Weeek 5 in Fayetteville, Georgia

So this email may be kinda short because I have one day less to write about this week! (Annie's pday was on Tuesday last week because of MLK day) It was a weird week! I can't believe we've been here for 5 weeks. Really crazy! One of the elders in our district had a baptism this week so that was one of the highlights for sure! It was the first baptism I got to go to on the mission. :)

Also Virginia came to church again this week! That was really good and she was awake for more of it this time! It was kind of weird for her because we had Fast & Testimony meeting, but she still really liked it. She's still trying to sell her house and we're praying for her everyday. She really wants and needs to get back to her family back up in DC.

I got the weekly email from my Taiwan mission president again and this is what his update was for us this week, "Continue to pray for our missionaries who are waiting on their visas.  Fifteen of nineteen have had all their paperwork sent into the visa office and we are now waiting for the final decision.  The other four missionaries need to send in one more document before the Taiwanese government can consider their visas. We are anxious for their arrival."

I've done all I can on my part, so I'm really hoping I'm one of the 15! It's been 8 weeks now since our original departure date to Taiwan. WOW. The districts younger than us in the MTC got reassigned and didn't have to wait any extra time in the MTC. :P so weird! But anyways. PLEASE continue to pray for our visas all to come in. Pray for the Taiwanese government! :)

Alright. Now for one of the miracles of the week. It was pretty small this week, but a miracle nonetheless! We got to one of our meetings at a member's house like 10 min early, so we decided to make best use of our time and knock on a few doors before we went to their house. Well we pulled onto a street and asked each other which house we should go to first. We both felt inspired to go to the same house. We knocked on the door and did our normal blessings approach that I've talked about in other emails. A younger girl answered the door who looked like she was about 15-16ish. She said we could say a prayer with her, so then we asked her name and if she wanted us to include anything in the prayer. She sat there for a minute quietly and then said, "Well my Uncle died recently, so can you pray for my family?". We of course said yes and said the prayer with her. We prayed that her family would be strengthened, comforted, and feel the Savior's love for them. It was a really genuine heartfelt prayer and the spirit was very strong on that doorstep.  After we were done she was so grateful for us and the prayer. We didn't set up a return appointment with her or even invite her to be baptized, like we do after prayers at other doors. But we did give her a Mormon.org card and told her to go watch the videos on there. We felt that at that time all she needed was to feel comforted and uplifted. We're planning on stopping by again in a week or so to see how she's doing. We were SO glad we followed the spirit to go to that specific house at that time to help bless one of our Heavenly Father's children.

That's been one of my favorite things on the mission. I get to help brighten people's day all the time. We get the chance to uplift people and help them change their lives. Even if we're not teaching and baptizing tons and tons of people, I'm still impacting people even on a smaller scale. I forget that A LOT. Having the confidence that we did EVERYTHING we could've is what matters. That's what I pray for everyday. Knowing that I'm doing Heavenly Father's will is all I need. That's the only reason I'm on the mission. I know I'm supposed to be here in Fayetteville, Georgia. I have no idea how long! But the days when I know I'm where I'm supposed to be, doing what I'm supposed to be doing, and talking to the people I'm supposed to be talking to, are the best days! 

Anyways. That's my little rant for the week. I know I've said all that before, but it's really so important to me! Because this email was so lame and short this week, (SORRY!), I'll leave you with a scripture from personal study this week and a lil testimony in Mandarin cuz I need to practice!!:) haha

1 Nephi 15:3,8-11

3 For he truly spake many great things unto them, which were hard to be understood, save a man should inquire of the Lord; and they being hard in their hearts, therefore theydid not look unto the Lord as they ought.

8 And I said unto them: Have ye inquired of the Lord? 

9 And they said unto me: We have not; for the Lord maketh no such thing known unto us.

10 Behold, I said unto them: How is it that ye do not keep the commandments of the Lord? How is it that ye will perish, because of the hardness of your hearts?

11 Do ye not remember the things which the Lord hath said?—If ye will not harden your hearts, and ask me in faith, believing that ye shall receive, with diligence in keeping my commandments, surely these things shall be made known unto you.

Nephi gives his brothers a quick little lesson on Faith right here. Ask in faith, believing, keep doing our part, SURELY these things shall be made known unto you. Maybe I'll write about the Faith Cycle more next week. It's awesome. Alma 32. :)

Wo zhidao zhege fuyin shi zhenshi de. Yesu Jidu zhende shi wode Jiuzhu. Ta shi wode jiu'en. Ta cigei wo henduo henduo de xiwang he pingan he xingfu. Ruguo wo meiyou Yesu Jidu, tade fuyin, he tade Shuzui wo bu zhidao wo hui zai nali. Wo ai zhege fuyin. Wo zhidao moermenjing shi Shen de hua.

YOU XINXIN YOU BANFA!!! :)

(Where there's FAITH there's a WAY!)

-Sister Oviatt

Photos from Annie

Photos from Annie

YAY BABOLAT! YAY TENNIS!

YAY AWESOME WARD MEMBERS THAT LOVE TENNIS TOO!

Annie got to play tennis thanks to a sweet family in her ward who let her use their awesome tennis racquets.  It really made her happy, as you can see.

Atlanta, Georgia

THEY HAVE BLUEBELL HERE! HALLELUJAH!!

Our district right before transfers last Wednesday!

Yay sisters!! Jiemeimen!

Week 4 in Georgia

 

So I wanna start with the biggest news of the week.  WE HAD OUR FIRST INVESTIGATOR AT CHURCH ON SUNDAY!  I don't know how it feels to have a baptism, but if it feels any better  than what I felt on Sunday Morning I might explode!! She even stayed  for all 3 hours! It was quite a miracle, that I'll get into more later! 

Here's just some random stuff before I get into that miracle of the week.  

On Wednesday we had to say goodbye to the amazing Sister Brough,  as she finished her mission and went back home to good old  Santaquin, Utah. She was the mom of our apartment and was just  a super awesome role model for all of us sisters. It's been weird the  last few days without her, but we're using all of her great advice to help  us get over this loss(;  

Name tag collection

On Thursday we went up to the Mission Office to get some things and  they had my English nametag! AH! I was pretty excited to get it, but  now that I have it, I don't really like it. It's weird. I liked how my chinese  one was an instant conversation starter! I just feel too plain now(; It will  be really cool for the memories later though! I've got 5 nametags now! :O  

Alright funny story next. We were out knocking on Saturday and came  to this house where the guy who answered was decked out head to toe  in Georgia Bullldogs gear. He also had a TON of GA souvenir helmets,  posters, and other stuff inside his house. So we did our usual, "We represent Jesus Christ and we believe he's sent us to you today to leave His peace and a blessing with you and your house. Would it be okay if we left this blessing with you right now?" approach, but he kindly refused. Then just as he was about to say goodbye I quickly said, "We  can pray for your football team." I knew from some members that they'd  lost to their rivals Georgia Tech and didn't finish well in the final rankings.  So I thought I'd poke some fun and maybe get a little football talk out of him  to warm him up a bit. I was really hoping he'd sense my slight sarcasm  and just playful humor. Luckily he did! He started laughing a little and said,  "Yeah we've been losing. We need one!" I asked about how the end of the  season went with the bowls and everything and he seemed a little impressed.  He asked who my team was and I said, "Well I'm from Austin, TX so I'm a  Longhorns fan!" He was like, "Oh yeah they didn't do too well this year either!"  So we comiserated a little bit. :) 

Anyways we keep talking and he tells us  about cool places he's been in the US because of his service in the Navy. He's even lived up in Idaho  before so he's had a lot of LDS friends. He told us that Mormons were some  of the nicest people he's met in all the places he's lived. We ended up not praying  with him, just left a mormon.org card, but he told us we brightened his day and  wished us luck on the rest of our missions. It was cool to help him have another positive experience with LDS Missionaries. I don't know what will  happen to him, but I know we said and did exactly what we needed to that  day to help him strengthen his faith in Christ. Being down here in football country  has been a BIG tender mercy for me! :) 

 Alright now for the miracle of the week! I think I may have told y'all about Virginia  Sullivan in a past email. Anyways on Tuesday we went over there to help her pack  one of her rooms up, because she's selling her house to move up back up to DC  to be closer to family. Well we got a frantic call from her about 20 min before  the appointment. She said, "oh Sista Smith and Sista O I've lost my glasses and  I desperately need them to see! Will you sistas help me find them when you come  over??!" so of course when we got there we helped her look all over her house for  them. We also had one of our laurels from the ward there to help. She suggested  after 10 minutes of looking that we say a prayer. So we say the prayer and keep  looking. About 30 min later we were all in one of Virginia's daugher's rooms and  the laurel who came to help us found them! It was really crazy! We were about  to have to drive out to the optometrist to buy her new ones! 

So we immediately said a prayer of gratitude and Virginia just LOVED it. She was so grateful and  said many many "Oh Thank God!" and "Praise the Lord!"s. A few hours later  she called us and said "Thank you so much sisters for helping me find my  glasses. Are all of the people in your congregation that nice and helpful?"  So we said, "Yeah generally we are! Well we try to be at least!" :) So she  said, "Oh that's great! You know I think I'll go to all 3 hours of your church  this Sunday." We both FREAKED out! In our last lesson she didn't want to  go because it's at 9am and she usually gets up at 11am, and 3 hours was  wayyy longer than she was used to for church. We were able to get her set  up with an AWESOME member to take her to church and she did come to  all 3 hours! She did sleep through a lot of it, but what she remembers she  really liked! It was just an amazing feeling to see someone change from  not wanting to go at all to wanting to go to 3 hours of church! I know that  without the opportunity Heavenly Father gave us to serve her that day, she  wouldn't have wanted to come to church.

 I can't wait to help others also  have an increased desire to come closer to Christ. I'm pretty impatient  sometimes, but I know it will come! We're really close to getting another  family to come to church this next Sunday and our teaching pool is  getting bigger everyday! The work is moving forward here! :)  No news really on visas still, but keep praying for it all to work out!:)  The church is true! And as they say in the South, Jesus loves you(: 

 -Sister Oviatt 

 -Ou Jie Mei

3 Weeks in Georgia already?!?

Wow! Today's my 3 Week mark in GA! It's kind of flown by... but also it's been some of the longest weeks/days of my life. Time is so weird on the mission.

Anyways. This week was much much better than last week!

One of the best parts was getting to go up to Atlanta to go to the temple on Tuesday! It recharged me for the week. I was able to get a lot of revelation and just feel Heavenly Father's love and care for me there. It truly is the House of the Lord and there is so much peace and joy to be felt there. I've gained a huge testimony of temples already on my mission. I'm already trying to figure out how I can go to the temple once a week when I get home! ;)

I'm getting used to the planning and work and routines of real life missionary work. We're getting a bigger teaching pool, and have lots of appointments tomorrow and some later in the week! We finally have "work" to do. I mean we've been working the whole time, but just A LOT of store contacting and old fashioned knocking on doors! So we've got a bunch of lessons lined up this week, and lots of meetings with members. So I'm excited for the week ahead!

The thing that scares me though is that now that I'm getting in the groove a little bit and we're finally getting investigators, I'm gonna get my visa and I'll have to start all over again... in a FOREIGN COUNTRY!! ....so yeah. that's been on my mind a bit! But it'll be okay. "Gird up your loins, fresh courage take. Our God will NEVER us forsake!" Easy to sing. Hard to remember. ;) Oh. By the way. We still haven't heard much on our visas. BUT I got 2 emails from President Day, the Taiwan Taipei Mission president, today! One of them was just to us visa waiters and it said,

 "Dear Elders and Sisters: 

I know that it can be a little unsettling as you continue to wait on your visas.   

I want you to know that here in Taiwan we are working very hard to try and iron out all of the wrinkles that are keeping you from getting here.  Compiling the additional paperwork is now in the hands of the Missionary Department.

One of the newly required missionary visa documents is a Ministerial Certificate in English.  If you have not already received your new one in English, you should have it any day.  Please sign it and get it back to the Missionary Department/Missionary Travel per their instructions as quickly as possible.  Your visa is waiting on this document and a couple more that the Missionary Department is trying to get together for you. 

Please, please, don’t lose hope. Know that you have hundreds of missionaries in Taiwan praying for your visas to be approved quickly. Sister Day and I are also daily praying for your prompt arrival. Kindest regards, 

President David Day"

So that was a VERY comforting email to get! I went in and signed my English Ministerial Certificate on Thursday. So I really think that's a good sign! It also sounds like we could leave at anytime, not just on a transfer date. This week is transfers for the GAM and Taipei Mission, so we were thinking we'd leave this week. But apparently not. It's all good though! He also sent us a copy of the weekly email he sends out to the missionaries. Two of my favorite parts were, "I am sending a copy of this email to all our visa-waiting missionaries so that they will continue to realize they are not forgotten and that we are doing everything we can on this end to get them here." and "Continue praying that the wheels of government will be greased and grind smoothly as we seek to have our visa-waiting missionaries arrive soon!" So that was really nice to hear as well! :) 

Well that's enough about our dumb visas. You wanna hear about the work going on in Georgia! Here's my miracle for the week.

So. We've had this certain neighborhood that we've always felt good about when we tract it. So on Saturday we went to that neighborhood to knock some doors and say some prayers. We went to a few houses, but it didn't feel right. Neither Sister Smith or I felt like we really needed to be in that particular neighborhood at that time. We had no idea where we were supposed to go though! We went back to the car and looked at our map. We prayed for inspiration to know where the Lord needed us to go. I looked over the map and felt really good about this specific road, but it was all the way on the other side of our area! But we both felt like it was the best place to go. So we did a 1 Ne. 3:7 and went and did! Right when we turned the corner to go down that road it felt like the sun was shining brighter and the world had no darkness. :) We both felt the spirit SO strong. It was such a different feeling driving down that street than we'd had earlier in the other neighborhood. I think Alma 19:6 sums up the feeling we had pretty well.

"Now, this was what Ammon desired, for he knew that King Lamoni was under the power of God; he knew that the dark veil of unbelief was being cast away from his mind, andthe light which did light up his mind, which was the light of the glory of God, which was a marvelous light of his goodness—yea, this light had infused such joy into his soul,the cloud of darkness having been dispelled, and that the light of everlasting life was lit up in his soul..."

We KNEW without a doubt that we were supposed to be on that street. We found some pretty good success on that street. We were able to say 4-5 prayers with people, got some referrals, and we even found a new investigator! The crazy thing is she is from Pakistan and she and her family is Muslim! She is married with four kids, the oldest is 19 and is up at Georgia State, and her mom also lives with her, but doesn't speak English. We were so grateful to have found her and to have been able to pray with her. We have another appointment set up with her on Saturday, so we'll see what happens with that! It was a huge miracle day. We learned a lesson in following the spirit and knowing what it feels like to be led and guided by the spirit. We were supposed to go to that neighborhood. Maybe to meet the Muslim family, maybe to leave a blessing with another family. We never know the impact we'll have on these people, whether they get baptized or not. We just have confidence and faith that we did the will of Heavenly Father and that's all you need! He will take care of the rest when we do our part. :)

I testify that Heavenly Father is aware of YOU. He knows your life. He knows what you're going through and how to help you get through it. He only wants us to be happy. He cares about each of us on a very personal and deep level. He wants us to use the Atonement every day, every hour that we need it. This church is true!

Wo zhidao zhe ge jiaohui shi zhenshi de!! Gotta get my Mandarin in whenever I can. :)

-Ou Jie Mei

-Sister Oviatt

Week 2 of crazy Georgia!!!

Happy New Year Everyone!!!

Yesterday tracting we found the oldest
 black church in Fayette county!
Awesome!!! Flat rock!
 haha Kinda like Round Rock! <3

Well just like in the MTC emailing is one of the most stressful things of the week! I never know exactly what to say or how much to say! It's the only hour and a half of the week I get to communicate with, most importantly, my Mom, my family, and the outside world so I have to make full use of it! Out here it's even a little more stressful because we have to use this time to email our mission president, too!  Where in the MTC we did that on a totally different day that didn't cut into our normal emailing time. :/ Our emailing routine was pretty different in the MTC and I got pretty used to it in my 2.5 months there! Change is HARD! So when this email doesn't make sense that is why. :) I'll probably forget something or someone or describe something weird, but I have limited time now and I'm just trying to get used to a new place! Hopefully the spirit will help you understand what I'm really trying to say instead of what I'm awkwardly typing. ;) OK rant over!

This week was another hard one! I'll feel like I'm adjusting better, then the next hour I feel knocked down and discouraged again. What a rollercoaster! Still trying to get used to the new place, being a real missionary, meeting new people all the time, new rules, and all of the other stresses that come with missionary work.  

​New Year's eve!
 Martinellis, homemade doughnuts,
 and a fried oreo!! <3

Opening a new area with a not very old trainer and a greenie has been hard! It's hard to get used to being with a different person all the time, after just getting so used to the last companion! Anyways. I started getting a chest cold the last few days at the MTC and I was finally able to get rid of it about Tuesday. But Sister Smith was sick so we stayed in most of Tuesday. Then Wednesday she wasn't feeling good again, neither was sister Brough, one of our roommates. So the 4 of us were stuck in the apartment. So sister call and I got out of the house, after resting all morning, and went to Walmart to get stuff for our sick comps. Well actually having to leave the house and function made us realize we were getting sick, too! It really wore us out to go to the store, so we all stayed in and rested Wednesday, too! This week we didn't have any appointments planned because we are so new still and trying to grow a teaching pool! So at least we didn't have to cancel on people! :) :/ haha We got a great idea to go to the church and get a bunch of church DVDs to watch back at the apartment. We watched a few movies and videos that I've watched a bunch with my family so that made me miss them a lot and get a bit homesick. :( So that was our New Years Eve! We did do some sparklers and confetti at night. Oh we also had Martinellis and home made doughnuts so that was pretty fun! That also reminded me of home and our New Years traditions! I missed mah family a ton this week!! :( New years day no one felt better again! I really really missed my college football that day too. We weren't doing anything at all so I just wanted to lay there and watch all the great games I knew were going on that day. :( I did get to watch The Testaments in Mandarin though! Highlight of the day... :/ :) haha

Georgia is so pretty!!

Friday morning we had New Missionary Training! So we got taught from President Harding for a few hours about how we can improve our work. It was really motivating and it made me sad that we were sick!  It was also a great meeting because I got to see Sister Kirkham, Sister Hendricks, and Sister Lindsay again! I've missed seeing familiar faces and even speaking Chinese with them! Sister Hendricks is about an hour away in Lost Mountain, so we never get to see her. :( But Sister Kirkham and Lindsay are in my stake so I see them sometimes.

Post first lesson ever Waffle House trip!
SO GOOD! Made me miss my family tons!
and texas(;

 After the meeting we were all really tired, but I wanted to work. So I sat down and called a whole bunch of "potential investigators". People in our area who'd been contacted or shown interest in the church before. I called 45 people! We were only able to get 1 appointment from those calls, but I was glad to have something planned to do the next day! It was good to see the fruits of my labor. I counted it as a huge miracle. Another miracle was that we got a member present even though it was super last minute!! This lady is a sweet old black lady who's lived here for 9 years, and lives by herself. She's Methodist and loves God, Christ, and the Bible. She was a little senile and forgetful. We taught her the first lesson, and I testified about the Book of Mormon at the end. She was actually pretty receptive! We also told her about church meetings and the ward family that she could be a part of so she didn't feel so alone. She really liked that idea. She didn't go to church yesterday, but she said she'd go next week! We gave her a book of Mormon, invited her to be baptized, and are meeting with her again this Saturday! She didn't accept baptism immediately, but we'll work on that. ;) It was super awesome to finally teach a first lesson after being new and sick and not having any plans for almost 2 weeks! It was a much needed miracle.

Another of the Flat Rock church

Then Saturday night I was nervous about what we were going to do the next week, now that we were starting to feel better and we still didn't have any appointments. I didn't really want to tract all day because that hasn't felt very productive or fruitful to me. I only want to do Heavenly Father's will for me. I want to do what he wants. Long story short Mama (Sister) Brough suggested that I have a real, out loud conversation with Heavenly Father, just like my Mom's taught me to do my whole life. I felt like my Mom was talking to me again through her!! I knew I needed to do that. I told him everything I was feeling. I wanted to have faith and confidence that no matter what was happening I was following His plan for me. I wanted to know that I'm doing His will for me. If I know I'm doing His will, I'm ok with knocking on doors and contacting all day. I want to build up this area in His way. I don't know how to do it so I have to follow His will! I'm even ok with being here an extra transfer, if I know it's His will. I prayed to have trust and faith in His will for me. I tried to do just as one of my favorite lines from Come Thou Fount says, "Here's my heart. Oh take and seal it. Seal it for thy courts above." Hard to do!! Then I also fasted for that yesterday. 

Church was really good. We met a lot more members and were able to see how blessed we are to have a ward so dedicated to missionary work! Since coming out on the mission, the sacrament has meant a lot more too! That was awesome. The testimonies were all great and so were the lessons. They seemed to be exactly what I needed! Later that day we were out tracting and I had a feeling that we needed to meet with members that night. It was weird cuz we had other plans and it would be really last minute! I was confident that it was the spirit prompting me to do that. So we saw some cool tender mercies tracting, but I don't have time of course! :/ Later I decided to start calling members to see who was available. We got some appts. for later in the week, but I still really felt like we needed one that night. Miraculously, one of the members said we could visit that night! Huge answered prayer! We went over to the members house and shared a message about the faith cycle. I told them that they were an answer to my prayers and it was just a great meeting! It was good to get to know them, strengthen their faith, and build our relationship with them. After how down I felt the days before about not being able to work, Heavenly Father really answered my prayers. That showed me that I am doing ok and I'm doing His will for me. I'm glad I followed the spiritual promptings I got. I don't know what will happen next with that family, but I feel confident that I was doing His will.

And a random picture of my favorite family
who I think about and miss every single day!!! <3

This week I will continue to strive to follow the spirit in all that I do. I will always try to be just a little better than the day before. That's all I can do! I'm so grateful for that experience and that God showed me His hand in my life and His work. I don't know what we're gonna do all week... But I do know that we'll follow the spirit and do His work. My testimony is growing a lot through all of these hard times and occasional tears. ;) Highlight of the week will be going to the Atlanta Temple tomorrow!! :D I'm soooo excited! It's been a long 3 weeks without going to the temple! :/

Keep praying for me and I appreciate all of the support! You can totally still send Dear Elders and letters if you want to(; oh and no news on visas at all... so that's cool! We'll see what happens next week! (next Wednesday is transfers!)

-Sister Oviatt