Monday, November 10, 2014: My Latest Ponder Session

This weekend, I was able to rake leaves for a recent convert in the ward. And guess what? As it turns out, raking leaves is a great opportunity for a ponder session. I thought about all sorts of things. Among all these things, I considered for probably the umpteenth time how weird it was that I was in Mississippi, doing yard work for someone I had only known for a couple of months. There are times when that realization still feels pretty bizarre--that I'm in Mississippi, and I'm on a mission. It still doesn't always feel real. 

Then my thoughts went to Moroni, someone we had been discussing with an investigator a few days before. We had talked about the part where he had said he was "utterly alone" but even as alone as he was, he stood his ground. He would not depart from the things he knew to be true. I felt like missionaries could really relate to that. We leave everyone we know and love to be alone in a foreign land. But you know what? Besides perhaps the time I entered the MTC, and maybe when I arrived in my first area, the Lord has never allowed me to be alone. I've had President and Sister McDonough, companions, and the familiar faces of other missionaries I've served around. He's always given me a small piece of familiarity so i don't have to feel so completely alone. 

And that got me thinking about how blessed I have been on my mission. The Lord has given me so much--more than I think I have really deserved. Mosiah 2:21 says, "...If ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye maylive and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your wholesouls yet ye would be unprofitable servants." One thing I've learned on my mission is that scripture is completely true! He does not send young men and women out on missions to somehow "repay" Him. He sends us out on missions so He can bless us even more. 

Which made me realize how happy I am. :) Don't get me wrong, these past 14 months have been really hard, and there have been a lot of times when I've had to remind myself that it's a journey and not a race and it's going to be over so quickly. But at the end of the day, as much as I miss home and the people I love, I wouldn't trade my mission for anything in the world. 

 

And those are the simple truths I rediscovered while raking leaves. :)

Monday, October 27, 2014: Thoughts on Self-Esteem

This is a blog post I've been meaning to write for a long time. When Sister White and I were serving together, we had a lot of ponder sessions. We would just spend days digging as deep as we could on one subject together until we had gone as deep as we could go. One of these ponder sessions was one that has stuck out to me in particular. We were considering self-esteem--what it is exactly, if it's the same or different from confidence, and how one develops it. This is what I've found so far. 

When I was younger, I would not say that I had very good self-esteem. That's probably true for a lot of people. I've always been tall. Because of that, when I was little I always felt like a big awkward giant who towered over everybody. I wanted to be one of those little, petite girls, but instead I was big--and that's just something you can't change. I was pretty convinced when I was little that I was ugly. I don't really know where that came from, but for whatever reason that was what I thought. And so because of that I felt vulnerable, so I was very shy, so I didn't talk to very many people, so I didn't have very many friends, so then I felt like I wasn't popular because I was unlikeable, so then I liked myself less. I stuck to my best friend, Britt, because I knew she liked me for who I was and that we would always be best friends. (Little kids have great ideals like that.) That's where I felt safe. If she wasn't at school, I would usually sit by myself and pick at the grass for recess. 

That's not to say I had a bad childhood. I had an awesome childhood! My parents gave me everything I ever needed. And I had an awesome thing called an imagination where I WAS pretty and popular and exactly what I wanted to be, so I had a blast. I was just less comfortable around other people than I would have liked to be. 

Then I moved. Those who knew me at that time might remember I was NOT a happy camper. I was leaving my best friend behind in Idaho and moving to Utah to be around a bunch of strangers, and I just knew I was going to hate it and I knew my parents hated me for making me do it. But it actually turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to me. Heavenly Father knew I had a lot of growing to do, and I couldn't do it if I was clinging to my very limited friend group for the rest of my adolescent life. At first it was really hard, but I had to learn to branch out, and because of that I made a lot of friends. I discovered my love for theatre. Crazy, right? A super shy girl getting onstage in front of an audience and actually enjoying herself? I know that doesn't make any sense. But I loved it and it was the best thing for me. My directors and my friends and the art itself gave me the courage to step outside my shell and be the outgoing person that is secretly in there--it just takes a minute or two for her to come out around new and unfamiliar people. By the end of high school, I had gained a lot more confidence. I could walk down the halls feeling a lot less out of place because I knew I would pass by familiar faces who would be happy to see me. I felt like I had finally "made it"--I felt like my battle with low self-esteem was over. 

But confidence is not the same as self-esteem. I did not know this before my mission. Turns out, it's possible for someone to be confident in something--or even many things--but still not like themselves. Or maybe someone might act like they think they're the best thing since sliced bread, but that's really all it is--an act. So I guess you could say I was putting my acting abilities to use in my regular life. I could pretend I was okay with myself, but that didn't mean I believed it. 

Every transfer, our mission president asks us to make a new goal, and pick a Christlike attribute to work on. Last transfer, I picked charity. When I talked about it to President in my interview, he wrote "self" underneath the word "charity" and told me to work on having charity toward myself. I didn't understand that for the longest time. Up to this point I had learned how to have patience with myself, and how to forgive myself, but I didn't understand how it was possible to have charity toward myself. After all, isn't charity all about being selfless? 

This is what I discovered, after quite a bit of studying on the subject. In short, charity is the pure love of Christ. So if you have charity toward yourself, you love yourself--not as the world would but as Christ would. You see yourself the way He would see you. That means you don't look in the mirror and go, "Ugh, I hate my crooked teeth/big nose/freckles/acne/frizzy hair/whatever it is that  you think you don't like about yourself on your face." You look in the mirror and see yourself as a child of God. 

So at first, this was the conclusion I came up with. You gain self-esteem by knowing who you are--a son or daughter of Heavenly Father. But then I considered many of the incredible people I've served with or around on my mission. I can think of a few just off the top of my head who know they are children of God--it's something they tell people every day--but still, they can't seem to see how amazing they are! Knowing is not enough. You have to understand what being a child of God really means, too. 

Do you remember the book, "You are Special?" I won't try to explain it too much since this is already way long and my emailing time is short, but it's about a group of small wooden people called Wemmicks who stick either gold stars or gray dots on one another every day. The pretty or talented ones always get stars. The "ugly" ones get gray dots. Eventually, the main character, Punchinello learns that if he doesn't care what people think, the dots and stars people stick on him will slide right off. But my whole life, I never understood why he couldn't just let the gold stars stick. But now it makes more sense to me. If he let the gold stars stick, he would still be letting what the world thought of him determine who he believed he was. That's exactly what I have done during my life; I've been lucky enough to be surrounded by people who have told me I am good. But I was relying on their opinion of me to keep my confidence up. In reality, it shouldn't matter what people say about you either way. That's not to say you can't accept a compliment gracefully, but whether it comes to you or not, to gain real self-esteem, you have to learn to be able to like yourself regardless of what others think of you. 

How? The answer is simple. In the book, Punchinello goes to see Eli, the man who carved him in the first place. He tells Eli he doesn't think he's any good, and neither does anyone else. And then Eli asks, "Do you think I made a mistake?" I think that's exactly what Heavenly Father would say to us if we were to tell him we didn't think were were any good. He made us exactly as we are, and none of us were mistakes. 

In D&C 18:10 it says, "The worth of souls is great in the sight of God." It doesn't say, "The worth of a soul is great in the sight of God if she is beautiful and a size 2 and has perfect hair and no zits and a clean house and is rich and has a great job and is athletic and artistic and good at everything." It simply says, "the worth of souls". Any soul. Your soul, my soul, any soul--no matter what. When we can see ourselves with that perspective, we can learn to have charity toward ourselves--pure Christ-like love. And guess what? When you learn to love yourself that way, it's a lot easier to love everybody else that way, too. 

So there's my thoughts on self-esteem. It doesn't mean I've gotten to that point of loving myself yet, but I'm working at it. Thanks to all you psycho people who took the time to read this thing. I hope it makes sense and I hope it will help you to look in the mirror and be a little bit kinder to the person looking back at you. 

Monday, October 27, 2014

I'm Still Alive

Remember that time I recommitted myself to taking care of my blog a little bit better?

Yep, that clearly didn't happen. 

In any case, I'm still alive and well! Sorry I haven't been great at keeping everyone updated on my life in the MJM. I tend to myself that more than likely no one's reading this thing anyway, so why bother? But to those of you who have been keeping up with my blog, I apologize for my neglect. 

So in a nutshell, here's what's been going on in the life of Sister Glenn! 

I'm still in Meridian, currently serving with Sister Harr! She'll be going home after this transfer though, which means I'll pretty much for sure be staying here till after Christmas, making this the longest area I'll have on my mission. We have a lot more sisters going home than are coming out currently, so Sister Harr and I are now the only sisters in our district! That's a first for me! It's pretty weird, especially when it's time to sing at district meetings o_O but it's a new adventure. Pretty sad to see some really good sisters going home, but that's life on the mission, I suppose! 

Well, that pretty much sums it all up. I'm not gonna try to get any more detailed than that. But here's how this week went! 

On Monday we went to see our investigator, Cynthia. Elder Zwick came to visit our mission a couple weeks ago and told us that if we had appointments every Monday evening our baptisms in this mission would double, so we've really been trying to fill our Mondays up and I can already see the blessings coming from it! Cynthia is awesome; the other sisters met her tracting and when their area was taken over by elders me and Sister Harr got to keep her! She's very humble and knows the gospel is important, so she's making it a priority. Unfortunately she and her family suffered a great loss last week, so Monday was very hard for her. We returned with the elders the next day and she received a blessing. The Spirit was very strong in the room and I think it made a difference. We've come back to see her a few more times this week and she seems to be doing better. 

We had the fall festival at the church on Saturday! It was so much fun, and Cynthia and her whole family made it!!! It made me so happy. They seemed to have a blast, too. Sister Harr and I came as elders...but a lot of people that we were trying to be students at Hogwarts! Ha ha, I guess that works too :P 

 

Oh, and this was my favorite costume of the night! This little guy came as a temple worker. His parents were going to dye it yellow and have him come as the Man in the Yellow Hat from Curious George, but the fabric wouldn't dye, so they did something different! 

Monday, September 15, 2014: Sometimes Doing What You Don't Want to Do Is the Best Thing for You

Good morning! 

I'm going to apologize in advance. This things is going to be long! But there's just so much to say about this week! I don't even know where to start! 

So first off, I hit my year mark this week! Woot! Pretty crazy that an entire year has already flown by. I got lucky because we had interviews that day, so we brought cake with us and got to celebrate with President and Sister McDonough! It was tons of fun. It's always so good to see those two. I feel very lucky to have the mission president (and president's wife) that I have. It has made all the difference on my mission. 

Just a few days before interviews, President had decided to change the music policies in our mission. Before, we were allowed to listen to anything uplifting that invites the Spirit. Now, we have been asked to listen to only what has been played in general conference--so talks, or what the Mormon Tabernacle Choir has sung, as long as it was sung in general conference. To some people that might not seem like a big deal. To me that's a huge sacrifice! I struggled to accept it when I first heard about it, but Sister White and I talked about it and both agreed we needed to be obedient, believing that if we were, the blessings would follow. 

Along with that, we left interviews with a renewed determination to find people to teach. We decided we needed to exercise our faith by making sure to get our seven hours of tracting in for the week. By Sunday we had two hours left. About a minute after we got dropped off in our area I turned to Sister White and said, "I'm not going to lie, I have no desire to tract right now." She said, "Me neither" but we didn't exactly have a way out of it with no vehicle (we'd loaned it to the other sisters for the day) and we were determined to get those seven hours in, so we continued on. 

We weren't very far in when we reached a nice, large house with a glass door. The man inside motioned for us to wait for one second. I don't know why, but when I saw him I thought, "This man is going to listen to us." I wasn't trying to convince myself, I just knew he would. He returned, opened the door for us, and before we even said anything invited us right in. Unfortunately we couldn't enter without a woman home, but he allowed us to share our message on the porch. The Spirit was so strong. We briefly shared the message of the restoration with him and then told him about the Book of Mormon. He said, "I need that book. How do I get a hold of one?" We told him he could have to one we were holding. Then he said, "It's interesting that you came today, because I was just praying to God to give me some direction in my life." We promised him that the gospel of Jesus Christ could give him that. And then I just opened my mouth and invited him to be baptized, and he said yes! I'm pretty sure I walked away from that door with my mouth on the floor. Of all the doors we've been knocking since I got to Meridian and all the people we've met, Timothy is absolutely the one we were meant to find. He's so prepared!

I think that experience alone taught  me a lot. First, it taught me to have a little more faith. Sometimes it's hard to tract in wealthy neighborhoods because I just think, "There's no way these people are going to listen to us anyway." But we found him! He seems to be pretty well off but he was humble enough to listen, anyway. Second, I learned that sometimes, we have to do things we don't want to do. I didn't feel like tracting right then. But I think that's Satan's way of trying to stop good things from happening. If we'd decided to skip it and just go home for a long nap, we might never have found Timothy. One of my favorite companions, Sister Parsons, said that her trainer would always say something along the lines of, "I don't want to _______. You know what that means? We have to _______." I thought of that as I was walking away from Timothy's door. It's completely true! Of course Satan is going to step in right as you're about to find the person you're supposed to find. 

 

Third, obedience always brings blessings. This brings me back to the music thing. I did not want to put my music away. Actually, sometimes I don't particularly want to go to bed at 10:30 or back my companion out of the parking lot or keep lunch under one hour or any of the rules we're asked to keep. But when we follow those rules, somehow, even though it might not make sense, it makes you happier, and it brings blessings! We committed to not listening to our music and we committed to seven hours of tracting and in return God gave us one of the most prepared people I have met on my mission! 

 

Sometimes, it seems like my mission is going by very slowly. It's times like these when I feel like it's going by way too fast! It's been a hard journey at times, but I'm going to be very sad when it's all over. 

Me with my "birthday" cakes! I looked at the picture afterward and was surprised--I thought I was seeing an older version of my sister Ellen!

A nasty spider we found while tracting. I couldn't seem to get a very good picture, probably because I wasn't about to get close to that thing! I thought it was really neat how it stitched its web up, though.

One day we woke up, and something very strange was happening--it was cold! Happiest day of my life! Cardigan weather! It was such a momentous occasion we had to take a picture. It's warmed up again since then but I'm looking forward to it cooling down soon! The worst of it is over!

Monday, September 8, 2014: Miracles

I'm convinced. We have found our golden area. 

It's not that we're finding a million baptism-ready investigators, per se. It's just that the people we tract into are just SO nice. It actually makes us excited to go tracting because we can't wait to find out who we're going to run into next! 

Here are the three biggest miracles we experienced this week. First, on Tuesday we went and knocked some doors. The third house we got to was a nice, big house with a gardener working outside, who directed us to the "woman of the house". We knocked on the door and an older lady (probably in her 60s) opened up. Well, in my head wealthy and old means there's no chance of getting let in, so I introduced ourselves and our message, expecting her to turn us away, but to my surprise she let us right in. Her husband was sitting in the front room and he welcomed warmly while his wife (Mrs. Thomas) went to get us some water. We sat down and had a good conversation with them. We talked a lot about their values and beliefs and about how the most important thing you can do in this life is love and serve your fellow men. That was a perfect lead in to the Book of Mormon for me--I opened up to my mom's favorite scripture, Mosiah 2:17, and talked about how when we're serving others, we're really only serving God. Then we shared with them what the Book of Mormon was and briefly summarized the restoration for them. We had to leave quicker than I would have liked because they had a repairman coming and he had arrived, but before we went Mrs. Thomas left the room, and returned with a carton of eggs from their own chickens, a loaf of homemade pear bread, and--my favorite--a loaf of homemade banana bread. She and Mr. Thomas said how much they appreciated us coming into their home and how we were doing wonderful work and we were a blessing to them just by knocking on their door. So nice! Who just gives complete strangers a whole sack of food? I was planning on leaving the Book of Mormon on the couch for them because I didn't want to push them to take it too much--but to my surprise Mrs. Thomas asked if she was going to get to keep it! Needless to say, Sister White and I left with our sack of goodies thinking, "Did that really just happen?" 

Second, here's the second half of the story I told in my last blog post. Remember the lady we left the familysearch card with and offered to come back and help organize her new home? (I'm going to call her Janet in this post) Well, on Thursday we returned, and it turned out to be her birthday! I was kind of surprised she didn't ask us to come a different day. But in any case, we arrived and she took us to McAllister's for lunch (that place is so good!) We ended up just talking with her for a good two hours! It was so sweet because she said we were her birthday gift--and she was the one paying for our lunch! She was just so happy to have us there with her. What was cool was we didn't really do any preaching since we already knew she wasn't interested, but when we got up to leave she said, "I feel so happy! It feels like I've been to church!" It's pretty neat that she can feel the Spirit just by being around us, without us even saying anything. It makes me think of the quote, "Preach the gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words." 

 

After that we went back to her house and helped her dejunk a bit, but really most of our time there was just spent talking, and I think more than anything that was what she needed! No worries, we will definitely be going back to help again sometime very soon :) 

Last miracle! (Sorry, I know this is forever long) On Wednesday we were tracting (still the same neighborhood) and we started up a driveway to another large house. I realized when we almost got there that the house was actually on a different street and we were going in through the side door, so we were about to turn around but just before we did a 16 year old boy (We'll call him John) came outside. Well, I always feel awkward talking to teens, for multiple reasons. So I quickly said who we were just to say it, and he started asking questions. A lot of them. We were there for probably an hour answering questions. This kid is crazy smart, and curious--which is good! After all, where would our religion be if a 14 year old boy had never thought to ask a question? 

What was cool too was his parents came outside a couple of times. I was waiting for them to tell us they'd found Jesus and shoo us away before they corrupted their son (one of the reasons I feel awkward when teens answer) but they just said "Hey" and told us we could go inside if we wanted to. Then later John said, "My family's not the traditional southern family, my mom claims Christian, Buddhist, and Hindu as their religion and my dad was a southern baptist, but they just think it's important that we have some sort of spirituality. What I'm saying is, they wouldn't care if I came to you church--and I want to learn more." Oh my heavens. My jaw must have been sitting on the floor! It seemed way too good to be true! Unfortunately I didn't have a Book of Mormon on me (I'd forgotten to replace the Book of Mormon I'd given to the Thomas family and I try to pack light on walking weeks) so we promised we'd come back and give him one. 

 

And we did! And his parents gave us some gatorade (which is a relief since I'm pretty sure I was gonna pass out) and we had another good talk with him about the Book of Mormon and the power it holds. I think he's more curious than anything but it's a really good start! He wasn't able to make it to church this week unfortunately but I think he will soon. 

I think sometimes I just have to have a little more faith! Lately I've been approaching doors expected to get rejected but this neighborhood is definitely showing me I can hope for more than that!  

Janet and I at McAllister's

Monday, September 1, 2014: Moving, and the Nicest Street I've Ever Found

Good morning! Happy labor day everyone! Aka, Happy (unhappy?) No Mail Day everyone...not that I mind having to wait an extra day for mail or anything... 

This week Sister White and I moved into our new apartment! I was sad to leave our townhouse--it was so nice--but being in a smaller, not quite as nice apartment will be worth it if it means we can be closer to our area. It was cool too because we'd only texted Brother Pierce about helping us move, but when I answered the door Saturday morning there were three or four priesthood holders there with their trucks, ready to help, as well as the elders, so moving didn't take very long at all. It's just kind of amazing to me how that works. It made me think of the times that my family has had to move, and how the ward has always been there to help us out. It's comforting to me to know that I have that support system, so if I ever needed help I would always have a group of people to turn to. 

We had kind of a cool experience this week. As I've probably said before, most of our area is more wealthy neighborhoods, and can probably guess how well tracting in those areas goes--so finding people can be pretty difficult. So I've been trying to think of some different finding ideas, and this week I decided to try something new. I ordered some family history pass along cards from the media center and planned to use them in place of the usualmormon.org cards we use. I figured they might not be interested in our message of the restoration, but what rich family wouldn't be proud of their heritage and want to learn more about their ancestors? At least we'd be able to spark their interest in something! 

 
And this was the result of my new idea! We went up to this pretty nice looking house and nobody answered the door so we started walking away, and my favorite thing of all time happened--the owner pulled into the driveway. That's the worst! So awkward! The lady rolled down her window and said the usual "Can I help you?" and we told her who we were, and she quickly turned us down. So then I mentioned the family search card I had left on her door. Immediately her interest was sparked! She said, "Oh yeah, you Mormons are all over that kind of stuff, huh? I would love to take a look and see what's on there!" And we just started having a really good conversation with her! We found out she'd just moved in because her husband had passed away and her other house was just too big for only herself and she was still working on dejunking her things. We offered to help and she accepted! Then she said, "If you ever need anything--call me. If you need a ride or you need food or anything, let me know!" She was totally serious too! Crazy, right? It was a pretty big turn around. So we're going back to help her on Thursday. I'm excited to see how that goes!

A few days before that, we had knocked on the door of a man who had already met a few elders before. He offered to let us in and give us some water, but there wasn't a woman home, so instead he let us sit on his porch and he brought some water to us. We had a good chat with him. He told us he had gone to medical school with Dr. Cronin, a man who just so happens to live in my last area! He said he knew he was a Mormon and he was always such a good guy and stuck to his standards no matter what. I had the same thing happen a few times in Clinton thanks to the same Dr. Cronin. He probably doesn't even realize how much of a difference he made by being a good example, but it made a difference to me! Even if they aren't interested in hearing our message right now, they at least know what Mormons are really like and that in itself is an accomplishment. 

In short, so far that street has been one of the nicest ones I've found on my mission, which I wasn't expecting! Can't wait to see who we meet next!

New Mailing Address

As of September 1st, this will be my new address! Love you all! 

3830 Poplar Springs Dr Apt D53

Meridian, MS 39305

Monday, August 18, 2014

Pioneer Children Sang as they Walked...and Walked...and Walked...and STILL Walked...

Oh. My. Heavens. I don't think I have ever done this much walking in my entire life! 

 

No-car weeks really do a number on you! Every day Sister White and I walked from the other sisters' apartment to our area, spent the day walking around that area, and then walked back. And then we'd wake up and do it all again! One thing's for sure, I slept really good this week! You know that phrase, "I was asleep before my head hit the pillow?" Yeah, that can actually happen if you're tired enough! 

But here's a little story to show how aware of us God really is. One day we were walking down the highway, coming back from working in our area, and we were both just dead tired. We'd tried calling everyone we could think of who might be willing to give us a ride, and none of them had answered. Just when we'd accepted the fact that we were going to have to suffer through and drag ourselves all the way back to the other sisters' apartment, a car stopped and the lady driving said, "Can I give you a ride? I'm a member, I just don't come to church because I always work on Sundays." We happily piled in and she took us home. She said she'd been driving the other way but she saw us walking the other way but she just had to turn around and get us because she knows how hot it gets and knew how tired we must be. We're pretty lucky she saw us! 

 

But besides all the walking we did this week, we also had zone conference! Woot! I got to be reunited once again with my dear sweet Sister Dailey! *sob* I miss that girl so much! Who knows when we'll be seeing each other again. I also got to hear the goodbye testimonies of some very good friends. I'm getting to the point where a lot of my mission friends are starting to go home. It's happy but so sad too! That's one of the hardest things about a mission. You think the goodbyes stop at the MTC but that's completely untrue! You're saying goodbye to more and more people you've grown to love all the time! But I suppose when it comes down to it, it's all worth it. Your heart just keeps learning to get bigger and bigger to make room for all the new people you're growing to love. That's a good feeling, and it (almost) makes up for the goodbyes. 

Oh! And I finally got to go Mugshots this week! I heard about it from Sister Parsons way back when I was in Picayune. They've got this HUGE burger there where if you eat it in 12 minutes, you don't have to pay. Yeah, I didn't try it. But I did get the Kahuna burger! It was a hamburger with fried pineapple and barbecue sauce on it. It was so good! 

Here's a picture of the Kahuna burger, as well as a raccoon that came to a member's house we were visiting to get some food. (Yes, she feeds the raccoons--I was pretty surprised myself) the pictures not very good which is too bad cause we could see the little guy really well! 

Monday, August 11, 2014

Dear Family and Friends, 

You should all be really proud of me right now. 

I almost wasn't going to put up a blog post this week...but I reminded myself that I had promised to do better about keeping up with this thing, so I decided I'd better not fail this early on! 

Mostly I'd considered skipping it this week because not much missionary work really got done. No worries, I'm not slacking off. But I was sick for the past three days. Yeah. THREE DAYS. Do you know how long that is when you're on a mission? That's like a million years in NPS (Normal People Standard) Time! No TV, no books, no loving mother to fluff your pillow for you, nothing. You gotta get creative when you're a missionary and you're still sick, but you've slept so long you can't sleep anymore. 

 

In other words, the second half of this week involved a lot of writing, card playing, listening to the thunder storms outside (Side note--it rained all weekend! God loves me; he decided to save the crazy storm for when I couldn't work anyway--and thank goodness I didn't have to! It was crazy out there. We had lightning strike so close I swear I felt it, and then our smoke detector went off. Kind of odd) and tallying up how many times I was told how pale I looked. I just told them I always look that way and they must have just noticed :P 

 

But it wasn't too bad. One of the nice things about being sick on the mish is you realize how aware of you people are. A bunch of people in the ward texted us and asked if there was anything I needed and I had the other missionaries taking care of me too. It's pretty cool because as a missionary you sometimes feel so unnoticed and unwanted (I think it comes from getting doors slammed in your face X amount of times) but God always slips in little reminders that you are loved by Him and by others. Sometimes He decides to have you be sick so He can show you, but if that's the way He wanted it then I guess it's okay. 

 

Oh, and did I mention during those three days (and more) we had the other sister missionaries living with us? Their air conditioner decided to give out last week. In the middle of August?! Yikes! Let me tell you, fellow Utahns, we don't know what real heat is like. We don't have any idea how it feels to be standing there dripping sweat and honestly feeling like you can't breathe because it's so hot! Needless to say one afternoon eating lunch at their apartment was enough to make us take pity on their souls and let them move in for a bit. I know I grew up with four sisters, but I gotta say, the estrogen levels in that apartment were way too high after that ordeal! And our food supply is definitely much lower than I intended it to be! Looks like it's gonna be ramen noodles every night by the end of this month for this poor missionary...but it was fun. I think having other people there definitely made the time go faster. My sista from anotha mista and I were definitely happy to be sleeping in an apartment to ourselves last night, though! 

All in all, can't wait to get back to work this week. :) 

Hallelujah holla back, 
 
Sista Glenn

Monday, July 28, 2014: My New Catch Phrase is "Only One August"

 This week was me and Sister White's first week without a car in a Meridian. And let me tell you, it was quite the experience! I didn't realize how utterly spoiled I was in Picayune. It might have been a car share, but the town was as flat as it could possibly be and we were smack dab in the middle of our area! If I ever complained about not having a car there I was simply being a baby. 

Here in Meridian, these are the difficulties we're trying to overcome: 1) Our apartment is all the way out in China and it's off a freeway, so the possibilities of us biking to our area is a bit unlikely, and 2) Even if we could bike to our area, we would probably end up walking our bikes up all the staggering hills. So let this be a lesson to all of you. Don't complain about your situation! I complained about the baby hills that were in Clinton and so God said, "Okay, Sister Glenn. If you're going to be a Negative Nancy I'll let you experience what REAL hills are like!" 

Heavens. My mission has taught me so much. 

So this week, we pretty much walked! A lot. In fact I'm fairly certain I have never walked so much in my entirely life. We usually managed to catch rides to a certain point, such as the other sisters' apartment, and from there were would walk about four miles to our area. Then we would work are are for the time that we had, and then we would walk the four miles back and get a ride home. I got excited a couple of times at the end of the day because it looked like my feet and legs had actually gotten tan. Turns out it was just dirt. I think I'm doomed to be an albino forever. 

That's not to say that I did feel the wrath of the sun at least a little bit, though. I think for the first time in my life I sunburned my neck because my hair has been piled on top of my head (I can't do anything with it these days) so that's fun. 

Ever since I've come out on my mission I've had people talk about Mississippi summers and how deathly hot and humid and miserable they are. And...I'm starting to think they were right! It's not like Utah where you can find some shade and stay relatively cool. Our ward had a Pioneer Day Activity on Saturday and sitting under the pavilion it was still hot! You just can't escape it! I don't think I've ever been so sweaty. But I've always told myself if I can get through the summer of my mission, I can get through the whole thing. So seeing as we're quickly approaching the worst of it (August) I keep telling myself as we're trudging down the road and I can feel sweat dripping in places it shouldn't, "Only one August! If you can do this you'll never have to do it again!" 

It's just good that there are kind Christian people in the south who have kept me from melting thus far. For example, yesterday Sister White and I were tracting, and we knocked on a door that opened a minute later and the man inside handed us both a bottle of cold water. He said, "I know about your church already and I'm not interested, but I hope you have a good day and don't get too hot." Kindest rejection I've ever had! 

P.S., I apologize to those who are still keeping up with my blog for being a bit...soulless in my posts as of late! I've made it my goal to be better so this thing actually stays interesting. I'll be better! Promise!

One of the members brought a log and a two-man saw for the pioneer day activity. We missionaries had a go at it, but we didn't get very far. Legacy makes it look so much easier than it actually is! My job was to keep it still...but don't be deceived! That's a lot harder than it looks!

Monday, July 21, 2014: First Week in Meridian

Good morning! 

This week has been really good! I'm liking Meridian a lot, although I'm still adjusting to the fact that I'm now in my fourth area on the mission. Pretty weird. I'm thinking I'll only have one area after this and then I'll be finished! unless President plans to keep me in an area for only one transfer from now on, in which case I've got a few to go. :P

But I think Meridian will be good for me! The ward is a little smaller than the ones I've been in in the past but it's kind of fun that way. And I love Sister White! I think we'll get along just fine. She's the sort of person who's pretty chill about everything so she's pretty easy to work with. She only came out six weeks after than me too, so we're pretty close in mission age. 

I'm wondering if every week here will be as different as this one was. We were doing a lot of service this week, and there were transfers, and I was sick for half of it, so overall it was kind of interesting. 

Tuesday--Transfers! I said my goodbyes to Sister Cook and Sister Hansen (and Sister Dailey--she's so far away from me now! *sob*) and headed off to Meridian! There really wasn't much time left in our P-Day by the time we got here so we had lunch, did a little more emailing, and grocery shopped. Then we had dinner at the Bryants and helped load some food storage boxes into the Slaughter's (Bishop's family) home. Bahaha. They're a funny family. When I shook Bishop's hand he greeted me and said, "Welcome to the Slaughter house." Very clever. :)

Wednesday--We had district meeting and then went to the Slaughters to help sort the food storage. Just a little back story for you: the Mitchells, a family in the ward who are in the process of moving (more about that later too) had a ton of food storage boxes they wouldn't be able to fit in their trailer, so they donated it to the ward, and Bishop selected twelve families to give some of the boxes too. So we spent the afternoon working out what was going with who and pushing boxes back and forth and whatnot and learning about all the weird food storage stuff you can get from the church. Did anyone else know you can get dehydrated tuna/sausage for your food storage? I sure didn't. Oh, and we stole some of the good stuff for ourselves. The hot cocoa mix is really good :) 

Thursday--We tracted and tried potentials for a long time. We currently don't have too many investigators; Meridian has a ton of less-actives though so that's kind of what the bishop has wanted us to focus on a lot. That evening we had dinner with the Blaylocks. I think I'm going to like that family a lot. Sister Blaylock is really cool; she went to school for deaf education, which I'm planning on going into, but ended up going the speech pathology route instead (which I've also considered) so we had a good conversation with that. She's also into pottery, which is one form of art I've never gotten to try before but have always kind of wanted to! She says one P-Day she's gonna show us how which I'm pumped for! 

Friday--My throat had been a little scratchy on Wednesday and Thursday, but I woke up on Friday with my throat so sore I could barely swallow or talk. Not too surprising, since that happens to me about a million times a year. I got ready and did my personal study but ended up forgoing weekly planning and going back to bed. That afternoon we went the Slaughters to deliver the food storage to a few families and then they fed us dinner. They take good care of us; it seems like every time we leave their house we always come home with more food! 

Saturday--We set our morning aside to help Sister Mitchell out. See, the Mitchells are wanting to move to Panama City (not sure why exactly) but they're not able to move there yet and they've already sold their house, so their moving temporarily to a trailer where they can live month to month until they're able to move to Panama City. So we spent a lot of Saturday helping Sister Mitchell clean out her pantry. It was lots of fun, and we managed to acquire a good amount of food out of it for ourselves, too. I'm pretty sure we're set as far as food goes for a while. 

Sunday--First Sunday in a new ward! Those are always fun. A small young family who has moved down from Arkansas came to church seeking some help, so after church Sister White and I had the opportunity to go with Sister Caraway, the relief society president, to get some of the things they needed. Kind of a different Sunday, but fun. And pretty neat to see how the church welfare system works and what goes on "behind the scenes" and stuff. Then we went to the Slaughter's for dinner and talked to some of the youth about the role they play in missionary work--which I love to do! I feel like the youth have so many opportunities to do missionary work in their regular lives and it's something I wish I would have done more of when I was younger so I love getting them excited about it. 

And...that's my week! No pictures this time I'm afraid. Next time for sure :) 

I realized something interesting about myself this week. As I've been making conversation with Sister White, I realized that most of the stories I tell her have to do with Clinton, Red Star (LOTS of Red Star) Picayune, and my companions. I talk a lot more now about my mission experiences than my home life because, well...that was forever and doesn't seem very real anymore! it sort of a weird feeling but it's good, too. It makes me feel like I've been out long enough and I've had enough experiences that I know what I'm doing a little better than I used to :)