
Okay so when Sister Reeves was serving here about a year ago she taught Jennifer McDougal who was sooo totally Golden, she contacted the missionaries and wanted to be taught because she had known members when she was younger and realized later in life that this is the true church. But tons and tons of stuff got in the way, she had like 3 baptismal dates before. She had to get married so she did that, but then she had major complications with her pregnancy, and was put on bed rest. And she fell off the face of the earth and missionaries couldn’t get a hold of her and neither could the members. So no one had really seen her for 6 months. And we had decided to give her a break. Well on Sunday I fasted for our investigator Dallas to get better so he can get baptized because that’s all we are waiting for ( his family has been members for 30 years and its taken this long for him to accept it and now he is seriously ill). Our mission was promised that we could see a baptism every month in every area by Elder Sybrowsky from the 70. Well we were really hoping to see Dallas baptized in December because we didn’t have a baptism for this month. So we fasted for it and I added or help us to get a baptism. But I am of little faith and was resigned that if Dallas didn’t make it we wouldn’t see one. But then on Monday night we went out to Waterford which is way far away, to visit a less active. Well the less active wasn’t there so we decided to just try Jennifer because she lives out that way. And lo and Behold! She answered the door and let us come in and proceeded to tell us that she missed us and missed church and missed everything and that her health was finally getting back under control and she really felt she needed to come back. And then she bore us her testimony all about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon and the spirit was so strong! And then she asked us if there were any openings for baptism in the next little while. And we are sitting there with our jaws on the floor, stammering about how she can get baptized whenever she wants. And we proceeded to set her for December 20th!!! The day before we leave! And she came to church on Sunday and we are teaching her refresher lessons so we see her like every other day. And she remembers so much! And her husband sits in on the lessons now and he asks questions but he will probably take a while still. Wow!! This is so amazing!!!
Okay so I don’t have much time, but an update on what it happening. Sister Taylor and Sister Hamaker are leaving to go home on the 22nd and so we are all going to Charleston on the 21st to drop them off. Then I will be going to Teays Valley (my old area) with Sister Harris and Sister Bischoff who are both from Idaho. I will be with them until the 30th and then I will be coming back to Marietta on the 30th with my greenie. So start sending mail to the mission office and they’’ll get it to me. And then about the 27th start sending it to Marietta again.
So my companions are so Trunky!!! And I am learning from their experience and I’m telling you right now. Don’t you dare start telling me how many days I have left and do not write me that you will see me in a few weeks, and nothing along those lines. Pretend like I will be here forever. I need help staying focus. And just because I am coming home soon doesn’t mean I don’t need mail. In fact its very important I receive mail, so please write ME!!!! Well I’m sorry I have to run. Love you all very much. Let It SNOW!
Love Sister Nicole Polatis
Merry Christmas to us!!!! God Loves us! Miracles happen! Fasting Works!! And sometimes God grants us the very desires of our hearts!!
Okay so when Sister Reeves was serving here about a year ago she taught Jennifer McDougal who was sooo totally Golden, she contacted the missionaries and wanted to be taught because she had known members when she was younger and realized later in life that this is the true church. But tons and tons of stuff got in the way, she had like 3 baptismal dates before. She had to get married so she did that, but then she had major complications with her pregnancy, and was put on bed rest. And she fell off the face of the earth and missionaries couldn’t get a hold of her and neither could the members. So no one had really seen her for 6 months. And we had decided to give her a break. Well on Sunday I fasted for our investigator Dallas to get better so he can get baptized because that’s all we are waiting for ( his family has been members for 30 years and its taken this long for him to accept it and now he is seriously ill). Our mission was promised that we could see a baptism every month in every area by Elder Sybrowsky from the 70. Well we were really hoping to see Dallas baptized in December because we didn’t have a baptism for this month. So we fasted for it and I added or help us to get a baptism. But I am of little faith and was resigned that if Dallas didn’t make it we wouldn’t see one. But then on Monday night we went out to Waterford which is way far away, to visit a less active. Well the less active wasn’t there so we decided to just try Jennifer because she lives out that way. And lo and Behold! She answered the door and let us come in and proceeded to tell us that she missed us and missed church and missed everything and that her health was finally getting back under control and she really felt she needed to come back. And then she bore us her testimony all about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon and the spirit was so strong! And then she asked us if there were any openings for baptism in the next little while. And we are sitting there with our jaws on the floor, stammering about how she can get baptized whenever she wants. And we proceeded to set her for December 20th!!! The day before we leave! And she came to church on Sunday and we are teaching her refresher lessons so we see her like every other day. And she remembers so much! And her husband sits in on the lessons now and he asks questions but he will probably take a while still. Wow!! This is so amazing!!!
Okay so I don’t have much time, but an update on what it happening. Sister Taylor and Sister Hamaker are leaving to go home on the 22nd and so we are all going to Charleston on the 21st to drop them off. Then I will be going to Teays Valley (my old area) with Sister Harris and Sister Bischoff who are both from Idaho. I will be with them until the 30th and then I will be coming back to Marietta on the 30th with my greenie. So start sending mail to the mission office and they’’ll get it to me. And then about the 27th start sending it to Marietta again.
So my companions are so Trunky!!! And I am learning from their experience and I’m telling you right now. Don’t you dare start telling me how many days I have left and do not write me that you will see me in a few weeks, and nothing along those lines. Pretend like I will be here forever. I need help staying focus. And just because I am coming home soon doesn’t mean I don’t need mail. In fact its very important I receive mail, so please write ME!!!! Well I’m sorry I have to run. Love you all very much. Let It SNOW!
Love Sister Nicole Polatis
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Most Excellent
Dear Family,
So we had a very excellent week. It started out slow because of the holiday and everyone was busy but it picked up after that. For Thanksgiving we went to the Cammacks and had dinner with them. Their neighbor was there and she isn’t a member. She actually grew up RLDS so we chatted with her about that. She is really good friends with the Cammacks and we have met her before. They are a very talkative family so we had a nice, quiet, traditional dinner with them. Then we went over to Ted’s house (he’s the one who got baptized at the beginning of the month) and that was completely different. His two daughters were there and their kids, I don’t know if I mentioned them to you before. We had dinner with them once and they asked all kinds of questions about our church, most specifically about the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity, let’s just say it was definitely not normal dinner conversation and I blushed several times. Their names are Teddi and Traci and they are way fun. Very loud and blunt. They refuse to call us Sister and Ted told them our first names so I was called Nicole the whole night and it was really weird to me. Dinner was good but very different, none of them are much into cooking and Ted made the pies, they looked funny, but they tasted pretty good. They tried to get us to play the Wii, instead we talked them into playing cards. We played a game called Shanghi, which is like phase 10 but with more rules and strategy. It got really really intense. There was yelling, and Ted kept telling Traci to watch her mouth. Several people got punched in the arm including me, I think I have a bruise. There was under the table cheating and blatant cheating. They are very serious about their cards. We talked to them a little bit about the temple because Ted had a picture of the temple up which we gave him for his baptism, so they asked us about it. It was good but weird, try explaining what the temple is to someone who lives a very different life than LDS standards and is not really interested in spiritual things. We asked Teddi to take the lessons and she said she would think about it. Oh yeah, we also a Thanksgiving Dinner last Friday with one of our investigators, Kayla. It was very interesting. There were all kinds of people there, some related, and some they claimed as relations but they were just friends. They were playing hard rock music and kept going outside to smoke. The food was all colorless, it was weird, everything was a whitish color, the mashed potatoes, the gravy, the turkey, macaroni salad, potato salad, rolls, the stuffing. The only color was the yams and the pumpkin pie. It was kind of awkward and I felt bad because we didn’t really talk to anyone about the Gospel, and after I left I realized that we didn’t have the Spirit because of the music. But it was a very interesting Thanksgiving dinner.
Speaking of interesting food. Two of our investigators feed us on Sunday, which we really appreciated because they don’t have a lot of money and they were really excited about it. They feed us pork chops and mine was totally raw in the middle! He was saying something about how they were frozen earlier that was probably why! I ate as much as I could but I started feeling really sick, so I tried to discreetly take my plate into the kitchen and throw it away. So I have eaten raw pig on my mission now! Probably the most interesting thing I’ve eaten.
Last week we went tracting and we found this lady named Moyra. She is an 87 year old, nanny from Ireland. She came here to be a nanny and got married and has been here ever since. She is way funny. She has a cool accent and always refers to herself in the third person. She is Catholic but is really open and seemed really excited to read the Book of Mormon. We went back yesterday and taught her about the Plan of Salvation and she found it very interesting.
On Saturday we found 2 new investigators. Nena was a Book of Mormon loan and we went back and she let us teach her. Her daughter Kaitlyn, who is 19 and looks just like Andy on Motocross she even has the same haircut, sat in too. They are Catholic but they don’t currently attend. We had a great lesson with them and Kaitlyn said she’s been wondering about religion lately. I love them already, they were really great and asked good questions. I cannot really express how awesome it is to find people who are so willing to let us come in and then we have such great lessons with. It’s the best feeling in the world to share the message of the Restoration with someone and to see on their face and to have them tell us that it makes sense and it answers their questions.
Yesterday we had an excellent day. We went tracting and found 5 people! We loaned out 4 Book of Mormons and have an appointment with a lady on Thursday. Three of those people were in houses right in a row, which never happens it was cool. We also had a lesson with Mike, who I’m pretty sure I told you about before. He had a baptismal date for December 13th, but then disappeared for the last few weeks. He told us he’s been really bad lately so I think he felt guilty and was avoiding us. Mike is an amazing violin player and he used to be in a symphony and teach lessons, but then he started drinking and it ruined his life. Now he is a bum that lives with his parents and has a really crappy job that he can barely hold on to. He was changed a little since we’ve started meeting with him. And he’s really sharp and really wants to make changes in his life. He knows he isn’t doing what is right. He calls himself Evil Mike. We had an excellent lesson with him about the Plan of Salvation and reset him for January 24th and I think he will make it this time. Except he was drinking while we were there and it smelled awful! Sister Hamaker says that sometimes lessons are better with him when he is drunk though because he is calmer and not so random. It was a really good lesson but he needs to stop drinking.
So recently in our mission the focus is opening our mouths and talking to everyone. Our mission leaders are asking us to set goals of how many people we will talk to outside of tracting and then they follow up with us. It’s been hard for me because I’m kind of a chicken, but it’s been good for us because we really have become more comfortable with talking to everyone about the Gospel. So last night we were driving home and we were going past the college and we saw a girl walking home. Sister Hamaker was like, “Sister Polatis, quick jump out and give this girl a card.” We had already passed her and I said, “Okay drive around the block and I will.” So we drove around the block, but we couldn’t find her! So we went to the next intersection and saw her about to cross the street. So we drove down to the McDonald’s and Sister Taylor and Sister Hamaker dropped me off in the parking lot and then they went through the drive-thru and got McFlurries and I started down the sidewalk, acting like I was out walking, to intercept her. I gave her a card and she actually planted her feet and stopped and talked to me, it was so cool, most people keep walking. Her name is Amanda and she is a student, I talked to her about Prophets and the Book of Mormon, she kept saying she didn’t know if she was interested in meeting with us, I think it was because she was so busy and stressed about finals, because she seemed kind of interested so I directed her to website. Then I kept walking and my comps did a drive by and picked me up. We totally stalked that girl and then ambushed her! It was so cool!
Well love you all, Take care,
Sister Nicole Polatis
So we had a very excellent week. It started out slow because of the holiday and everyone was busy but it picked up after that. For Thanksgiving we went to the Cammacks and had dinner with them. Their neighbor was there and she isn’t a member. She actually grew up RLDS so we chatted with her about that. She is really good friends with the Cammacks and we have met her before. They are a very talkative family so we had a nice, quiet, traditional dinner with them. Then we went over to Ted’s house (he’s the one who got baptized at the beginning of the month) and that was completely different. His two daughters were there and their kids, I don’t know if I mentioned them to you before. We had dinner with them once and they asked all kinds of questions about our church, most specifically about the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity, let’s just say it was definitely not normal dinner conversation and I blushed several times. Their names are Teddi and Traci and they are way fun. Very loud and blunt. They refuse to call us Sister and Ted told them our first names so I was called Nicole the whole night and it was really weird to me. Dinner was good but very different, none of them are much into cooking and Ted made the pies, they looked funny, but they tasted pretty good. They tried to get us to play the Wii, instead we talked them into playing cards. We played a game called Shanghi, which is like phase 10 but with more rules and strategy. It got really really intense. There was yelling, and Ted kept telling Traci to watch her mouth. Several people got punched in the arm including me, I think I have a bruise. There was under the table cheating and blatant cheating. They are very serious about their cards. We talked to them a little bit about the temple because Ted had a picture of the temple up which we gave him for his baptism, so they asked us about it. It was good but weird, try explaining what the temple is to someone who lives a very different life than LDS standards and is not really interested in spiritual things. We asked Teddi to take the lessons and she said she would think about it. Oh yeah, we also a Thanksgiving Dinner last Friday with one of our investigators, Kayla. It was very interesting. There were all kinds of people there, some related, and some they claimed as relations but they were just friends. They were playing hard rock music and kept going outside to smoke. The food was all colorless, it was weird, everything was a whitish color, the mashed potatoes, the gravy, the turkey, macaroni salad, potato salad, rolls, the stuffing. The only color was the yams and the pumpkin pie. It was kind of awkward and I felt bad because we didn’t really talk to anyone about the Gospel, and after I left I realized that we didn’t have the Spirit because of the music. But it was a very interesting Thanksgiving dinner.
Speaking of interesting food. Two of our investigators feed us on Sunday, which we really appreciated because they don’t have a lot of money and they were really excited about it. They feed us pork chops and mine was totally raw in the middle! He was saying something about how they were frozen earlier that was probably why! I ate as much as I could but I started feeling really sick, so I tried to discreetly take my plate into the kitchen and throw it away. So I have eaten raw pig on my mission now! Probably the most interesting thing I’ve eaten.
Last week we went tracting and we found this lady named Moyra. She is an 87 year old, nanny from Ireland. She came here to be a nanny and got married and has been here ever since. She is way funny. She has a cool accent and always refers to herself in the third person. She is Catholic but is really open and seemed really excited to read the Book of Mormon. We went back yesterday and taught her about the Plan of Salvation and she found it very interesting.
On Saturday we found 2 new investigators. Nena was a Book of Mormon loan and we went back and she let us teach her. Her daughter Kaitlyn, who is 19 and looks just like Andy on Motocross she even has the same haircut, sat in too. They are Catholic but they don’t currently attend. We had a great lesson with them and Kaitlyn said she’s been wondering about religion lately. I love them already, they were really great and asked good questions. I cannot really express how awesome it is to find people who are so willing to let us come in and then we have such great lessons with. It’s the best feeling in the world to share the message of the Restoration with someone and to see on their face and to have them tell us that it makes sense and it answers their questions.
Yesterday we had an excellent day. We went tracting and found 5 people! We loaned out 4 Book of Mormons and have an appointment with a lady on Thursday. Three of those people were in houses right in a row, which never happens it was cool. We also had a lesson with Mike, who I’m pretty sure I told you about before. He had a baptismal date for December 13th, but then disappeared for the last few weeks. He told us he’s been really bad lately so I think he felt guilty and was avoiding us. Mike is an amazing violin player and he used to be in a symphony and teach lessons, but then he started drinking and it ruined his life. Now he is a bum that lives with his parents and has a really crappy job that he can barely hold on to. He was changed a little since we’ve started meeting with him. And he’s really sharp and really wants to make changes in his life. He knows he isn’t doing what is right. He calls himself Evil Mike. We had an excellent lesson with him about the Plan of Salvation and reset him for January 24th and I think he will make it this time. Except he was drinking while we were there and it smelled awful! Sister Hamaker says that sometimes lessons are better with him when he is drunk though because he is calmer and not so random. It was a really good lesson but he needs to stop drinking.
So recently in our mission the focus is opening our mouths and talking to everyone. Our mission leaders are asking us to set goals of how many people we will talk to outside of tracting and then they follow up with us. It’s been hard for me because I’m kind of a chicken, but it’s been good for us because we really have become more comfortable with talking to everyone about the Gospel. So last night we were driving home and we were going past the college and we saw a girl walking home. Sister Hamaker was like, “Sister Polatis, quick jump out and give this girl a card.” We had already passed her and I said, “Okay drive around the block and I will.” So we drove around the block, but we couldn’t find her! So we went to the next intersection and saw her about to cross the street. So we drove down to the McDonald’s and Sister Taylor and Sister Hamaker dropped me off in the parking lot and then they went through the drive-thru and got McFlurries and I started down the sidewalk, acting like I was out walking, to intercept her. I gave her a card and she actually planted her feet and stopped and talked to me, it was so cool, most people keep walking. Her name is Amanda and she is a student, I talked to her about Prophets and the Book of Mormon, she kept saying she didn’t know if she was interested in meeting with us, I think it was because she was so busy and stressed about finals, because she seemed kind of interested so I directed her to website. Then I kept walking and my comps did a drive by and picked me up. We totally stalked that girl and then ambushed her! It was so cool!
Well love you all, Take care,
Sister Nicole Polatis
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
I'm Alive!
Hello Dear Family,
Thank you for all your love and letters wishing me better. I am much much better. So you have all obviously talked to mom and found out I was sick AGAIN! That was so frustrating and I had the exact same thing! Although I talked to the doctor and he is not sure I had the swine flu. He says it would not come back, plus my companions haven’t gotten it. He thinks it might be some bacterial infection. Although my symptoms sounded just like swine flu or some type of the flu. Who knows. I am just glad I’m over it and hopefully for good this time. We stayed in Thursday and Friday, on Friday I felt much better but I hadn’t slept in over 48 hours so we stayed in and let me get feeling all the way better. We went back to work on Saturday, which was the exact same thing that happened the week before. Crazy. It felt great to be working again. Poor Sister Taylor just got here and we had to stay inside and not work.
On Wednesday we went to Charleston and got Sister Taylor and then she hardly had anytime to unpack because a member called us and asked us to come up to the emergency room because she didn’t have anyone else to come and she couldn’t find the number for her home teacher. Then we had meetings and appointments. And then we were back at the emergency room that night because Amy, our recent converts, mom was there. We are friends with her mom and Amy asked us to come. We also had an appointment with Amy anyways so we sat in the waiting room with her and tried to have a lesson. Crazy we were in the ER twice and then I was sick the next day! I felt bad, I hoped I hadn’t gotten anyone sick in the ER.
Seriously not much has happened this week because of my sickness and then things have been kind of rough in our companionship because Sister Hamaker is dealing with depression. We had a hard time getting going after being down for a while. But we had a really good day yesterday. We taught several of our investigators and had excellent lessons with them. We taught one lady, Pam, last night, she has been taught for a long time. And she has a testimony and wants to get baptized but she can’t stop smoking. She has a serious addiction. She hates smoking and so does her family, and she is having health problems because of it. She doesn’t ever smoke in public because she is embarrassed about it but at home she smokes like a chimney. So we talked about things she could do. And we told her about an addiction recovery class the church does. And the member who came with us, her father-in-law is a trained hypnotist and he hypnotizes people to help them get over addictions. Pam really liked both of those ideas and said she willing to do anything. So it was good and I was glad we brought that member because she was very encouraging to Pam.
We had stake conference on Sunday and we had to drive all the way to Charleston for it, a little less than 2 hours. It’s crazy how spread out the stake is. President and Sister Thornock were there and a ton of missionaries, and a lady in the ward down there invited ALL of us over for lunch, so we had a good time catching up with the other missionaries.
Yesterday I got my copy of the conference Ensign, finally! And I was looking through the pictures (my favorite part) and I got this wonderful feeling of how awesome the Church is and how amazing it is to be apart of it. This is God’s church. Everyone in the pictures looked so happy and glowing. And there were beautiful pictures of families. And as you look at the pictures of the General Authorities, you can feel the power of their calling. Looking at those pictures I had no doubt this is true. And I am so grateful for a prophet, for the fullness of the Gospel, for the Book of Mormon, and I get to share that with people. Wow, I am so blessed. Something to be really thankful for. Hope you all have a happy Thanskgiving. Be grateful for something!
Love you lots, Sister Nicole Polatis
Thank you for all your love and letters wishing me better. I am much much better. So you have all obviously talked to mom and found out I was sick AGAIN! That was so frustrating and I had the exact same thing! Although I talked to the doctor and he is not sure I had the swine flu. He says it would not come back, plus my companions haven’t gotten it. He thinks it might be some bacterial infection. Although my symptoms sounded just like swine flu or some type of the flu. Who knows. I am just glad I’m over it and hopefully for good this time. We stayed in Thursday and Friday, on Friday I felt much better but I hadn’t slept in over 48 hours so we stayed in and let me get feeling all the way better. We went back to work on Saturday, which was the exact same thing that happened the week before. Crazy. It felt great to be working again. Poor Sister Taylor just got here and we had to stay inside and not work.
On Wednesday we went to Charleston and got Sister Taylor and then she hardly had anytime to unpack because a member called us and asked us to come up to the emergency room because she didn’t have anyone else to come and she couldn’t find the number for her home teacher. Then we had meetings and appointments. And then we were back at the emergency room that night because Amy, our recent converts, mom was there. We are friends with her mom and Amy asked us to come. We also had an appointment with Amy anyways so we sat in the waiting room with her and tried to have a lesson. Crazy we were in the ER twice and then I was sick the next day! I felt bad, I hoped I hadn’t gotten anyone sick in the ER.
Seriously not much has happened this week because of my sickness and then things have been kind of rough in our companionship because Sister Hamaker is dealing with depression. We had a hard time getting going after being down for a while. But we had a really good day yesterday. We taught several of our investigators and had excellent lessons with them. We taught one lady, Pam, last night, she has been taught for a long time. And she has a testimony and wants to get baptized but she can’t stop smoking. She has a serious addiction. She hates smoking and so does her family, and she is having health problems because of it. She doesn’t ever smoke in public because she is embarrassed about it but at home she smokes like a chimney. So we talked about things she could do. And we told her about an addiction recovery class the church does. And the member who came with us, her father-in-law is a trained hypnotist and he hypnotizes people to help them get over addictions. Pam really liked both of those ideas and said she willing to do anything. So it was good and I was glad we brought that member because she was very encouraging to Pam.
We had stake conference on Sunday and we had to drive all the way to Charleston for it, a little less than 2 hours. It’s crazy how spread out the stake is. President and Sister Thornock were there and a ton of missionaries, and a lady in the ward down there invited ALL of us over for lunch, so we had a good time catching up with the other missionaries.
Yesterday I got my copy of the conference Ensign, finally! And I was looking through the pictures (my favorite part) and I got this wonderful feeling of how awesome the Church is and how amazing it is to be apart of it. This is God’s church. Everyone in the pictures looked so happy and glowing. And there were beautiful pictures of families. And as you look at the pictures of the General Authorities, you can feel the power of their calling. Looking at those pictures I had no doubt this is true. And I am so grateful for a prophet, for the fullness of the Gospel, for the Book of Mormon, and I get to share that with people. Wow, I am so blessed. Something to be really thankful for. Hope you all have a happy Thanskgiving. Be grateful for something!
Love you lots, Sister Nicole Polatis
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Urgent - How To Send Your Christmas Letter
Hello All, This is Nicole's sis again. We have received a letter from Nicole's mission president. They would like to enlist our help in making the Christmas season as joyful and rewarding as possible. They are asking each of us to write a special Christmas letter include photos, uplifting stories, testimony and special thoughts that would be suitable. The letters will be distributed at a zone conference the month of December and is a surprise. They would like to have the letters at the mission office by DECEMBER 1st. This is so they have time to sort them. This date is pretty early so please note it and send it soon. Send these surprise letters separately from any packages. If you want to send her a package send it directly to her. But, send the Christmas letter the the mission office.
The address is:
CHRISTMAS LETTERS
Sister Nicole L. Polatis
C/O West Virgina Charleston Mission
888 Oakwood Rd, Ste. 310
Charleston, WV 25314
Thanks everyone Nicole definitely loves letters and she lets us know about it if she has not heard from us. So I'm sure this will make her very very happy and keep her going till she returns home to us in under 3 months!!!
The address is:
CHRISTMAS LETTERS
Sister Nicole L. Polatis
C/O West Virgina Charleston Mission
888 Oakwood Rd, Ste. 310
Charleston, WV 25314
Thanks everyone Nicole definitely loves letters and she lets us know about it if she has not heard from us. So I'm sure this will make her very very happy and keep her going till she returns home to us in under 3 months!!!
Pigs Flying
Dear Family,
So I was extremely sick last week, I had the dreaded Swine Flu. Or as Sister Hamaker said pigs were flying (haha get it, pig =swine, flying= flu or flew). I know missionary humor is bad. So we didn’t go to work for 2 and a half days and I lied around in pain. I couldn’t even sleep I felt so awful. But thankfully it is over. The worst part was I was sick on the 2 days when we had big plans. We had so many appointments and we are planning on getting several new investigators and we had to cancel. I felt like a really bad missionary for getting sick.
So transfers are tomorrow and we are getting a third missionary here. I’m going to be in a trio. Sister Taylor is coming, she was my MTC companion. It should be quite interesting because Sister Hamaker served with her already. And they are both going home after this transfer. Now in missionary lingo, when you go home, you have died. And the missionary who was with you your last transfer is the murderer. So in other words I will be committing a double homicide. What an accomplishment for me! I have heard that trios are fun so we will see. Sister Merrill is training this transfer. And oh man, she wrote me and turns out a few weeks ago she had to have her appendix out. She was on bed rest for a week! Poor Sister Merrill.
Yesterday we found this park and it looked really nice so we decided to drive through it. Well as we were driving past this pond all these ducks started charging towards the car. They were attacking! I think they wanted food, poor things must have been starving. They surrounded the car and started quacking. We didn’t dare get out. See what happens when you feed the ducks. It’s like the welfare system, people forget how to find their own food and rely on others. They surround you and start squawking.
So last week we were out in an area called Newport, which is really far from the center of our area. And we really only go out there occasionally to visit some less actives. I remember thinking that it was a nice area and too bad we couldn’t tract it, but we can’t because we don’t have the miles to drive out there to do follow-ups and stuff. I remember thinking that if God wanted us to teach someone there we would have to be lead to them in a different way. Well on Sunday we got a referral for a Ashley in Newport. We went and saw her but she said she hadn’t ordered a Book of Mormon, but she accepted it anyway and told us we could come back and she wanted us to come when her boyfriend could be there too because she wanted him to listen. Ha ha. Well God lead us to someone! Ha ha and He gave us a referral because if she didn’t order it I don’t know who did!
There was a day this week that I was feeling really discouraged. We hadn’t been able to teach anybody because I had been sick, we had missed catching up with all these people because of it. And then when I got better we had awful days and that day all of our appointments had fallen through. So that night I went home exhausted (I’m still tired from being sick) and discouraged. Well prayer works. Because that night I got on my knees and I told God all of my problems and I how I didn’t want to be a missionary anymore, that things were going awful, that there were all these people who needed help but I didn’t know how to help them, that I was tired, that we didn’t know what to do. It was a nice vent session. And then I asked for help and I got it. A huge wonderful feeling of peace came over me, it was warm and fuzzy. I knew I was not alone and things would go better. Prayer works, God is there. And He won’t always take the hard things away but He will help us to bear it.
Love you lots and lots, Sister Nicole Polatis
So I was extremely sick last week, I had the dreaded Swine Flu. Or as Sister Hamaker said pigs were flying (haha get it, pig =swine, flying= flu or flew). I know missionary humor is bad. So we didn’t go to work for 2 and a half days and I lied around in pain. I couldn’t even sleep I felt so awful. But thankfully it is over. The worst part was I was sick on the 2 days when we had big plans. We had so many appointments and we are planning on getting several new investigators and we had to cancel. I felt like a really bad missionary for getting sick.
So transfers are tomorrow and we are getting a third missionary here. I’m going to be in a trio. Sister Taylor is coming, she was my MTC companion. It should be quite interesting because Sister Hamaker served with her already. And they are both going home after this transfer. Now in missionary lingo, when you go home, you have died. And the missionary who was with you your last transfer is the murderer. So in other words I will be committing a double homicide. What an accomplishment for me! I have heard that trios are fun so we will see. Sister Merrill is training this transfer. And oh man, she wrote me and turns out a few weeks ago she had to have her appendix out. She was on bed rest for a week! Poor Sister Merrill.
Yesterday we found this park and it looked really nice so we decided to drive through it. Well as we were driving past this pond all these ducks started charging towards the car. They were attacking! I think they wanted food, poor things must have been starving. They surrounded the car and started quacking. We didn’t dare get out. See what happens when you feed the ducks. It’s like the welfare system, people forget how to find their own food and rely on others. They surround you and start squawking.
So last week we were out in an area called Newport, which is really far from the center of our area. And we really only go out there occasionally to visit some less actives. I remember thinking that it was a nice area and too bad we couldn’t tract it, but we can’t because we don’t have the miles to drive out there to do follow-ups and stuff. I remember thinking that if God wanted us to teach someone there we would have to be lead to them in a different way. Well on Sunday we got a referral for a Ashley in Newport. We went and saw her but she said she hadn’t ordered a Book of Mormon, but she accepted it anyway and told us we could come back and she wanted us to come when her boyfriend could be there too because she wanted him to listen. Ha ha. Well God lead us to someone! Ha ha and He gave us a referral because if she didn’t order it I don’t know who did!
There was a day this week that I was feeling really discouraged. We hadn’t been able to teach anybody because I had been sick, we had missed catching up with all these people because of it. And then when I got better we had awful days and that day all of our appointments had fallen through. So that night I went home exhausted (I’m still tired from being sick) and discouraged. Well prayer works. Because that night I got on my knees and I told God all of my problems and I how I didn’t want to be a missionary anymore, that things were going awful, that there were all these people who needed help but I didn’t know how to help them, that I was tired, that we didn’t know what to do. It was a nice vent session. And then I asked for help and I got it. A huge wonderful feeling of peace came over me, it was warm and fuzzy. I knew I was not alone and things would go better. Prayer works, God is there. And He won’t always take the hard things away but He will help us to bear it.
Love you lots and lots, Sister Nicole Polatis
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Ted is Baptized!
Dear Family,
Ted got baptized on Sunday!! YAY! He made quite a splash too! Turns out he is afraid of water and he was stiff as a board, hence the big splash. The Spirit was there really strong and it went great. His daughter, Traci, came to the baptism with her 3 daughters. We meet her before and her sister Teddi, they are both way awesome and we really want to teach them. And we asked Traci after the baptism but she said no. But we are still friends with her so maybe some day. And maybe we can give her a Book of Mormon still. We also had another potential investigator at church, his name is Sam and he is the father of Alex who is Brandi’s brother and Amy’s son, so Sam is Amy’s boyfriend, (whoa that’s complicated, that’s why you should live the Law of Chastity) He came to church mostly because Amy asked him to (oh they got back together last week and Amy really likes him still) and he is a little curious. And I was really stressed during church about it because I wanted them to feel the Spirit and want to learn more. And during Relief Society they talked about temples and I was like great, here we go with the questions. I don’t know why I was so stressed I should have had faith and trust in God. Anyways I didn’t get as much out of church because of it, but it did teach me a lesson about having a little faith.
We had an excellent week, we got 6 new investigators. One lady named Cecil, we loaned her a Book of Mormon and when we came back to pick it up she invited us in because she wanted us to explain more about it. She told us what we taught was different and yet familiar. (I wanted to tell her that its’ because it’s True!) So we have another appointment next week. Sister Guthrie invited us over for dinner this week so we could meet her step daughter Vern (Vernadette) and we taught a lesson on faith and asked if she wanted to learn more. She cried through our lesson and said she would take the lessons. She grew up Roman Catholic but has kind of lost her faith and has lots of questions. She is going through a divorce and a custody battle for her 5 year old son. He dad (Sister Guthrie’s husband) died a few years ago, she lost her job, and just moved back to this area. She is way cool and I’m excited to teach her. Two of our new investigators we are not sure if they are accountable, they seem to have some mental handicaps, but I’m not really one to judge their accountability so we will see how they keep commitments.
So I heard from Sister Reeves about our investigators in Fairmont, and turns out that a bunch of them are all connected, in a drug ring! Well I don’t think it’s all that organized, they are selling their prescriptions for money, at least one lady is, and then they are trying to get Martha in on it or steal her pills or something and there is a less active involved too who lives with one investigator. And then one investigators suspects another one of stealing from her. So yeah it sounds like I missed all the excitement in Fairmont! Needless to say most of those people were dropped because we don’t need to be involved in it.
Last week we were walking down the sidewalk and we saw these boys all gathered around this tree. So we walk over and they were looking at a squirrel on the ground that was barely moving and staring around looking terrified. The poor guy had fallen out of the tree 15 feet and stunned himself. Probably knocked the wind out of him. The boys were debating who was going to take him, one boy wanted him for a pet, the other wanted to skin him and eat him. Not sure who won, we decided to stay out of it.
Well I love you all, Take care. Love ya like a squirrel loves nuts!
Sister Nicole Polatis
Ted got baptized on Sunday!! YAY! He made quite a splash too! Turns out he is afraid of water and he was stiff as a board, hence the big splash. The Spirit was there really strong and it went great. His daughter, Traci, came to the baptism with her 3 daughters. We meet her before and her sister Teddi, they are both way awesome and we really want to teach them. And we asked Traci after the baptism but she said no. But we are still friends with her so maybe some day. And maybe we can give her a Book of Mormon still. We also had another potential investigator at church, his name is Sam and he is the father of Alex who is Brandi’s brother and Amy’s son, so Sam is Amy’s boyfriend, (whoa that’s complicated, that’s why you should live the Law of Chastity) He came to church mostly because Amy asked him to (oh they got back together last week and Amy really likes him still) and he is a little curious. And I was really stressed during church about it because I wanted them to feel the Spirit and want to learn more. And during Relief Society they talked about temples and I was like great, here we go with the questions. I don’t know why I was so stressed I should have had faith and trust in God. Anyways I didn’t get as much out of church because of it, but it did teach me a lesson about having a little faith.
We had an excellent week, we got 6 new investigators. One lady named Cecil, we loaned her a Book of Mormon and when we came back to pick it up she invited us in because she wanted us to explain more about it. She told us what we taught was different and yet familiar. (I wanted to tell her that its’ because it’s True!) So we have another appointment next week. Sister Guthrie invited us over for dinner this week so we could meet her step daughter Vern (Vernadette) and we taught a lesson on faith and asked if she wanted to learn more. She cried through our lesson and said she would take the lessons. She grew up Roman Catholic but has kind of lost her faith and has lots of questions. She is going through a divorce and a custody battle for her 5 year old son. He dad (Sister Guthrie’s husband) died a few years ago, she lost her job, and just moved back to this area. She is way cool and I’m excited to teach her. Two of our new investigators we are not sure if they are accountable, they seem to have some mental handicaps, but I’m not really one to judge their accountability so we will see how they keep commitments.
So I heard from Sister Reeves about our investigators in Fairmont, and turns out that a bunch of them are all connected, in a drug ring! Well I don’t think it’s all that organized, they are selling their prescriptions for money, at least one lady is, and then they are trying to get Martha in on it or steal her pills or something and there is a less active involved too who lives with one investigator. And then one investigators suspects another one of stealing from her. So yeah it sounds like I missed all the excitement in Fairmont! Needless to say most of those people were dropped because we don’t need to be involved in it.
Last week we were walking down the sidewalk and we saw these boys all gathered around this tree. So we walk over and they were looking at a squirrel on the ground that was barely moving and staring around looking terrified. The poor guy had fallen out of the tree 15 feet and stunned himself. Probably knocked the wind out of him. The boys were debating who was going to take him, one boy wanted him for a pet, the other wanted to skin him and eat him. Not sure who won, we decided to stay out of it.
Well I love you all, Take care. Love ya like a squirrel loves nuts!
Sister Nicole Polatis
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Like a fire is burning
Dear Family,
So on Sunday we sort of had a baptism. Okay so we did have one but it doesn’t count as a convert baptism because she is only 8 and her mom is baptized. Her mom is Amy and was baptized in September. Her name is Brandi and she is my friend. She follows me around at church, and last week I went to Primary with her because she wouldn’t go by herself. Wow, the Spirit was so strong. It was good for Amy to have her testimony confirmed. And our investigator, Ted, who is getting baptized next week was there and he was crying at the baptism! It’s just really great to see how when one person gets baptized, it blesses the whole family.On Halloween, we aren’t supposed to be out after dark, so we went to a member’s house, Sister Guthrie, and she feed us dinner. When we walked in the first thing she did was take us to her closet and pull out her costume box. We all dressed up. I was a pirate, Sister Hamaker was a gypsy, and Sister Guthrie was tinker bell. And I even had a real knife as part of my pirate costume! We had a good time! Haha so much fun.Last night we were tracting, and the 2nd house we went to we met Brian. And we asked him if he felt like God knew him and he told us he wasn’t very religious and not interested. But then he told us his wife had died 6 months ago and he did have a big question he wanted answered about what happens after this life. Well of course we shared our testimony of how families can be together forever and about the Plan of Salvation, but he wanted to do his own searching, not with us. So we sent him to mormon.org and he said he would for sure look at that. Wow, even though we didn’t find some one to teach and baptize, we were instruments in the Lord’s hand to help someone else. And I think we planted a really promising seed.Last week we had Zone Conference, and a member of the Seventy came, Elder Sybrowsky. And he told me that he was at your stake conference whenever that was. Cool huh! So when he first started talking, he talked about things that we needed to get more of our investigators baptized. And I was sitting there thinking, “Okay if think we aren’t doing it right then quit telling us to do it and tell us how to get these people baptized.” In other words I was resisting and hard hearted. I was disappointed because I was expecting some great stuff that would really help us in the mission. And then it occurred to me that this was some great stuff I just didn’t have an open heart. So I changed my attitude and I realized that he was trying to increase our faith and let the Spirit testify to us that miracles can happen. And faith is exactly what I needed. Sister Sybrowsky got up later and told us that this was not what he planned to talk about and she had never seen what he did with us before. And she testified to us that he was called of God and was following the Spirit. I really felt that what he said was exactly what the Lord wants us to do here. They really brought the Spirit to our mission. I got all charged up and excited again about being a missionary, they really helped to remind me why I am here. What a blessing it is to us to have a Prophet, and Apostles, and apostles (Elder Sybrowsky is an apostle with a little ‘a’), inspired men called of God.
Well love you all,
Sister Nicole Polatis
So on Sunday we sort of had a baptism. Okay so we did have one but it doesn’t count as a convert baptism because she is only 8 and her mom is baptized. Her mom is Amy and was baptized in September. Her name is Brandi and she is my friend. She follows me around at church, and last week I went to Primary with her because she wouldn’t go by herself. Wow, the Spirit was so strong. It was good for Amy to have her testimony confirmed. And our investigator, Ted, who is getting baptized next week was there and he was crying at the baptism! It’s just really great to see how when one person gets baptized, it blesses the whole family.On Halloween, we aren’t supposed to be out after dark, so we went to a member’s house, Sister Guthrie, and she feed us dinner. When we walked in the first thing she did was take us to her closet and pull out her costume box. We all dressed up. I was a pirate, Sister Hamaker was a gypsy, and Sister Guthrie was tinker bell. And I even had a real knife as part of my pirate costume! We had a good time! Haha so much fun.Last night we were tracting, and the 2nd house we went to we met Brian. And we asked him if he felt like God knew him and he told us he wasn’t very religious and not interested. But then he told us his wife had died 6 months ago and he did have a big question he wanted answered about what happens after this life. Well of course we shared our testimony of how families can be together forever and about the Plan of Salvation, but he wanted to do his own searching, not with us. So we sent him to mormon.org and he said he would for sure look at that. Wow, even though we didn’t find some one to teach and baptize, we were instruments in the Lord’s hand to help someone else. And I think we planted a really promising seed.Last week we had Zone Conference, and a member of the Seventy came, Elder Sybrowsky. And he told me that he was at your stake conference whenever that was. Cool huh! So when he first started talking, he talked about things that we needed to get more of our investigators baptized. And I was sitting there thinking, “Okay if think we aren’t doing it right then quit telling us to do it and tell us how to get these people baptized.” In other words I was resisting and hard hearted. I was disappointed because I was expecting some great stuff that would really help us in the mission. And then it occurred to me that this was some great stuff I just didn’t have an open heart. So I changed my attitude and I realized that he was trying to increase our faith and let the Spirit testify to us that miracles can happen. And faith is exactly what I needed. Sister Sybrowsky got up later and told us that this was not what he planned to talk about and she had never seen what he did with us before. And she testified to us that he was called of God and was following the Spirit. I really felt that what he said was exactly what the Lord wants us to do here. They really brought the Spirit to our mission. I got all charged up and excited again about being a missionary, they really helped to remind me why I am here. What a blessing it is to us to have a Prophet, and Apostles, and apostles (Elder Sybrowsky is an apostle with a little ‘a’), inspired men called of God.
Well love you all,
Sister Nicole Polatis
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
The Mormons are Coming!
So the Mormons are taking over Parkersburg and Marietta! Watch out because they have more than one wife and molest children! And they brain wash you and force you into their church. Watch out for those pesky Mormons. Haha. Apparently there is something like this on the tv around here. Amy just got baptized in August and her parents are not happy about it. And her dad heard something like this on tv and told her mom and then her mom called Amy all panicked and telling her to get out of that heathen church. Good to know we are making an impact here and they are noticing us. Too bad it’s all false.
Hello! So I can honestly say that not much happened this week. I have no idea where the time went. Sister Hamaker and I got to the end of the week and counted up our numbers and then we asked ourselves what happened to our week because our numbers were low. So then we had a heart to heart and evaluated our efforts. We decided we needed to change some things. And we both were a little disheartened and our faith had been tried. Anyways so we went to be with a renewed determination to do better. And this week is already looking better. We went tracting yesterday and it was so great!!! I actually enjoyed it. We exercised some faith, said a prayer, and we found 3 awesome people! The first was Jessica, who was super friendly and she was very accepting of a Book of Mormon. Then we met Beth, who believes in God, but even that is shaky, but that’s the end of it because she was never taught, and everyone whose really talked to her about it is rude and argumentative and ignores her opinion. We asked if we could teach her more and she said no. And then Sis. Hamaker started telling her about Joseph Smith and the First Vision. I was sitting there thinking, “What are you doing, we should be starting with the basics about Jesus Christ.” But then I felt the Spirit and I knew that Sis. Hamaker was following the Spirit. And then I looked at Beth and she was getting all teary eyed. We asked again if she would let us teach her more, this time she said I don’t know. She seemed like she wanted to say yes, but I guess past experience had scared her off all religion. So we got her phone number and she’s going to think about it for a few days and then we’ll call and see if we can go back. And we left her a with a mormon.org card. I really, really hope she says yes. It was a really cool experience. Then we met Tessa who is a super cute girl, with 2 little girls. And she immediately accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon, which is slightly different because most people are hesitant. Anyways it was so great. It felt really good. We also meet Steve, who said we could come back, but he was not real solid about it and wouldn’t set a specific time, but you never know what could happen.
Have you ever listened to the talk, “The Missionary Next Door”? Well then you need to! It’s amazing! And it’s funny. It’s all about member missionary work. It really got me excited about how wonderful this work is and what a difference we can make in people’s lives! And members are essential!!! She gave some numbers on the talk. And out of 1,000 people that missionaries find through tracting and street contacting only 1 gets baptized! ONE! But out of 1,000 people that members find and invite into their home to take the lessons, 660 get baptized!! WHOA! Cool! Members are in charge of finding and missionaries are in charge of teaching. And when we all do our part and work together we will see miracles happen. Now I know what you are thinking, “I don’t have anyone I could invite to hear the lessons.” Because I thought that too. But you do!!!! You know people who are less active, who are not members, who are confused, who are lost, who need the Gospel. And if you don’t, then GET OUT OF YOUR BUBBLE and go make some friends! Then the next thought you are going to have is how. Well go listen to that talk! It’s easy, just ask them. If you are still thinking you don’t know anyone then go read D&C 6. If you have a desire then God will lead you to missionary moments. Ask and ye shall receive!
Love you all! Sister Nicole Polatis
Hello! So I can honestly say that not much happened this week. I have no idea where the time went. Sister Hamaker and I got to the end of the week and counted up our numbers and then we asked ourselves what happened to our week because our numbers were low. So then we had a heart to heart and evaluated our efforts. We decided we needed to change some things. And we both were a little disheartened and our faith had been tried. Anyways so we went to be with a renewed determination to do better. And this week is already looking better. We went tracting yesterday and it was so great!!! I actually enjoyed it. We exercised some faith, said a prayer, and we found 3 awesome people! The first was Jessica, who was super friendly and she was very accepting of a Book of Mormon. Then we met Beth, who believes in God, but even that is shaky, but that’s the end of it because she was never taught, and everyone whose really talked to her about it is rude and argumentative and ignores her opinion. We asked if we could teach her more and she said no. And then Sis. Hamaker started telling her about Joseph Smith and the First Vision. I was sitting there thinking, “What are you doing, we should be starting with the basics about Jesus Christ.” But then I felt the Spirit and I knew that Sis. Hamaker was following the Spirit. And then I looked at Beth and she was getting all teary eyed. We asked again if she would let us teach her more, this time she said I don’t know. She seemed like she wanted to say yes, but I guess past experience had scared her off all religion. So we got her phone number and she’s going to think about it for a few days and then we’ll call and see if we can go back. And we left her a with a mormon.org card. I really, really hope she says yes. It was a really cool experience. Then we met Tessa who is a super cute girl, with 2 little girls. And she immediately accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon, which is slightly different because most people are hesitant. Anyways it was so great. It felt really good. We also meet Steve, who said we could come back, but he was not real solid about it and wouldn’t set a specific time, but you never know what could happen.
Have you ever listened to the talk, “The Missionary Next Door”? Well then you need to! It’s amazing! And it’s funny. It’s all about member missionary work. It really got me excited about how wonderful this work is and what a difference we can make in people’s lives! And members are essential!!! She gave some numbers on the talk. And out of 1,000 people that missionaries find through tracting and street contacting only 1 gets baptized! ONE! But out of 1,000 people that members find and invite into their home to take the lessons, 660 get baptized!! WHOA! Cool! Members are in charge of finding and missionaries are in charge of teaching. And when we all do our part and work together we will see miracles happen. Now I know what you are thinking, “I don’t have anyone I could invite to hear the lessons.” Because I thought that too. But you do!!!! You know people who are less active, who are not members, who are confused, who are lost, who need the Gospel. And if you don’t, then GET OUT OF YOUR BUBBLE and go make some friends! Then the next thought you are going to have is how. Well go listen to that talk! It’s easy, just ask them. If you are still thinking you don’t know anyone then go read D&C 6. If you have a desire then God will lead you to missionary moments. Ask and ye shall receive!
Love you all! Sister Nicole Polatis
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Funny Stuff
Dear Family,
So last week Sister Hamaker was sick, so we stayed in for a few days. I got a little bit of cabin fever, but I got a lot of cleaning done. So I don’t have a ton to write today. We taught several lessons to people we are trying to get progressing. We taught this guy, Mike, who is 32, an alcoholic, still living at home, no money, works for his dad, he used to play the violin in a symphony but he got kicked out for being drunk all the time. Well the sisters started teaching him a few months ago and he started making some big changes, and then he disappeared. He got depressed or something and started avoiding the missionaries. Well Sister Hamaker was really frustrated with him and so she was giving him one last chance. We set up an appointment and he was there! YAY! But she let him know she was not happy, she was actually a little short with him. Now that normally wouldn’t go over well with other investigators, but Mike needed that. It helped him see that we are serious and he needs to do what he commits to do. Now he has been keeping his commitments and he has been calling us to set things up. Nobody ever calls us! Not even good, responsible people! Sister Hamaker did a good job in following the Spirit and being angry! Ha ha. Mike is a really random guy. And he doesn’t like his life and how he has ruined it. He kept calling himself evil and by the end of the lesson he was referring to himself as evil Mike. Ha ha.
Last week, a nine year old taught me how to play poker with his pennies. Haha, I don’t think what he taught me was poker though. It was fun though. His mom is Amy, who was baptized in August. We are trying to teach him so he can be baptized but he is only partly interested, I think it will help when she starts bringing him to church regularly and he goes to primary and we are teaching his sister Brandi, who is getting baptized in November, she is 8.
The other day we went to the pet store because we wanted to play with the animals. I was trying to pick up a hamster and he bit me! Hard. That little guy drew blood! Then he ran and hid in his little running wheel, I was so tempted to give him a little spin.
Yesterday we went tracting in an apartment complex. At one door a lady answered with the phone to her ear and just stared at us. So I apologized for catching her on the phone and asked if we could give her a card. She just stared at us and then slammed the door. So we were laughing about that and we went to the next door. Another lady answered the door and Sister Hamaker starts into an approach and the lady says, “I’m sorry, I’m going to shut the door now.” And then she shut the door. Ha ha. She totally apologized about shutting the door on us before she did it. So we had a pretty entertaining tracting day.
On Sunday we had the Primary program, which was so good. Of course it was choppy, you couldn’t understand a lot of what the kids said, they forgot the words to the songs, one kid totally started crying and screaming into the mike when it was his turn. But it didn’t matter, it was still great. They totally invited the Spirit. And we had 3 less actives there and 3 nonmembers and 1 investigator. And lots of people were in tears. One of the nonmembers was the husband of one of the stalwarts in this ward. She died a few months ago. He has never been to a sacrament meeting in all the years he was married to his wife. But he came because his grandson gave him an invitation. Everyone in the ward was shocked to see him there. It was so great. Kids are great. God works by small and simple things and by weak things will great things come to pass. I’ve thought about that a lot lately because I have felt very weak and imperfect. And here I have this huge responsibility to teach people about the Gospel, luckily we don’t have to do it alone. And if we are humble and trust God, He will help us. Ether 12:27 says that God gives us weaknesses so that we will be humble. We need to recognized that we need God, but that is not a weakness to be submissive and humble, that is a strength because then God helps us and takes us to newer heights.
Well love ya all like squirrels like nuts.
Sister Polatis
So last week Sister Hamaker was sick, so we stayed in for a few days. I got a little bit of cabin fever, but I got a lot of cleaning done. So I don’t have a ton to write today. We taught several lessons to people we are trying to get progressing. We taught this guy, Mike, who is 32, an alcoholic, still living at home, no money, works for his dad, he used to play the violin in a symphony but he got kicked out for being drunk all the time. Well the sisters started teaching him a few months ago and he started making some big changes, and then he disappeared. He got depressed or something and started avoiding the missionaries. Well Sister Hamaker was really frustrated with him and so she was giving him one last chance. We set up an appointment and he was there! YAY! But she let him know she was not happy, she was actually a little short with him. Now that normally wouldn’t go over well with other investigators, but Mike needed that. It helped him see that we are serious and he needs to do what he commits to do. Now he has been keeping his commitments and he has been calling us to set things up. Nobody ever calls us! Not even good, responsible people! Sister Hamaker did a good job in following the Spirit and being angry! Ha ha. Mike is a really random guy. And he doesn’t like his life and how he has ruined it. He kept calling himself evil and by the end of the lesson he was referring to himself as evil Mike. Ha ha.
Last week, a nine year old taught me how to play poker with his pennies. Haha, I don’t think what he taught me was poker though. It was fun though. His mom is Amy, who was baptized in August. We are trying to teach him so he can be baptized but he is only partly interested, I think it will help when she starts bringing him to church regularly and he goes to primary and we are teaching his sister Brandi, who is getting baptized in November, she is 8.
The other day we went to the pet store because we wanted to play with the animals. I was trying to pick up a hamster and he bit me! Hard. That little guy drew blood! Then he ran and hid in his little running wheel, I was so tempted to give him a little spin.
Yesterday we went tracting in an apartment complex. At one door a lady answered with the phone to her ear and just stared at us. So I apologized for catching her on the phone and asked if we could give her a card. She just stared at us and then slammed the door. So we were laughing about that and we went to the next door. Another lady answered the door and Sister Hamaker starts into an approach and the lady says, “I’m sorry, I’m going to shut the door now.” And then she shut the door. Ha ha. She totally apologized about shutting the door on us before she did it. So we had a pretty entertaining tracting day.
On Sunday we had the Primary program, which was so good. Of course it was choppy, you couldn’t understand a lot of what the kids said, they forgot the words to the songs, one kid totally started crying and screaming into the mike when it was his turn. But it didn’t matter, it was still great. They totally invited the Spirit. And we had 3 less actives there and 3 nonmembers and 1 investigator. And lots of people were in tears. One of the nonmembers was the husband of one of the stalwarts in this ward. She died a few months ago. He has never been to a sacrament meeting in all the years he was married to his wife. But he came because his grandson gave him an invitation. Everyone in the ward was shocked to see him there. It was so great. Kids are great. God works by small and simple things and by weak things will great things come to pass. I’ve thought about that a lot lately because I have felt very weak and imperfect. And here I have this huge responsibility to teach people about the Gospel, luckily we don’t have to do it alone. And if we are humble and trust God, He will help us. Ether 12:27 says that God gives us weaknesses so that we will be humble. We need to recognized that we need God, but that is not a weakness to be submissive and humble, that is a strength because then God helps us and takes us to newer heights.
Well love ya all like squirrels like nuts.
Sister Polatis
Friday, October 16, 2009
Pictures!
This is me and Sister Hamaker.
These 2 are funny billboards in front of churches.
This is Marietta!
This is the Catholic Church, we live in front of it and a little to the left. There is also a Methodist, Lutheran and Baptist Church, within 2 blocks of us. And those churches are big nice ones too. The Methodist church is across the street from the Catholic one and has beautiful stained glass windows. Very religious town.Tuesday, October 13, 2009
o-HI-o!
Dear Family,
Hello from Ohio! I love it here! Marietta is a cute town, they have tried to reserve the history of the town. It was the first settlement in Ohio and they are really proud of it. A lot of the streets are still brick, and they still have the trolley tracks on the road. The houses here are so cute, most of them are older homes that have been kept up really nice. They have big porches with rocking chairs. And everyone here decorates their porches. And the streets are all lined with big trees that are starting to change colors. It’s beautiful. There is a good, romantic feeling here. And there are tons of squirrels! On the way here we saw probably a hundred dead squirrels along the road. We do a lot more walking here, which I have really been enjoying looking at all the old houses. And as we walk we see tons of squirrels and they are pretty tame, they let you get close but then they run away. Sister Hamaker has been laughing at me because I like to chase them around the trees. There are two big rivers around here. And we go across the river several times a day. Don’t worry I’m still serving in West Virginia, we have part of WV in our area, just across the river. There is a college here, Marietta College, but it’s really small. Oh another wonderful thing about serving here, is there are flat areas! There are some areas out in the country with fields (no trees) and the road is flat and straight and you can see for a while, it’s so nice! I’m getting a little claustrophobic here. The ward here is great too. It’s really small, there are probably less than 100 active members. But they are very enthusiastic and willing to serve. They keep making jokes about how when they get 140 active members they can get the other half of their chapel. Haha, and seriously they only have half a chapel. They don’t even have benches because they just close a curtain and shut out the stand and the room becomes their gym, but with only one basketball hoop. Apparently they set up exactly 140 chairs and when they are filled they can get the building added onto. Haha They really have a desire for the ward to grow.
And I love Sister Hamaker!! She’s so great. She cooks me breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And I do the dishes. She painted my toes blue with sparkles and she does a lot of other things for me. She is a great example of Charity. Our investigators LOVE her because she loves them and she tells them so and she shows them. But she is also really bold and tells them how it is. The other day we went to visit a recent convert and she was smoking because she was depressed and Sister Hamaker was like let me give you a hug. And then she stole the pack of cigarettes that she was hiding behind her back. So funny. Sister Hamaker is from Moab, Utah. She is a big tom boy and so much fun. She’s 26, but extremely immature, haha not really, but she pulls jokes a lot. We’ve had a great time. I was with Sister Hamaker in the MTC and she will be going home in December. The only bad thing about serving with her is that we are both a little trunky. But we are trying to keep each other focused and we have been working hard.
We have several great investigators. We are teaching a guy named Ted Hill, in his 70s, who is set to be baptized on November 8th. He loves Joseph Smith! But he has issues with Brigham Young. Ha ha. He used to not really like President Monson until this last conference, and then Pres. Monson talked about the warm fuzzies, and Ted decided he was a good man. Haha. Ted is so rock solid. He used to drink 2 pots of coffee a day, and now he is down to 1 cup. He absolutely loves the sisters, says we are his daughters and is greatly offended that he can’t hug us. He loves coming to church and reading the Joseph Smith Manual, ha ha. I think he has a testimony of the Book of Mormon because Joseph Smith translated it. He already has plans to go to the temple and he loves family history. And now he’s trying to get his kids and grandkids involved. Hopefully we’ll start teaching them soon.
Amy Savage, is a recent convert here, and she is so wonderful. We are teaching her kids right now, Brandi is 8 and Alex is 9 so they can get baptized. She also really loves the sisters. The other day she didn’t come to church so we dropped by to see why. And she told us she was depressed and my immediate thought was she broke the Law of Chastity because she had issues with that before (she had 3 kids all from different fathers) and her boyfriend is in town. But I was wrong!! She was depressed because she told her boyfriend she couldn’t sleep with him and he got mad and broke up with her!! Here she was crying and Sister Hamaker and I were jumping for joy and telling her how proud we were of her. And then we taught her about the Plan of Salvation and how important our choices are and how blessed she will be for obeying the commandments. Afterwards she felt much better. We were so excited!! She is great!
The other day we pulled out some of the tracting cards and looked at the people that had told the missionaries they could come back. We decided to go follow up with them and see what happened and if they might be interested now. And we found 3 people who had told the missionaries they could come back and the missionaries had never gone back!!! What is the point of tracting if you never go back? Some missionaries, I just don’t understand. Two of those people seemed really super interested, we gave them a copy of the Book of Mormon and set up an appointment. One lady, Mary, had a Book of Mormon from a lady at work and Mary had asked her for one! The interesting thing about the story is that they were both in this area called Harmar. We had walked there to save on miles and it was kind of a long way. And I remember asking myself, why did we decide to come out to this area, why didn’t we just stay around our apartment? We didn’t have any reason to be out that direction. And then we meet those two people and I was like, Oh we are in this area because God lead us here. God works in mysterious and wonderful ways. Sister Hamaker has a lot of faith and a lot of love and I think we will be seeing a lot of miracles this transfer.
I love you lots.
Sister Nicole Polatis
Hello from Ohio! I love it here! Marietta is a cute town, they have tried to reserve the history of the town. It was the first settlement in Ohio and they are really proud of it. A lot of the streets are still brick, and they still have the trolley tracks on the road. The houses here are so cute, most of them are older homes that have been kept up really nice. They have big porches with rocking chairs. And everyone here decorates their porches. And the streets are all lined with big trees that are starting to change colors. It’s beautiful. There is a good, romantic feeling here. And there are tons of squirrels! On the way here we saw probably a hundred dead squirrels along the road. We do a lot more walking here, which I have really been enjoying looking at all the old houses. And as we walk we see tons of squirrels and they are pretty tame, they let you get close but then they run away. Sister Hamaker has been laughing at me because I like to chase them around the trees. There are two big rivers around here. And we go across the river several times a day. Don’t worry I’m still serving in West Virginia, we have part of WV in our area, just across the river. There is a college here, Marietta College, but it’s really small. Oh another wonderful thing about serving here, is there are flat areas! There are some areas out in the country with fields (no trees) and the road is flat and straight and you can see for a while, it’s so nice! I’m getting a little claustrophobic here. The ward here is great too. It’s really small, there are probably less than 100 active members. But they are very enthusiastic and willing to serve. They keep making jokes about how when they get 140 active members they can get the other half of their chapel. Haha, and seriously they only have half a chapel. They don’t even have benches because they just close a curtain and shut out the stand and the room becomes their gym, but with only one basketball hoop. Apparently they set up exactly 140 chairs and when they are filled they can get the building added onto. Haha They really have a desire for the ward to grow.
And I love Sister Hamaker!! She’s so great. She cooks me breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And I do the dishes. She painted my toes blue with sparkles and she does a lot of other things for me. She is a great example of Charity. Our investigators LOVE her because she loves them and she tells them so and she shows them. But she is also really bold and tells them how it is. The other day we went to visit a recent convert and she was smoking because she was depressed and Sister Hamaker was like let me give you a hug. And then she stole the pack of cigarettes that she was hiding behind her back. So funny. Sister Hamaker is from Moab, Utah. She is a big tom boy and so much fun. She’s 26, but extremely immature, haha not really, but she pulls jokes a lot. We’ve had a great time. I was with Sister Hamaker in the MTC and she will be going home in December. The only bad thing about serving with her is that we are both a little trunky. But we are trying to keep each other focused and we have been working hard.
We have several great investigators. We are teaching a guy named Ted Hill, in his 70s, who is set to be baptized on November 8th. He loves Joseph Smith! But he has issues with Brigham Young. Ha ha. He used to not really like President Monson until this last conference, and then Pres. Monson talked about the warm fuzzies, and Ted decided he was a good man. Haha. Ted is so rock solid. He used to drink 2 pots of coffee a day, and now he is down to 1 cup. He absolutely loves the sisters, says we are his daughters and is greatly offended that he can’t hug us. He loves coming to church and reading the Joseph Smith Manual, ha ha. I think he has a testimony of the Book of Mormon because Joseph Smith translated it. He already has plans to go to the temple and he loves family history. And now he’s trying to get his kids and grandkids involved. Hopefully we’ll start teaching them soon.
Amy Savage, is a recent convert here, and she is so wonderful. We are teaching her kids right now, Brandi is 8 and Alex is 9 so they can get baptized. She also really loves the sisters. The other day she didn’t come to church so we dropped by to see why. And she told us she was depressed and my immediate thought was she broke the Law of Chastity because she had issues with that before (she had 3 kids all from different fathers) and her boyfriend is in town. But I was wrong!! She was depressed because she told her boyfriend she couldn’t sleep with him and he got mad and broke up with her!! Here she was crying and Sister Hamaker and I were jumping for joy and telling her how proud we were of her. And then we taught her about the Plan of Salvation and how important our choices are and how blessed she will be for obeying the commandments. Afterwards she felt much better. We were so excited!! She is great!
The other day we pulled out some of the tracting cards and looked at the people that had told the missionaries they could come back. We decided to go follow up with them and see what happened and if they might be interested now. And we found 3 people who had told the missionaries they could come back and the missionaries had never gone back!!! What is the point of tracting if you never go back? Some missionaries, I just don’t understand. Two of those people seemed really super interested, we gave them a copy of the Book of Mormon and set up an appointment. One lady, Mary, had a Book of Mormon from a lady at work and Mary had asked her for one! The interesting thing about the story is that they were both in this area called Harmar. We had walked there to save on miles and it was kind of a long way. And I remember asking myself, why did we decide to come out to this area, why didn’t we just stay around our apartment? We didn’t have any reason to be out that direction. And then we meet those two people and I was like, Oh we are in this area because God lead us here. God works in mysterious and wonderful ways. Sister Hamaker has a lot of faith and a lot of love and I think we will be seeing a lot of miracles this transfer.
I love you lots.
Sister Nicole Polatis
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Simple Things
Dear Family!Hello, hello!
So I am being transferred tomorrow to Marietta, Ohio. I’m getting to see all kinds of states, Virginia, West Virginia, and now Ohio! It’s right on the border of West Virginia and part of my area still covers WV. Sister Reeves served there her first area. My new companion is going to be Sister Hamaker. She was Sis. Reeves companion in the MTC. She is from Moab, UT and is really cool and lots of fun. Okay so last week we got a new investigator, her name is Shelly. She lives with our other investigator Paula. Paula met her at the mall, and Paula tends to take in abused and neglected animals and now she has moved on to people. Shelly was raped in July by a man who her husband hired, CRAZY! And she has cancer and is bipolar. And she was living with her parents, depressed and isolated. On one of her only times out of the house Paula found her and decided to help her. Shelly is a completely different person than when we first meet her about 2 and a half weeks ago, she is much happier now. We went to teach Paula last week and we ended up teaching Shelly a first lesson. At first Shelly was very against the Book of Mormon, she knows the Bible really well and didn’t understand why you would need anything else. Through the lesson she just melted, and by the end she had felt the Spirit, said she could relate to Joseph Smith because she is searching for answers too, and wanted to read the Book of Mormon. She came to conference on Sunday and loved it. During conference she passed a note to us, asking what a person who wanted to incorporate Mormon into their Christian believes would call themselves, Mormon? And would they be converted? We said yes and she told us then she was converted! Yay! She also said she feels she needs to be rebaptized, because she was baptized when she was really young and has made a lot of mistakes since then. Of course we told her we would help her to prepare. (Of course we will need to show her there are other reasons she should be baptized.) Okay so back to Paula, she’s crazy! But amazing! Turns out she knew Deanna (our investigator) when they were younger and they were friends, so we asked Paula to pick Deanna up for conference. Well Paula kidnapped Deanna, took her to Paula’s old church instead of to the first session of conference on Sunday, then took her home, feed her, did her hair and makeup and then brought her to the afternoon session of conference. When she found out Deanna doesn’t really go anywhere, she told her that is going to change and from now on Deanna will be going to church with her on Thursdays and Sundays. Ha ha. Paula is so great. Deanna has been depressed lately and this will be good for her. Last night we had a lesson with Paula, and she has a new resident. He is a guy she knew in grade school, who is now homeless, has been really abused, had a rough life, and has pretty much drank himself to death, he only has a few months to live, and Paula has decided to make it as comfortable as possible. Ha ha. Wow what an example of service she is. We visited a less active the other day. Her husband is a long time member (also less active) and she joined a few years ago. They have 3 little kids, she just had twins 8 months ago. We started talking to her and the whole story of why they are less active came out. She thinks it’s absolutely wrong that women don’t have the priesthood. And that the Book of Mormon is false because of some genetic research about where the Native Americans really came from. She said when she got baptized she had a testimony and it was a very spiritual experience, but she said that it was dopamine in the brain, a chemical reaction. Her husband has the same views, he is actually a RM who served his mission here in West Virginia! She loves the church, she thinks the values and morals are wonderful and she wants her kids to have those, but she can’t teach it to them when it’s founded on a lie. She is super nice and loves missionaries and the ward members and admires us for our great faith. All I could think was this is so sad. They completely explained away their faith and their testimony. We have a few investigators kind of like that, who want everything proved to them in logic and facts, instead of listening to the Holy Ghost. There were a lot of talks at conference about listening to the Holy Ghost. The Spirit is that vital connection we need to God, so that we can understand and learn truth, and not be deceived by the views and standards of the world.So we had a great experience tracting yesterday. It was the morning, and mornings on a weekday are hard because most people are at work or school or something. But we didn’t have anything else to do, and I remember President saying once that we should stop having the attitude that tracting in the mornings are a waste of time, we should have faith. So we went tracting. It was time to go home for lunch and we were just going to walk back to the car but we decided to knock on the houses on the way back. We met John, who is probably in his late 20s. He told us that he had read the Book of Mormon before, his uncle is a member in Pennsylvania. We asked if we could teach him more and he said yes. He said this was a really hard time in his life, because he had just gotten out of the hospital, he had been in for depression. And when he got out he came home to a half empty house, his wife had left him and taken half the stuff and their 2 dogs. He just seemed so sad and lost. The Spirit was there and he agreed to read a chapter in the Book of Mormon. He gave us his phone number to come back some time. I just felt so overwhelmed with gratitude that God lead us to someone who needed help and was willing to let the Gospel help him.Conference was amazing! We had 8 investigators there! Wow, all the talks were exactly what I needed to hear. During one of the sessions, I just got this overwhelming feeling of how wonderful the Gospel is, how blessed we are to have a prophet of God and Apostles. There was such a wonderful feeling of unity, holiness, and grandeur, and I felt strongly of the great work that we are doing, we are building the Kingdom of God! The Spirit that was there inspired me to be a better person, and a more diligent missionary. My companions and I have talked about how sometimes we expect them to make some big announcement and ask us to do something big in preparation for things to come in the last days. But they didn’t say anything really big or new. And I realized that the small and simple things we are told to do, go to the temple, be worthy of the Spirit, serve, pray, etc. are big things. If we don’t do them we will not be worthy to enter into God’s kingdom, we will not be happy in life, and we will not be protected from the adversary. It’s because God loves us that He doesn’t ask us to do anything hard or big so that we can be successful in life. I love the Gospel!!Have a wonderful week!Love ya, Sister Nicole Polatis
So I am being transferred tomorrow to Marietta, Ohio. I’m getting to see all kinds of states, Virginia, West Virginia, and now Ohio! It’s right on the border of West Virginia and part of my area still covers WV. Sister Reeves served there her first area. My new companion is going to be Sister Hamaker. She was Sis. Reeves companion in the MTC. She is from Moab, UT and is really cool and lots of fun. Okay so last week we got a new investigator, her name is Shelly. She lives with our other investigator Paula. Paula met her at the mall, and Paula tends to take in abused and neglected animals and now she has moved on to people. Shelly was raped in July by a man who her husband hired, CRAZY! And she has cancer and is bipolar. And she was living with her parents, depressed and isolated. On one of her only times out of the house Paula found her and decided to help her. Shelly is a completely different person than when we first meet her about 2 and a half weeks ago, she is much happier now. We went to teach Paula last week and we ended up teaching Shelly a first lesson. At first Shelly was very against the Book of Mormon, she knows the Bible really well and didn’t understand why you would need anything else. Through the lesson she just melted, and by the end she had felt the Spirit, said she could relate to Joseph Smith because she is searching for answers too, and wanted to read the Book of Mormon. She came to conference on Sunday and loved it. During conference she passed a note to us, asking what a person who wanted to incorporate Mormon into their Christian believes would call themselves, Mormon? And would they be converted? We said yes and she told us then she was converted! Yay! She also said she feels she needs to be rebaptized, because she was baptized when she was really young and has made a lot of mistakes since then. Of course we told her we would help her to prepare. (Of course we will need to show her there are other reasons she should be baptized.) Okay so back to Paula, she’s crazy! But amazing! Turns out she knew Deanna (our investigator) when they were younger and they were friends, so we asked Paula to pick Deanna up for conference. Well Paula kidnapped Deanna, took her to Paula’s old church instead of to the first session of conference on Sunday, then took her home, feed her, did her hair and makeup and then brought her to the afternoon session of conference. When she found out Deanna doesn’t really go anywhere, she told her that is going to change and from now on Deanna will be going to church with her on Thursdays and Sundays. Ha ha. Paula is so great. Deanna has been depressed lately and this will be good for her. Last night we had a lesson with Paula, and she has a new resident. He is a guy she knew in grade school, who is now homeless, has been really abused, had a rough life, and has pretty much drank himself to death, he only has a few months to live, and Paula has decided to make it as comfortable as possible. Ha ha. Wow what an example of service she is. We visited a less active the other day. Her husband is a long time member (also less active) and she joined a few years ago. They have 3 little kids, she just had twins 8 months ago. We started talking to her and the whole story of why they are less active came out. She thinks it’s absolutely wrong that women don’t have the priesthood. And that the Book of Mormon is false because of some genetic research about where the Native Americans really came from. She said when she got baptized she had a testimony and it was a very spiritual experience, but she said that it was dopamine in the brain, a chemical reaction. Her husband has the same views, he is actually a RM who served his mission here in West Virginia! She loves the church, she thinks the values and morals are wonderful and she wants her kids to have those, but she can’t teach it to them when it’s founded on a lie. She is super nice and loves missionaries and the ward members and admires us for our great faith. All I could think was this is so sad. They completely explained away their faith and their testimony. We have a few investigators kind of like that, who want everything proved to them in logic and facts, instead of listening to the Holy Ghost. There were a lot of talks at conference about listening to the Holy Ghost. The Spirit is that vital connection we need to God, so that we can understand and learn truth, and not be deceived by the views and standards of the world.So we had a great experience tracting yesterday. It was the morning, and mornings on a weekday are hard because most people are at work or school or something. But we didn’t have anything else to do, and I remember President saying once that we should stop having the attitude that tracting in the mornings are a waste of time, we should have faith. So we went tracting. It was time to go home for lunch and we were just going to walk back to the car but we decided to knock on the houses on the way back. We met John, who is probably in his late 20s. He told us that he had read the Book of Mormon before, his uncle is a member in Pennsylvania. We asked if we could teach him more and he said yes. He said this was a really hard time in his life, because he had just gotten out of the hospital, he had been in for depression. And when he got out he came home to a half empty house, his wife had left him and taken half the stuff and their 2 dogs. He just seemed so sad and lost. The Spirit was there and he agreed to read a chapter in the Book of Mormon. He gave us his phone number to come back some time. I just felt so overwhelmed with gratitude that God lead us to someone who needed help and was willing to let the Gospel help him.Conference was amazing! We had 8 investigators there! Wow, all the talks were exactly what I needed to hear. During one of the sessions, I just got this overwhelming feeling of how wonderful the Gospel is, how blessed we are to have a prophet of God and Apostles. There was such a wonderful feeling of unity, holiness, and grandeur, and I felt strongly of the great work that we are doing, we are building the Kingdom of God! The Spirit that was there inspired me to be a better person, and a more diligent missionary. My companions and I have talked about how sometimes we expect them to make some big announcement and ask us to do something big in preparation for things to come in the last days. But they didn’t say anything really big or new. And I realized that the small and simple things we are told to do, go to the temple, be worthy of the Spirit, serve, pray, etc. are big things. If we don’t do them we will not be worthy to enter into God’s kingdom, we will not be happy in life, and we will not be protected from the adversary. It’s because God loves us that He doesn’t ask us to do anything hard or big so that we can be successful in life. I love the Gospel!!Have a wonderful week!Love ya, Sister Nicole Polatis
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Is this a trick question?
Dear Family,
How are you all?! How is harvest? School? Sports? I haven’t heard from some of you in a while. Hint hint (I’m a poor missionary who needs some mail!) So this last week was kind of interesting. Sister Reeves had the flu and I had a sinus infection. So there were 2 days last week where we didn’t really go out. We are still recovering and wow it’s been kind of hard to teach when your head feels all fuzzy and stuffy. I can testify that missionaries who don’t work are not happy, because I not only felt awful physically last week but emotionally and mentally because I felt useless and like we weren’t doing any good. So I’m glad that that week is over and we are feeling better. The week wasn’t a complete dud though, we did do a few productive things. Remember Loretta, whose house I sent you pictures of that is a complete disaster. Well she was really discouraged and so we asked if we could bring a member in who could give her some tips on organization and cleaning and she said yes. We were so excited we were going to finally get to dig into her mess! We brought a member who is a pretty take charge lady and we cleaned out the dining room and threw away a ton of stuff. And then Loretta has hired 2 cleaning ladies and they cleaned out the kitchen and the living room this week. There is still tons to do but at least you can walk through her downstairs. Loretta was supposed to get baptized this Sunday but that isn’t going to happen because she needs to stop smoking. Every time we meet with her we talk about it and she just can’t seem to get it through her head that she has to stop in order to get baptized. I think she thinks it’s something that won’t apply to her or something we made up and that the church doesn’t hold to. She says that she wants to quit but she can’t do it cold turkey because of her health, so she needs to do it slowly. And she says that that’s crazy to deny someone their salvation because they can’t stop smoking. Yesterday she told us that if the prophet is teaching that you have to do things before you can get baptized they aren’t teaching what the Bible and God teaches because on the day of Pentecost in Acts, 3,000 people got baptized, and she said she was pretty sure that no one went through and made them meet certain requirements, they were baptized then and there. Haha. So I guess her problem is really if the prophet really receives commandments from God and if this is from God. We taught Dennis this week too. I’ve told you about him, he has insomnia and a commitment problem. Well this week we asked him if when he knows this is true if he would be baptized? His response was, “Is this a trick question.” No Dennis! Ha ha funny guy. I think we need to take it slow with him. Last night we taught Dave, well we didn’t the member who came with us did. We never got to our lesson because he has too many questions from his reading. We spent 2 hours answering questions he had! He has taken it upon himself to read the Doctrine and Covenants and we have been directing him towards the more interesting sections, yesterday it was about baptisms for the dead and temples. Its so interesting to teach Dave because he has a very different point of view from any one I’ve ever meet. Things that seems so clear and simple to me are very complicated to him. It’s pretty fun to teach him. And he’s actually come a long way from where he was, he is starting to look at things in a different point of view. So this week was a little disheartening like I said earlier, and I am so thankful for church! The Spirit that I felt there this week and the things that were said were exactly what I needed. It was that recharge that I needed for the week. And I’m super excited for conference. A lot of our investigators should be coming. I’ve loved telling people that we have a prophet and he is going to speak to us. I’m so excited for them to come and hear him. We are so blessed to have someone who can give us direction in this life. Who can shed light on problems we have and on the world today. It’s been increasingly apparent to me in my studies and as we have taught people that everything is our own choice. We choose our own salvation. God has set the standard and the law, He is not going to change it. Now it’s our choice whether we follow it or not. He will give us all the help we need, He won’t let us fail. We let ourselves fail. We choose to make excuses and go a different path than the one that leads to eternal life. And what great power comes to us when we are obedient. Obedience will lead us to salvation and happiness. Jesus was our great example of obedience, and it was His obedience to God’s will that made it possible for Him to redeem us. Wow, I love how beautiful and simple the Gospel is and that all the truths and simplicity has been restored through a prophet. Listen close at conference; great things are going to be said!Love ya,Sister Nicole Polatis
How are you all?! How is harvest? School? Sports? I haven’t heard from some of you in a while. Hint hint (I’m a poor missionary who needs some mail!) So this last week was kind of interesting. Sister Reeves had the flu and I had a sinus infection. So there were 2 days last week where we didn’t really go out. We are still recovering and wow it’s been kind of hard to teach when your head feels all fuzzy and stuffy. I can testify that missionaries who don’t work are not happy, because I not only felt awful physically last week but emotionally and mentally because I felt useless and like we weren’t doing any good. So I’m glad that that week is over and we are feeling better. The week wasn’t a complete dud though, we did do a few productive things. Remember Loretta, whose house I sent you pictures of that is a complete disaster. Well she was really discouraged and so we asked if we could bring a member in who could give her some tips on organization and cleaning and she said yes. We were so excited we were going to finally get to dig into her mess! We brought a member who is a pretty take charge lady and we cleaned out the dining room and threw away a ton of stuff. And then Loretta has hired 2 cleaning ladies and they cleaned out the kitchen and the living room this week. There is still tons to do but at least you can walk through her downstairs. Loretta was supposed to get baptized this Sunday but that isn’t going to happen because she needs to stop smoking. Every time we meet with her we talk about it and she just can’t seem to get it through her head that she has to stop in order to get baptized. I think she thinks it’s something that won’t apply to her or something we made up and that the church doesn’t hold to. She says that she wants to quit but she can’t do it cold turkey because of her health, so she needs to do it slowly. And she says that that’s crazy to deny someone their salvation because they can’t stop smoking. Yesterday she told us that if the prophet is teaching that you have to do things before you can get baptized they aren’t teaching what the Bible and God teaches because on the day of Pentecost in Acts, 3,000 people got baptized, and she said she was pretty sure that no one went through and made them meet certain requirements, they were baptized then and there. Haha. So I guess her problem is really if the prophet really receives commandments from God and if this is from God. We taught Dennis this week too. I’ve told you about him, he has insomnia and a commitment problem. Well this week we asked him if when he knows this is true if he would be baptized? His response was, “Is this a trick question.” No Dennis! Ha ha funny guy. I think we need to take it slow with him. Last night we taught Dave, well we didn’t the member who came with us did. We never got to our lesson because he has too many questions from his reading. We spent 2 hours answering questions he had! He has taken it upon himself to read the Doctrine and Covenants and we have been directing him towards the more interesting sections, yesterday it was about baptisms for the dead and temples. Its so interesting to teach Dave because he has a very different point of view from any one I’ve ever meet. Things that seems so clear and simple to me are very complicated to him. It’s pretty fun to teach him. And he’s actually come a long way from where he was, he is starting to look at things in a different point of view. So this week was a little disheartening like I said earlier, and I am so thankful for church! The Spirit that I felt there this week and the things that were said were exactly what I needed. It was that recharge that I needed for the week. And I’m super excited for conference. A lot of our investigators should be coming. I’ve loved telling people that we have a prophet and he is going to speak to us. I’m so excited for them to come and hear him. We are so blessed to have someone who can give us direction in this life. Who can shed light on problems we have and on the world today. It’s been increasingly apparent to me in my studies and as we have taught people that everything is our own choice. We choose our own salvation. God has set the standard and the law, He is not going to change it. Now it’s our choice whether we follow it or not. He will give us all the help we need, He won’t let us fail. We let ourselves fail. We choose to make excuses and go a different path than the one that leads to eternal life. And what great power comes to us when we are obedient. Obedience will lead us to salvation and happiness. Jesus was our great example of obedience, and it was His obedience to God’s will that made it possible for Him to redeem us. Wow, I love how beautiful and simple the Gospel is and that all the truths and simplicity has been restored through a prophet. Listen close at conference; great things are going to be said!Love ya,Sister Nicole Polatis
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