March 10, 2014

Hello Family!

So this week was very exciting!! First, I got a new companion! Her name is Sister Chandler. She is great! She has 3 little brothers, she is from Idaho, she loves sports, and she is just awesome :) We have had a lot of fun already together so this is going to be a good transfer! It has felt weird from going from being the missionary who doesn't know much to the missionary who has to know everything about the area and be able to tell you're new companion about it! She has been out 9 months so I'm not training but I have to get her updated with everything that is happening in Madison. I can't believe that I have already been out for almost 5 months! Time flies! Before we know it, Mike will be off to Argentina! 

Something that was really neat that happened on Friday was that we went to the branch President's to have dinner. For our spiritual message that we showed we decided to have a family scripture study. We read 2 Nephi 32. After we finished reading it I asked some of the kids and the parents what was something that stood out to them. The 9 year old pointed out a scripture that he thought was cool and his dad told him that he had received revelation. We then just had a really neat, spiritual discussion about what everyone had learned and how they could apply it to themselves. It was also neat for the kids to realize that when something sticks out to them while reading the scriptures that that is personal revelation. That is God talking to them and communicating with us. The spirit was so strong and it was a very neat experience. At the end we talked about how the apostles (I don't remember who said it) have said that it is not good enough to have scripture reading as a family, we need to have scripture study. We then challenged them to try to have scripture study and talk about what they read that day and what stood out to them. It is so important for us to have that time to grow with our families spiritually and to be able to learn from the scriptures and have Heavenly Father talk to us. 

So another thing that happened this week is that Elder Ballard, Elder Munns, and Elder Soares came and spoke to the missionaries in the Tallahassee and Jacksonville missions.It was such a neat experience. I learned so much and it made me really want to be a better missionary! Elder Ballard talked a lot about how we need to treasure up the word of God and the lessons in PMG chapter 3 so that we can go with confidence each day to talk to people and as we treasure up those lessons, the Lord will fill our minds with what we need to say. Mike did you read that? Start now to study those lessons in PMG because Heavenly Father will provide you with what to say if you are showing him that you are trying to learn it. That will help you so much on your mission! Anyways, all of those brothern talked about having the spirit with us when we teach and how we can do that. Obedience was one of the topics that they hit on. It is so important for us to do the little things even if we don't understand because that will help us have the spirit more as we teach others the gospel. I could go on and on about what I learned and how I want to apply it to my missionary work but I won't because it probably isn't that exciting for y'all to read haha. But I loved that conference! It was very neat! I got to shake all of their hands :) On Sunday we were supposed to have stake conference streamed to the Madison branch building so we could listen to Elder Soares and the Mission President but the streaming wouldn't work :( So hopefully they recorded it. So we watched a CES devo about how to recognize the spirit. It was very good. SIster Burton gave it. If y'all can,  I'd suggest to look it up and watch it. It was at BYU Idaho. I learned a lot that I'd love to share but I'm running out of time. 

Update on Darryl! He came to church again! Debbie worked but she wants to be involved even when she can't come so we are hoping to get her visit teachers and people to go visit so that she feels involved on the weeks she can't make it to church. We watched the Restoration (1 hour long) with him and he loved it. He said he'd pray to know if Joseph Smith was a true prophet. We are going back this week for dinner and a lesson at the Branch President's house. We will be inviting him to baptism! I hope that things go as planned and that we are able to invite him and if so that he accepts! :) I love Darryl and I really want this for him. I would love to see him and Debbie be sealed in the temple someday! 

Funny little story.... on Saturday after Elder Ballard's conference we went to Panda Express (the Elders from Madison and me and sister Chandler) and this guy walks up to Sister Chandler and I and asks if we want to go out for coffee and to a movie. HA! We then started talking about the gospel and why we don't date. He offered me $100, $1000, or a new car to go out with him. It was funny! He said he knew some mormons and that he had the Book of Mormon downloaded on his phone but that he has never read it. I asked if he would read it and pray about it. He told him that he has already prayed about it but has never read it... that doesn't make sense to me! But oh well. We gave his info to missionaries in his area! 

Well I am out of time but I love y'all!! I hope you have a great week!! I keep you in my prayers! Pictures will come next week!

Love,

Sister Merrill

March 3, 2014

Hello Family!

It's transfer week and I'm staying in Madison! But Sister Bunderson is leaving to Tallahassee! I'm going to be with Sister Chandler. I have heard really good things about her. It'll be a different change but not bad and also Sister Bunderson and I will be in the same zone still so we will see each other lots :) 

We have a lot to do today so I don't have much time but I wanted to say that Darryl came to church again yesterday!! Exciting times :) Him and his wife are reading more from the Book of Mormon which is great. Hopefully more updates on that next week. This week has been really good. One of the neatest experiences that has happened so far on my mission is that during our district meeting on Tuesday we were talking about faithful prayers and how we have to get rid of the logic and the statistics in some areas. We need to set that aside and put forth more faithful prayers and as we are pleading with the Lord, we need to put forth action and show the Lord that we believe that he can help us out. After the meeting, Sister Bunderson and I talked a little more about it and talked about even though Madison as had low numbers before and it seems a little hard to find people to teach, the Lord will put people in our paths if we are striving to be the best missionaries that we can be and as we are praying faithfully. We then decided to act on what we had been talking about began praying with more faith and went to work. We were dedicated and went out with good attitudes. That day the Lord placed a full family in our path that wants to learn about the gospel. It was neat to be able to see that the Lord hears and answers our prayers. I truly have a testimony of that! 

This week I saw 2 alligators in the Lake by our place!! Crazy.... I'll send the pictures next week.

Sorry this is short but know that I love all of you!! Have a great week!!

Love,

Sister Merrill

Feb 24, 2014

Hello family :)

Guess what.... on the 8th of March Elder Ballard is coming to my mission and talking to all of the missionaries! I am so excited! It'll be really neat :) That is something is exciting that I learned this week. Another exciting thing that happened this week is that Debbie and Darryl came to church yesterday!! I don't remember how much I've told y'all about them but Debbie is less-active and Darryl is investigating the church. We have been working with them since I got to Madison. It's been a little difficult to get them to put church and studying the scriptures as a priority. But they came to church yesterday. They have been coming along slowly and we are hoping to get a baptismal date with him this week! It might not happen because sometimes it is hard to catch up with them but He is our main focus and he has been really making progress. 

This week was zone conference and then we did an exchange with the sister trainers in our zone. It was a very neat experience for me. I learned alot about who I want to be as a missionary and who I can become with the Lord. I really learned that the Lord will answer our prayers and the more faith that we have while we are pouring our heart out to the Lord, the more the Lord is willing to answer our prayers. Something that I have learned before but it was brought to my attention again is that I am my own missionary. We are our own person and not one person is alike. It is ok if we are all at different levels in our testimony, knowledge of the gospel, etc. all that matters is that we are trying to continue to grow and to become better versions of ourselves. It was comforting to be reinformed of that. 

Something sad that happened this week is that on Thursday we had a great lesson with Hannah and Alana (a member) came with us. We talked about the Plan of Salvation. The spirit was there and she commited to reading the book of mormon and praying about it. Well the next day she texted us and told us that she appreciated the time that we had spent together but that she wasn't interested and didn't want us to come by or text her again. It is very sad to see people that you love and see a better life ahead of them reject what you have to offer. It breaks my heart to know that she could have found the peace and comfort that she is looking for in her life right now. The gospel really does bless lives and brings people peace and joy that can't be found anywhere else. I know that!

Well our pday is crazy today because we have a lot to do! So I will save some of my thoughts I was going to share for next week. I love y'all so much!!! 

Have a great week!

Love,

Sister Merrill

This is a little treasure that a 89 year old less-ative gave to sister Bunderson this week. she has a bunch of little do-das in her place and we saw this a few weeks ago and were dying laughing!! Sister Bunderson told Sister Ponce that she loved it and sister Ponce offered it to her :) It is a little creepy! hahaha!!! I thought yall would enjoy it! We laughed so hard that we almost wet our pants! :) Love yall!

Feb 17, 2014

Hello family!

Today the library is closed so we don't have much time for email but I have to let y'all know that I'm still alive so I'll still write you a little something :)

This week has been better! Something that we are starting in our zone is to try and work a lot with the members to get them excited about being member missionaries and to get them started in their family history. We started working with two women in the branch and they are so excited about it! It is so neat to get involved with familysearch.org and be able to figure out how to work the website and how to help people find their family history and put it in. One of the women, Sister Lee, was able to trace hers back all the way to 100 BC! She got in touch with her grandma who knew alot of information and she found her line that went back into royalty and it went back to 100 BC. IT is neat to see her get so excited about it and want to share it with her family who isn't lds. The goal of this family history is to get people to feel the spirit of Elijah and want to learn more about our church. We'll see if things start happening with that. Another thing that we did this week was go knock on some doors. We don't usually do this but on Saturday we had an appointment fall through and we felt we needed to go tracting down this street we were on, so we did! Half of the doors, no one answered. But the other half they all were receptive to us giving them a Book of Mormon and wanting to learn more! We have appointments this week with those 2 people so we are hoping that they are still interested and want to learn more and have the desire to read the Book of Mormon and come to church. That is always the hard part.... getting them to have the desire. 

Alright y'all! I tried all natural cow milk..... that me tell you that it was not very appetizing! Well at least I didn't like it. It tasted like I straight up just licked a cow... NASTY! haha. I know that lots of people enjoy it but I don't necessarily like milk from the store and so milk straight out of a cow just wasn't appealing to my stomach or me. Sister Floyd who is in our branch was the one that gave us a half a gallon and so Sister Bunderson is going to drink it and she also made some butter out of it. It's interesting...

The weather has been getting so nice here. It's perfect... not too hot and not cold :) I love it. The Lord knew that I needed to serve in a place that wasn't too cold! 

Well, I am doing good and I hope that y'all are too! Have a great week! Thanks for being such a great family and so easy to love! 

Love you guys!

Sister Merrill

Feb 10, 2014

Dear Family,

How is everyone!? I hope you all are doing well! How exciting that Mike is getting ready to turn in his papers :) What an exciting time! I love being a missionary even during the ups and downs!

Well this week wasn't too exciting. I tried goat on Monday though! It was good :) Have any of you tried that before? 

This week was a little slow but it was still good. I had an interview with President Smith (the mission president) on Tuesday after or Zone Training. It was really good. Nothing too scary :) He is a really nice man! It is always fun when we get to go to a Zone event because that means we get to leave Madison and go to Tallahassee for the day. We never really get to see any missionaries because our area is far away from everyone so it's fun to get to interact with everyone when we go to Tallahassee. We didn't have many lessons this week because most of them fell through but one that we did have was that we went to go see a less-active who is older and can't hear or see very well. His son lives with him and when missionaries usually go to his house he doesn't usually stay in the room but this time when Sister Bunderson and I went he stayed and listened to us and was talking to us. We are hoping that we can continue to go there and to teach him. He isn't a member even though his parents were strong members in the church until they got old and it was hard for them to go to church. The son's name is Keith. That was one of the highlights this week was being able to have Keith listen to us. 

On Wednesday night we were supposed to have dinner and a lesson with some people in our area but they called us the morning of and let us know that a fugative was running loose around there house and that the cops were surrounding their area. They didn't want us to go out there and they were also on lock down so that wouldn't have been a good idea to go out there anyways. They leave in the middle of nowhere so that was a crazy situation they were in. We still don't know if they ever found the guy.... I sure hope so! haha. 

For sacrament meeting on Sunday the missionaries in the branch all spoke and we did some musical numbers. I talked about the blessings of the Atonement and how we need to share them with those around us because some people don't realize what they need to do to receive those blessings that we have. I talked about how many people think that they just need to confess that Jesus is the Christ and then they are saved by grace alone but that it is such a blessing that that is not the case! That we have to work and be obedient to be able to be saved and be able to make it to exaltation. It's so important that we have the opportunity to use our agency to choose to follow the example of our Savior because if we didn't have to work to be saved or to return to our Heavenly Father then what would be the point of this life? There would be no point in doing what is right if everyone could return to heavenly Father without trying. It was really neat to study that topic because it is something that alot of people in the south believe. But it is a huge blessing we have and I never realized that before! Another blessing that we have from the Atonement is that we can be with our families for eternity. That also requires us to work hard and do what is right. Because of the Fall of Adam there were two conditions brought into the world, spiritual and physical death. We could not overcome these without the Atonement! We are very blessed to all of the opportunity to be resurrected and united with our bodies. We are also so blessed to not have to pain for Adam's transgression and that we are only responsible for our sins. How great it is that Christ performed the Atonement so that we could overcome the two conditions that Adam brought into the world. There is so much to the Atonement that many people don't comprehend. I don't even completely understand it. I'm so grateful for Christ and all that he did for each and everyone of us. I know that he loves each one of us as well.

I can't think of anything else that really happened this week that is very exciting to share. Maybe next week I'll have a good story! I hope ya'll enjoyed the pictures. Sorry that they are a month or two late...... whoops! Have a great week!! Be good and an example to everyone around you!

I love you guys!!

Sister Merrill

This was our district last transfer. Elder Nelson (the district leader), me, Sister Bunderson, Elder Perkins. This transfer it is mostly the same except that Elder Nelson was replaced with elder Christianson.

One day this week we had a lot of time so we went walking around town to try and talk to people. No one was really out but this was a really pretty path we walked down :)

This was that same path but with us in the picture. This was actually a pretty warm day outside.

This was from around the beginning of January... but it was when our heater wasn't working and it was freezing outside! So we dragged our mattresses into the kitchen and slept with the oven on to 500 degrees haha. It was a party!

February 3, 2014

Hey Family!

How are you all this week? I am doing pretty good! Things were pretty slow this week and there was nothing too exciting going on but another week has come and gone. That is crazy to me. So this week it got pretty cold here! All of Madison shut down because it was "hazardous weather". It was pretty funny because even though it was a little rainy and super cold, there still wasn't ice and it wasn't anything compared to Utah or where there is snow! Luckily it is back to warm weather again though. That is good!

Well I am low on time today but I what to ask three things:

1. Are you searching your scriptures diligently everyday?

2. If not, what are your excuses for not reading them?

3. Are these excuses good enough for the Lord?

It is so important that we are reading our scriptures everyday! I wish that I had done better before my mission. It is such a sacred time that we have to be able to have the Lord talk to us. It is a time that we can become closer to our Heavenly Father. Scripture study and prayer. These two things will give you so much peace and happiness that nothing worldly can give you. How are your study and prayer habits? Think about that. 

Sorry I am out of time but know that I love you all!!! I keep each one of you in my prayers! Thanks for being a great family. You make life easier :) Have a great week!

Love,

Sister Merrill

January 27, 2014

Hello Family!

How is everything and everyone? We had a pretty good week this week. We taught quite a few lessons and had some interesting experiences. 

The first neat thing that happened this week was actually on Monday. We had this referral that we needed to contact that was a less-active. So we decided that we should go contact her since we had the miles and we had an open day. Well her house is about 15 miles away and so we drive forever to get to her house and as we pull up there are these two pitbulls that are barking like crazy. We stayed in the car for a while and decided that we needed to get out and be brave little girls! So we do and luckily the dogs had calmed down a bit. We were nervous that they were going to start attacking us though but they didn't! We made it to the door and knocked. The girl that answered is probably 19 or 20 and was definitely not the girl that we were looking for. So we asked her if Sister Poyer lived there and I guess she had moved so we ended up talking to the 19 yr old, Hannah, and she was very interested in learning more about the church! It was very exciting. We set up a return appointment and went and taught her on Saturday. The lesson was so good. The spirit was strong and she really enjoyed it! We gave her a Book of Mormon to read and are going back on Thursday to have another lesson. We were able to bring Alana to the lesson with us. Alana is a member of the branch. She is a convert and so her testimony was perfect for Hannah. It was just a neat lesson. Who would've thought that we would get a new investigator by trying to contact a less-active referral. It was neat! Things like that are highlights from the mission :)

We went tracting for the first time on my mission! We found this random street that seemed really cool and so we took an afternoon and knocked doors. Mostly no one answered except for 2 people. One of them wanted to learn more and accepted a Book of Mormon. The other said he knew a little about the Book of Mormon and just wasn't interested. He was good with his church. Sometimes people are like that down here in the South. Here is a funny story about a lesson we taught this week. We were teaching a 9 and 11 yr old and we were talking about the story of Ammon. Well at the end of the lesson we asked the boys "What did you learn about God?" The 11 yr old said, "Oh I know, i know! That boy Almoy used his powers to do the goats in the pen." Then the 9 yr old says, "Nuh uh! Ammon used God's power to slay the guys arms off." Oh man.... I'm glad that at least the 9 yr old was paying attention! Sometimes that is how lessons go as well.

We had Stake Conference this weekend and it was regional. It was very neat. One of my favorite talks was from Sister Carol F. McConkie. She talked about God's commandments. Why we have them and what they do for us when we keep the commandments. She read through the hymn of Keep The Commandments. It is so plain and simply stated... "Keep the commandments, in this there is safety, in this there is peace. He will send blessing." That isn't all of it but it is right there. If we keep the commandments, God will bless us and keep us safe. He gave them to us so that we will have the guidance that we need and the safety and peace that comes from following the commandments. She then talked about 3 things that keeping the commandments do for us. They are: 1. Helps us to know the truth. 2. Blesses us with happiness 3.Unites us with God and prepares us to return to Heavenly Father. I love the last one. What better way to live our lives then with being united with God and being prepared to live with Heavenly Father again. If we do not keep the commandments in this life then we won't even feel comfortable living with God again. I am grateful that God gave us commandments so that we can have guidance and be protected and find peace. They are there to help us. And if we love God, we'll keep his commandments. (John 14:15)

Well I have no time left but I love you all!! Hope you're week is great! Read your scriptures and say your prayers! You is the best way to have the spirit with you. 

Love,

Sister Merrill