bursting with stories!!

louisiana <3

let me tell you some miracles about committing to change, making goals, and adding God in the equation.

+ a few thousand stories



so last monday's adventure we went to AVERY ISLAND

 and the tabasco factory!! it was so cool.

me and manuma in 4 months in hawaii #shaka

the tabasco crew with life size tabasco!

CRAWFISH FESTIVAL YALLLLLL!!! festival #3

zydeco music and cajun dancers!

this couple was my faaaaave <3

and fried food

yessssss

ooooooo more lil shops

I TRIED FROG LEGS. 

dont let the smiles deceive you... afterward we weren't smiling. #ew



do you like my shot at being artsy??



















gift shop. my girl sis kez has a polaroid and we have lots o fun!

so lets just say... that we have had cool investigators just drop into our laps since I've been in lafayette. we have had tons of people to follow up with and see and teach so our days have been really full!



the last.. probably 2 weeks things have been slowing down dramatically. 

but woooowwww the motivation to go finding has be way loooowwww. 

that doesnt mean we didn't do it!! bc we did.

it just means that our hearts were not in it and we really didn't want to. aka it was going to be useless

 

one day we thought we deserved some BR yessssss first time in 17+ months

this week started a new month and exactly one month til transfers. anything can happen this month. 

you just gotta make it happen. 

so we set goals and made commitments about what kind of missionaries we wanted to be for this month and how we were going to get there and how we were going to hold each other accountable and DO GOOD STUFF. 

and the greatest part is that we added God into all the mix. 

we asked ourselves why do we want to do this. 

what is our motivation? 

bc we want to be servants of God. 

we want to be His instruments in this laffy area. 

that we want to be molded and changed by Him.

and then we asked for His help! 

we set goals, committed ourselves to them, and then prayed for His help. 

 

and guess what. 

so far we have seen many miracles. 

 

one goal was that when we were planning for the day we were going to have a set aside hour for finding. no. matter. what. we weren't going to let anything get in the way (unless the spirit says otherwise of course)

but its really easy to set a time to find and then oh hey this came up or we can go see this person instead or stay with someone that takes up our finding time and just go later. 

not anymore. 

that makes it difficult for Heavenly Father to make sure the people He has prepared for us are going to be where we are!

so now we have an appointment with finding. 

we have done this twice so far, friday and sunday, and both of those times we found someone. FROM TRACTING. and they are now investigators. :')

thank you heavenly father.

 

investigator #1: JADE

on friday we went tracting in a members neighborhood. (this always helps so you have somewhere to park your car with an easy conscience that you wont come back with an angry elf ready to blow at you for where you parked)

annnnyyywayys. every missionary has their own knocking pattern. mine is to knock one side of the street then when you're walking back you knock the other side. 

for some random reason we decided to mess up our knocking pattern and go to a different street, and different side of the road.. it doesn't really sound like a big deal but it was out of the norm for us. #divine 

so we go to this house and I notice it and point it out because it has tibetan prayer flags which is unusual and sis ferre says that she is getting a prompting that we should knock it. so of course. we knock.

Jade answers.

she's surprised to see us and we are just as surprised to see her! she was wrapped up in nothing but a towel, because she was in the tub and thought that her son was at the door bc he was locked out. 

So we are having a conversation with her while she is wrapped up in a towel. we talk to her about what we are doing, what she does (fun fact: she's beautiful and is kinda famous? idk she met martha stewart so i think she's famous.) check her out: http://jaderbomb.com/   <this is seriously her!

another fun fact: she's genuinely interested. she told us that right before we knocked on her door, she was in the tub she was praying to God, telling him how hard life is for her right now. she didn't go into much but she's having a rough minute right now :( so she thought that it was interesting that we knocked on her door right at that moment. #DIVINE

before we could ask her for her number, she gave us her business card with her information on it. aka a reeeeal phone #! then she asked us if we had a book or something for her to read, so we gave her the Restoration pamphlet. she told us that she was going to go and read while she was in the tub, and that we could come back another day. 

#findingmiracles #bewhereyousayyouaregoingtobe #committed

 

investigator #2: JOSH

sunday we committed to go finding right after church. 

and we have about 15 minutes left before we go home to go study. 

we are knocking in our knock pattern and we knock on this door and a little boy runs up to the door and looks out the window at us. we were surprised bc this is an old neighborhood.. not many families. but we met Josh and his 3 yr old son and yr old daughter. they are precious. 

we end up talking to him for 2 hours. no exaggeration. we sat on his porch and talked to him about the restoration and differences in our religion and others. he's not super interested in changing but he is intrigued by missionary work and other aspects. 

he invited us back for not next, but next sunday!

 

other miracles:

Saturday was a crazy busy lots of appointments and stuff to do, one of them including going to walmart to pick up some melting chocolate for a treat we made for one of our investigators. we only stopped in there for a moment and was talking to the cashier about who we were and were then headed on our way when a lady overheard our conversation and knows the elders! they volunteer for her daughter's business so they are familiar with them but hadn't met the 'ladies' yet. (hahaha people are so amazed that there are girl mormons) so we chatted with her for about 20 minutes in the middle of walmart as she told us her experience as an apostolic(pentecostal) and how she 'escaped' and her life now and everything. she's not interested in being mormon but she loves the missionaries and is intrigued!

but we finally had to part ways, and she wants to have us over for dinner, so we got her contact info and gave her a pass along card with our names and number on it. 

literally as I am typing this, SHE TEXTED US. FIRST. and wants us over for dinner! (as mentioned below we are having to double book next friday (OVER A WEEK AWAY) to make it work with our schedules. lol whaaaat.)

JUST NOW INCOMING TEXT: from ms. lynn "I visited your website (mormon.org) to check out talks on faith. I may order that book, just to check it out" 

what book was that?

OH YA KNOW THE MORMON BOOK. AKA THE BOOK OF MORMON!

WHAT. IS. LIFE. 

WHAT. IS. MIRACLES.



hanging around :) ft the gorgeous oak trees



we tried for like.... 20 minutes to get a jumping pic.... and this is the best we got. lol #fail

adventurers!

we met some friends! aka previous mission couple who live here The Jensens <3

swamp land

gator country



#FEARLESSSSS #jkwasntevenscared

there is also a jungle gardens driving tour 

and we saw some baby gators!!

well. the summer sales crowd selling vivint and ADT are still coming in like its HOT. aka so many young families!! and that means that our dinner calendar is BOOMING. we dont have an open spot for dinner until May 20th and to make it work with some people and then investigators or less actives who always have meals for us when we have lessons we are getting double and triple booked.... whaaaat. #bigmiracle #gotfed3timesyesterday

 

as mentioned above, summer sales families and couples and individuals are flooooding our building. it is bursting! we have to start opening the second overflow. so every sunday its really over whelming trying to figure out who are people from the ward that I'm still trying to memorize and differentiate them from summer sales people and then still try and meet the billion summer sales people and help make them feel welcome. we get there 30 minutes before the meeting starts and its still not enough time to meet/talk all the people i need to! so priorities are set. 

1. investigators/less actives

2. members 

3. summer sales people

well as I was walking around the chapel I noticed this mid-late 20's looking guy sitting by himself. He looked like a member! nice white shirt, tie, slacks, dress shoes. (not normal investigator clothes) could have been a summer sales guy. (number 3 on priorities) but I knew I had to talk to him. something was different. So I introduced myself, got talking to him. 

Meet Andrew. he has never ever been to or heard of our church before but decided to come to our church today. he just found it online and showed up! he is going to UL (university of louisiana lafayette) grew up catholic, but hasn't been christian for the last 10 years, he doesn't believe in the bible. but he came to our church today! whooooooooaaaaa



and some nice la views ft the elders car + bike rack #missionlife

and we found a buddha and tried to be cuuuuute

other stories:

another fast & testimony meeting aka OPEN MIC DAY in louisiana. 

so ya know.. being a missionary in louisiana has brought a whole new meaning to testimony meeting. you never know what is going to happen or what will be said. 

usually i just sit back and enjoy meetings and try to get something out of the rambles and rants and several good testimonies. but this particular meeting we had 2 investigators there that are very important to us. very. +++++ andrew the researching nonmember!!! and the spanish elders had 3 investigators + a less active there. 

so lafayette is an amazing ward i wasn't too worried about open mic day. 

but of course. i guess heavenly father wanted to test every bodies faith. 



awwwww

..............

well sad news we are running out of time so I will have to tell yall on mothers day!!! woot woot! 



one of our members warning us. (we had alot of homies looking out for us)

 

Wednesday this week we had a crazy bad storm. we weren't allowed to leave our apartment ALLL DAY LONG. which is a party until the cabin fever sets in... a;lserijf;lsdk then you go a lil stir crazy. 

but we were under severe thunderstorms and tornado warnings and everything. the sky turned green a couple of times but no hail so no tornado over here. #whew #closecall

when we were studying that morning though, it was raining more than buckets and it was lightning strike after lightning strike and a constant rumble of thunder. 

here we are reading our scriptures when everything goes white and there is a GIANT booooooom of thunder so loud and so strong it shook the entire apartment and i swear entered into my soul and shook my brain. 

lightning struck the car directly outside our window!!!!!!! IT WAS INSANE. the strike shook the whiteboard and my calendar and other things right off the walls and i think me and sister ferre went deaf for several moments after. honest to goodness, i fell out of my seat bc it scared me so bad. we started laughing bc otherwise we would have cried. i shed 2 tears out of shock maybe?? haha the car has scorch marks on it and we are blessed to be alive. 



STORM DAYYYYYY

what time do you think it is?? its definitely noon that looks like 8pm. 

ft our whiteboard that got knocked around from the booooom!

yep. its noon. ????

wooowwww well I hope yall kinda see how life is here in laffy town! its pretty spectacular.

i love god so much. he's always looking out for us :)

love yall and talk to you sooon!

happy soon to be mothers day!

xoxoxoxoxooxoxox

sister sades