Does this email even make sense?

Hey Fam! 

Just went to the temple, which was great! So I'm running out of time. 

True story, this week I learned what diligence means. The true meaning of diligence, that is. So I read this great article full of mini articles about home teaching and every single story inspired me in a different way, and now I know what diligence is. Here's the article: https://www.lds.org/ensign/2011/01/home-teachers-who-made-a-difference?lang=eng&query=home+teaching 

I realized that diligence and hard work are not the same thing. Hard work is often a result of diligence, but it's a correlation does not equal causation situation. I've always felt bad when thinking about diligence because I work so hard because I could always work harder. But diligence isn't just killing yourself. It's caring about something enough to be persistent about it. (For example, often times I would work very hard in school, but I was not always diligent about it.) And this article, without me even being conscious of it, taught me what true diligence is. And now it's a value I can actually pursue and not feel bad about.  Wooo! Moral of the story (aside from seeking diligence): Heavenly Father always wants the best for us and what will make us happy, and when we realize what it is He truly wants, we totally want it too! Does that make sense? I'm trying to cram a monumental discovery in a fast time period. 

There was something else I discovered about life but I can't remember. . .gah it's killing me. 

This week we found a lot of people. .. again. But no one super solid. . .again. Here's a total non-coincidence: We're walking out of a less active's home and run directly into these guys who are selling Dish for a few months, going door to door, so we could relate. And their bosses are Mormon and centered in Provo, and everyone they work with is Mormon, and the one kid is just. . .has so much potential. We haven't been able to see them again, but it's my dying wish of Arkansas slash my whole life to baptize this kid. If he's ready. Because if he was, he would be, to me, the picture of hastening the work. So I've got two and half weeks to keep changing the world over here and it's possible. I believe in miracles.  Not going to lie, Sister Wilkins and I have made really good friends with the elders and it's going to be so sad to leave them. Although two of our top faves are getting transferred on Wednesday anyways.

I have super mixed feelings about going back to Nauvoo. In some ways I'm super excited but at the same time, I don't want to plateau. But I don't want new weird challenges that nearly kill me, as has been my missionary experience thus far. #thestruggle #thewillofGod

I love you all. I may need to clarify on my diligence epiphany next week. 

Love, Rachel 

#murricles

Hey fam,

This week was a skraight up blur. Like I was telling my journal yesterday, the last thing I remember was eating dinner at the Lewises on Sunday and then it was Sunday again. A miracle happened this week. We have been praying to find someone to baptize for the month and this week was the last week for that to happen because they have to attend church for two weeks. Well, our prospects weren't looking super good (minus Ebony and Ingrid who are still getting baptized and are awesome except they aren't in our area but we found the elect, which is what we prayed for, so oh well). But we found this less active named China through the craziest string of events who wasn't on the ward list even. Anyways, we invited China back to church and she actually came! And she brought her young nephews/brother, and her nonmember aunt. . . .who wants to get baptized! So we think that's going to be happen. Really, Heavenly Father takes care of things. And also, we really can't really do anything without Him. It's a comforting thought and yet scary at the same time, of course. 

I'm really big into scripture study these days. Like all the time. And I'm getting better at recording impressions/mini personal revelations. Really, you can figure so much out about your life and about who you are and what you want in a few days of good scripture study. (Scripture including ensigns and Preach my Gospel). I swear, I'm the biggest fan of it. I'm going to go home and go on a scripture study campaign. It's going to be #obnoxious. But it's really the foundation for everything. Everything.  

Ok, I love you all! 

Love, Rachel

Running the Skreets.

Hey Fam, 

This week was good. I feel like every week or month in the mission field I just re-learn the same lessons over and over. One week I discover how to follow God's will. Then I find myself not being happy and wonder what's going on and find myself caring too much about what others think and have to regain my eternal perspective and realign my will with God's and it just is a variation of the same pattern over and over. Pretty embarrassing. But you know, I'm sure I'm getting somewhere in my growth. I feel a million years older than when I left on my mission. 

This week we had a semi-brief interaction with one of my favorite people I've met. We contacted him (aka we said, "Hi! We're missionaries!" etc.), asked for his phone number and he said he didn't have a phone. "You don't have a phone?!" I said. "Well, I do, but it's not a Christian lady phone.  I use it for my work and I don't want to be answerin the phone, like 'where you at?' tryina sell somthin. . .I have seven kids and I gotta take care of them, ya know?" 

So yeah, he's a drug dealer. And he was probably no older than 25. Oh man, he was hilarious. He can't stay with one woman. Talking about women, he said, "Yall nag." Then I say, "Wait, 'Yall'? (pointing  to me and Sister Wilkins)"  "Yeah. All yall nag too much."  Such good times. What a personality.  We gave him our card with the church address and our number and I really want him to call us, obviously, because he really needs the help, obviously. But people never call us when we give them our number--it's real sad. So, pray for Fred. 

We have interactions like these (but this is the first drug dealer that I've been aware that I've talked to) a fair amount. Black people are too much fun. Really. I am going to be soo sad when I no longer have an excuse to just walk around the streets and strike up conversations with randoms, Book of Mormon in hand, "preaching the word," as they say.  "The Word" is an actual phrase for other religions, didjaknow?  

Sad day. In a stroke of miracle we found the elect, committed them to a date, and are probs going to have to hand them over to other missionaries because they are actually not in our ward boundaries. It was a mom and daughter--super super cool, so ready to change. Ugh. It's fine but I'm still sad. 

We are also teaching this black guy named Mario who is super awesome and changing already before our eyes and he better get baptized before I leave!! He just is afraid that he'll want to feel the spirit so bad that he'll make himself believe that he is, even if he's not. He's just, I think, skeptical of what "feeling the spirit" is really like, so we're trying to help him understand that. His heart is really open though, it seems. I am sure he will get baptized, it just needs to be when I'm there. I guess in the lesson he had with S.Wilkins and another Sister when I was away on exchanges he said something like, "I want to be like Sister Ross. She just seems so happy." That made me feel good. Preach my Gospel says something like, Be ready to tell anyone the source from which your happiness comes. It's the Gospel, yo! And it's true! 

Well, that was my week. Not really, but you got like 15 minutes of it. 

Love, Rachel

ps and don't worry about the drug dealer thing. I always feel really super safe. Really. Things are ghetto because they're dirty and run down. But not like, meth house ghetto. We avoid those places. And we definitely don't go anywhere sketch after dark. 

pps Instead of the word "ask," most black people here say "axe" or "ackts" like, "Why are you axin me that question?" and t's get replaced with k's a lot. 

Sorry every email I've ever sent from Arkansas is super lame.

Hey family!

I don't know but writing about me is like literally the last thing I ever want to do. It's almost just too hard to really think about or accurately describe my week or anything I do, so I almost just don't even want to try. But I'll try anyways. 

So this was one of those weeks where it transitions from everything going smooth and being happy to things starting to fall through and feeling that panic-discouragement feeling. That's kind of how it seems to be on a normal pros mission. Things are either blowin up or feeling really bleak. It seems like just yesterday we had so much potential and now we realize that none of it came through. 

But it's actually super ok because both Sister Wilkins and I had our separate get-it-together, life-view-paradigm-shift moments and we are totally fine.  We realized we were feeling a lot of numbers pressure, and just other types of pressure to appear to be the best missionaries. And it was just too much. I know, it seems so dumb. And I always thought I would never be that missionary. But I swear, you don't know what it's like until you're in it. I never thought I would have such missionary identity issue problems. But the weight of the mantle is super real. Super super real. That's really the thing about being a missionary that kills me. The weight I feel for the entire city of Little Rock! But really, Sister Wilkins and I had a good talk about it, and we are so happy. I feel like in the past little while, I've really been able to develop the spiritual skills to get myself out of more of my issues. Well, hopefully at least. And now my goal is simply to just love the people I'm with, and nothing else. Well, and the Lord. Loving the Lord is #1. 

So we have a bestie in the ward who is also an RM and all that jazz and she is so useful and goes out with us and we love her. And we're teaching her friend who's way more than a friend and it's complicated. So we had a date with them on Valentine's day lolz. And then we had a dinner and a lesson date with them not this past week but the week before. And we were sitting at a rectangular table, right? And S. Wilk and I are at the long ends of the table and our dear friends are sitting across from each other making flirty faces and googly eyes, and S Wilk and I make the big mistake of making eye contact with each other. Sister Wilkins and I have this problem where we get to a certain place and a mutual understanding, and cannot keep it together. So of course we make eye contact and are just dying. We can't stop laughing because the whole situation is just so hilarious. And they can't figure out for the life of them why we're laughing, and we couldn't really tell them if we tried. But you know, lots of funny situations come up when you're on a mission.

Things, like I mentioned before, are transitioning. So nothing super solid. But miracles are around the corner, ya?

Love you all!

Love, Rachel

This actually isn't a real email.

Oh my goodness I honestly really don't know what to say. 

Good things: We are teaching Brother Beaty. He is the non-member husband of a cute little family in the ward. He's had a calling teaching primary and everyone has been wondering why he isn't baptized. The time was right and the Bishop invited him to be baptized and he accepted, and they chose us to teach him (even though he obviously knows a ton already because he teaches primary). But it's one of the things everyone has to do before they get baptized. So we really lucked out big time. It's a real honor to teach Brother Beaty. He is so ready and seriously, I love that family. So that's happening this Saturday. 

We had a date for Valentine's day. he he. With our bff Taylor Adney who is an RM who discerns our emotions and is great and her nonmember "friend" who we are going to start working with hopefully. As in, hopefully that turns out successfully. 

I'm sorry. I don't have much for this week. Missionary life just kind of blurs by. 

Love, Rachel

A pretty hard week but I feel pretty good about life so it's ok.

Hi family,

 

I don't have much to say this week on account of we walked everywhere and there were many miserable moments where we wanted to cry and die. Simply because we just walked for hours. Lesson learned from this "bike" week: we are not doing that again. Although at the time, there really seemed to be no other option. It's hard when you don't know the ward members. But all the ones I've met I've loved.

 

What I'm mainly working on right now in my life is balance. Namely, figuring out how to care about missionary work, but not care too much. #impossible

 

But really. More than once this week I got to that place where you just are wound so tightly emotionally and care so much with so little control that I just snapped (internally; I only wish I could be one of those people who just let loose and was allowed to just have their crazy moment. But alas, I'm far too socially indoctrinated for that) and was released of the care, but then also felt like I wasn't being as diligent as I could be, which starts the process all over again. I think, though,that I am slowly getting better. I can see now that it really is counterproductive to the work to feel so much responsibility, and be so emotionally wound into it. So I have to figure out how to be healthy without letting go. And let's face it, I couldn't let go if I tried. So I don't think that's going to be the problem.

 

It's funny though because this week, Sister Wilkins and I--and we have no idea how this happened--slept in until 8:30. That's like 2 hours. I haven't slept in at all, let alone until 8:30, in 10+ months. We have two alarms too. It was a tender mercy of the Lord, seeing as our bodies were super exhausted from all the walking. As much as that was the weirdest thing ever, it's also pretty incredible to say that that's the first time I've slept in in 10 months. The missionary life is pretty impressive to me.

 

We walked on the UALR campus (University of Arkansas Little Rock, "You-lurrr" "Yule-errr") thinking maybe we could reel in some college kids. Well think again. I forgot how unfriendly college life is sometimes. People acted so surprised when we even said hello. It was pretty hilarious. l laughed a lot.

 

Sister Wilkins is pretty funny, too, by the way. We appreciate a lot of the same hilarities of life. I really love all the missionaries we are around, too. It's so nice to be around good missionaries and to not feel so alone in the world. Really, a caring district leader makes a big difference.

 

Sorry, this letter is really scattered. There's not much to report on. Wait, oh my gosh, I'm so excited! We're going to the temple next week! I could die! I'm so happy. Also, transfers are next week, and I don't think I'm getting transfered, but who knows. I would be way sad. But then again, it's my last transfer in AR so maybe it would take the pressure off. But I love Little Rock. And Sister Wikins. And, again, all the other missionaries I work with.

 

Love you guys!

 

Love, Rachel

Livin on a Prayer

Hey family!

This week was chalk full of great and interesting experiences that hopefully I can explain.

First of all, we had the baptism of Stacey this week. Stacey was/is super solid right? No problems at all. Well, she had made a few comments in the past week concerning the baptism that she, "just wanted to get this over with," which is concerning, yes? When we tried to ask about specifics, we thought it was just a concern over the water thing. And she still definitely wanted to get baptized. Well, the day of, we exchange a few texts about the baptism and she sounds really negative. Then we get a text that says, "I'll let you know by 4 if I'm coming." What?! To the baptism? It's at 6! 

Needless to say the next few hours are stress filled while we wait for Stacey to get back to us, who is not answering calls or texts. Well she shows up at 5:30 ish but she's super upset, starts to cry, says she just wants this done, and doesn't know if she'll even show up on Sunday to get the Holy Ghost. So we're still super stressed out. Luckily, an older member (who had converted too, and was black too) showed up early to the baptism and was able to figure out the problem and talk with Stacey. It turns out Stacey's family just didn't support her at all about the baptism, which she wasn't expecting, and was telling her all this bad stuff about how her life would be as a Mormon. 

We had the baptism first, so that Stacey could feel calm about it afterwards, and then all the people who talked were just super inspired. I mean, normally you wouldn't think someone emphasizing about getting the Holy Ghost--and without it, the baptism being essentially useless--would be that inspired. But in this case it was! And the Spirit was strong and sitting next to Stacey, I just knew it was what she needed to hear. By the end of the baptism, Stacey was happy and smiling. And she came on Sunday and is super solid, once again! 

I also had a real life mormon.org chat lesson with someone I guess the missionaries have been seeing for years, even though he's completely faithless. Like, he says faith is the f-word in his house (the real f-word he uses without hesitation). So I was skeptical when sister Wilkins took me to this home of the point of visiting, but once you meet the guy, you totally understand. So he's black and he has an awesome, awesome very open personality. And he's so nice but he pretends like he's not and just is so down to talk/"debate" about how religion is dumb and you can't know that God exists. Well, atheists are my specialty on account of I know exactly how they feel. And also, I've dealt with them too many times to count on Mormon.org. So I know the circular logic that accompanies the faith argument, and I told Jeff so, and I cut to the chase. I told him this is not about those red herring issues he likes to bring up. This is about his belief in God. Which he has, by the way. I know it. His reasoning for not completely denying the existence of a greater being is the existence of the moon. How did it get there? He totally knows God exists. 

 Jeff was impressed with my intelligence. Atheists always are. And he totally loves me, I just know it. So the conversation was real, and intense, and I'm pretty sure an impact was made. More than normally is made with other missionaries. In the end, I asked if we could say a kneeling prayer and he refused. I think he is legitimately very insecure and is in a lot of denial. In the end, I said a very spirit-filled prayer with Sister Wilkins alone in their living room because Jeff literally could not handle it and left. He joked about the whole thing. He is a very jokey guy--not willing to acknowledge emotions or anything. But I just know the prayer thing was a big deal. Because he had to take an action. He had to acknowledge to himself that he couldn't handle prayer and had to choose to leave and not argue his way around it. Victory! I don't know where to go from here, but he so is on the brink. I even told him, "You're hungry. You're dying to have a relationship with God. And you know He's real." Which is true. So so true. Man, it was seriously one of the best experiences out here. I love the elect. Love em. But teaching the non-elect is just more of the kind of challenge I enjoy. Although you usually just have to drop the non elect pretty soon. 

I love the ward here. Sunday school is taught by this older black guy who just totally preaches his own philosophies. It's hilarious. I literally started cracking up and could not stop. It was bad. He says stuff like, "You got to resist temptation. I could leave my wife and kids for a night. Go to a club. Meet some nice lady. But you got to resist. What good's that gonna do? You may find each other attractive. You got to resist!" In a black person voice. Seriously, I die. Everyone in the class tries to reign it in and quote stuff in the manual. #bestwardever as Sister Wilkins would say. 

This area is great. I love it here! So many people to teach!

Love, Rachel