Megan's Letter 8/15/16

So Sister Moline and I both drink A LOT of milk... That's all I have to say about that!

This week we had a meal appointment with the Pates! Sister Pate is a convert. When she was baptized her mom gave her this suuuuper old Book of Mormon and explained to her it had been passed down through generations and told not to read. But it's cool cause now she has it! She felt as if it was confirmation that she was making the right choice.

 In other news we had Zone Conference this week! Sister Moline and I trained on using the Area Book and our Phones. It really opened my eyes up to how many potential people we can find just by looking through the area book and calling people we don't know on our phones! We have been using ours a lot more and I feel like we have had a lot of success so far. (:

 

 After that I went on exchanges with Sister Anderl! She is from Sandy, UT and went to Jordan High School!! Small world. (:

 Also, we made a cookie route yesterday! This is one of my favorite members, Sister Walters.

In other news there is an adorable little girl in the ward named Lydia! She loves the missionaries. She just turned 3 and requested we be at her birthday party. (:

 

 

I love the South and I'm grateful to be a missionary! I am gaining a huge testimony of the Savior and the role He plays in helping us through anything that comes our way. I love this gospel and I love y'all so much! Have a great week. (:

-Sister Merrill

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Megan's Letter 8/8/16

Y'all we had a BUSY week. My favorite kind. (:

MLC was on Tuesday! There were some great trainings and discussions. I also got to see all these friends from my first zone. (':

Ted's birthday was on Thursday!! We got him a Christian shirt (cause that's all he wears) and bought him some chick-fil-a! He was so happy. We love him more than I can put into words. Pray for him please! It is easy for him to get discouraged as he battles his addiction.

 Zone Training was on Friday! It was so great to be with everyone. My favorite topic we trained on was a talk called "What If Love Were Our Only Motive?" by Russell T. Osguthorpe. It's amazing to think about what the world would be like if everyone's motives were based off of pure, Christ-like love. A quote I love from the talk says:

 "The Savior’s life on earth was short, but He was always reaching out in love every step of the way. He helped so many while He was on His way to help someone else. He noticed what others needed, reached out to them, and helped them—sometimes in simple ways and other times in miraculous ways. Every miracle He performed, every word He spoke, He did out of love."

After Zone Training I went on exchanges with Sister Benioni! She is from Hawaii and she is basically the coolest person ever. She is in a Spanish Branch area so it was pretty interesting! I didn't understand much in any of the lessons but I loved everyone I met. (:

Yesterday Sister Moline and I ate dinner at a member's home and did a little lesson with the kids. (: They are such a cute family and they feed us a lot. GUYS feed the missionaries. Enough said.

Today I was tricked into a hike again. But it wasn't all bad! We had a lot of fun and hung out by a cool lake. (:

Recently my Mission President challenged me to memorize The Living Christ! It is an incredible document put out by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the year 2000. I'm so grateful to have a Mission President who was inspired enough to share this idea with me. Whenever things get hard I can always just recite it in my head and feel the spirit. Please go read it sometime this week and maybe even memorize it yourself! It is so special.

I love y'all and I'm so grateful for your support and prayers! Have a great week. (:

-Sister Merrill

Megan's Letter 8/1/16

Holy cow time flies! I'm happy to say I'm staying in Tuscaloosa another transfer with Sister Moline!(:

On Wednesday we decided to ride our bikes to the mall to save miles! Well the problem was that just as we left to head home, it started pouring rain. Alabama weather y'all!! It's crazy.

 This week we did a TON of service. 3 families in the ward needed help moving, and we got to help Ted work on a lot in his trailer park! We sure do love Ted. Hopefully he can quit smoking soon so we can set a baptismal date. (:

This week we focused on visiting less actives! It went really well up until yesterday when none of them showed up to church like they had promised. It's okay, we won't give up on them! It is so great to sit down and hear their conversion stories and testimonies. It has helped me realize that in order to show true faith we must act! It has also helped me notice that trials are sooo much easier to endure when we are living the gospel of Jesus Christ.

 Mosiah 2:41 says:

"And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it."

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We have a fun week coming up with MLC and Zone Training! I will let y'all know how that goes. (: Have a great week!

-Sister Merrill

Megan's Letter 7/25/16

Okay so I promise we did other stuff this week, but all I could focus on was this: LINDSEY GOT BAPTIZED AND I GOT TO VISIT FLORENCE. Best day and biggest miracle of my mission so far. Not to mention Maddie visited me in T-Town on Wednesday, and I got to see her all day Friday as well. I love her

Sorry for so many pictures!

Maddie and I at Panera in Tuscaloosa. (:

BEST BEST DAY.
I can't tell y'all how much love I have for Lindsey.

Downtown Florence.

We visited Charlotte too of course. (:

I can't really put that day into words. It was a huge tender mercy that I was able to go back and watch one of my very best friends enter the waters of baptism! It's funny, I didn't realize how many lifelong friends I would meet in Alabama of all places. I think Florence will always have my heart.

In honor of Lindsey I want to share with y'all a verse that she brought to our attention when we were first teaching her. It has come to mean a lot to me!

Alma 37:44-45
"44 For behold, it is as easy to give heed to the word of Christ, which will point to you a straight course to eternal bliss, as it was for our fathers to give heed to this compass, which would point unto them a straight course to the promised land.  45 And now I say, is there not a type in this thing? For just as surely as this director did bring our fathers, by following its course, to the promised land, shall the words of Christ, if we follow their course, carry us beyond this vale of sorrow into a far better land of promise."

That's all for this week! Oh yeah except we did go fishing this morning. (No I didn't catch that fish. Yes I know I look terrified of it, I am.)

​Have a good week! I LOVE Y'ALL.

-Sister Merrill

Megan's Letter 7/18/16

Another busy week!

Okay I hope all y'all celebrated Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-fil-a. If not I'm really sorry, but we did and we had a BLAST. (:

Also, I rode my bike FOR THE FIRST TIME on my mission... I don't know how I got lucky enough to avoid it the first 7 months, but it wasn't so bad. (: I was on exchange with Sister Johnson!

 

 

Then I went on exchange with Sister Sheffield this week! She is so sweet, and she loves Mayday so we are best friends obviously.

 

 

 

The next morning we got to go to a wedding in Bessemer! I've been lucky enough to teach this cute family on exchange. I love them so much!

 

 

 

 

THEN after that we went to a District Meeting in Lorna, and then on a blitz with Sister Hidalgo!(:

 

 

​On Sunday we got to listen to President Archibald speak, who just returned from serving in Lima, Peru West as the Mission President! His talk was great. (: My favorite part was when he said: "The Lord works through very weak vessels."

There are so many times where I've felt inadequate for this work, but I know that the Lord can use me to work miracles. Doctrine and Covenants 1:23 says:

"That the fulness‍ of my gospel‍ might be proclaimed‍ by the weak‍ and the simple unto the ends of the world, and before kings‍ and rulers."

This is the one and only church that contains the fulness of the gospel people!! I feel so blessed to know it. Stay steadfast y'all and have an amazing week. (:

-Sister Merrill

P.S. We had a Sister sleep over with all the Sisters in the zone last night and spent tons of time with everyone today.

 

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Megan's Letter 7/11/16

Hey y'all! This week has been very eventful. (:

First we had the opportunity to to see a lot of our Sisters this week!

We started off in Bessemer, where I got to hang out with Sister Kenyon for a few hours! We went and had an incredible first lesson with someone, where she told us she knows the Book of Mormon is true and wants to be baptized! I believe in miracles y'all.

 Next we drove over to Lorna, where I spent some time with Sister Benioni. She is THE BEST. Let me tell y'all about an incident we had. So we had just finished up an appointment and decided to stop at Walmart on the way home. We get out of the car and see this humongous COCKROACH on top of the car! And it kept running at us every time we tried to get our stuff out of the back seat! So we decided to just run inside and forget about it. Well guess what!? We came back out and it was STILL THERE. Sister Benioni grabbed a sign and tried to flick it off the car, but it slid into the hood! We were terrified the whole ride home that it was going to fly out of the AC or something.

The next day I went on an exchange with Sister Chavez! We had a blast as usual (: BUT OH MY GOSH IT WAS SO HOT.

 ​And I met the cutest little girl ever named Nikki (:

 ​Saturday Rick was baptized almost exactly a year after his wife! It was an incredible and spiritual meeting. They are so excited to go to the temple in a year. I couldn't be happier for them. (:

After the baptism we went to try and visit some potentials! I saw this lady sitting on her deck and felt prompted to talk to her. We yelled up to her and asked if we could come up and share a message! Her son let us in and we started to get to know her. Her name is Maggie, and as it turns out her brother just passed away a few days before. We had the opportunity to share with her the Plan of Salvation. She kept telling us how much hope that gives her. I thought that was fitting- the Plan of Hope. I'm so grateful for the knowledge we have, so that we can have hope for ourselves and for our loved ones who have passed on.
My favorite chapter in the Book of Mormon right now is Moroni 7! Verses 40-42 say:
"40 And again, my beloved brethren, I would speak unto you concerning hope. How is it that ye can attain unto faith, save ye shall have hope?  41 And what is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise.
 42 Wherefore, if a man have faith he must needs have hope; for without faith there cannot be any hope."
I have gained a little bit of an obsession with hope in my studies, so I'm sorry if I talk about it too much. (: Have a great week y'all!

-Sister Merrill