Pictures

October 14

Hello everybody!   
     This week was kind of a crazy roller coaster week (ok I feel like that actually might be like every week on my mission). We car share with the Elders in Newton-Conover, the area right next to Hickory, and so it was there turn and we were on bikes. If you can help it, never ride a bike in a skirt. Luckily, I had the thought to pack some safety pins in my suitcase. There are many, many hills in Hickory so I sure am getting my leg workout especially with the 30 miles we put in and that was just 3 days. Sister Whitmer and I have been chased by 4 dogs so far, even though supposedly there is a rule about leashing them within the city limits. Seems like everyone here owns a dog. I can say that I dislike dogs more so now than ever before and I will never, ever own one. Other than the crazy four-legged beasts that chase us down, I don't mind the biking and can enjoy it. The elders in our ward are zone leaders so they have a car pretty much all the time, and I feel sort of bad because the ward members keep giving them a hard time about us being on bikes and in the dark on the busy roads. Except the elders can't do anything about it since we're not assigned to that car and if they could they'd hand the car over to us in a moment. Oh well, that's how the southern people are, wanting to respect women.

     Well, we have a couple of investigators but they're not really following invitations or commitments right now. One of them even practically invited herself to attend church before we could but for some reason didn't show up. And that little family I wrote about in my last email? We went back for a second visit and they weren't there and the girl who was, said she didn't know where they were exactly, but I think she really did. Now we'll have to find them and I hope we can because the boy showed a lot of interest that night and I think he probably felt the Holy Ghost at least a little. All three of them need the gospel.

So we're just left with a lot of finding new investigators and finding less-actives to visit. It's hard stuff - just knocking on doors, most people not answering and then the few who do open tell you they don't want to hear anything cause they're Baptist or whatever church or they are just so comfortable in their ways they don't want to give up their lifestyle now to change. I am doing my best to keep positive though, and I knew it would be this way, so hopefully I can learn to put more faith in the Lord and improve my prayers.

    This weekend, Sister Whitmer and I did have a fun opportunity. Every year, Hickory has Octoberfest and our ward sets up a booth there. We have pamphlets, pass a long cards, and family proclamations to hand out. Also the patrons can order posters of Christ (like the picture with Him knocking at the door, Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemene, appearing to Mary at the tomb, etc) and we'll have missionaries deliver it to them. I think we got lucky because we didn't run into anyone during our shift trying to give us a hard time, people were very kind. Also, I got some deep-fried oreos! They were yummy but most definitely not anywhere near healthy, but I had to try it while I had the chance. There were other vendors there and other religious denominations trying to raise funds for things and what not. Oh and guess what? We passed by a street preacher there. I have never in my life seen one except in a Joseph Smith movie haha, and there he was shaking his Bible in the air and screaming at the top of his lungs hellfire and damnation stuff. Literally, I thought he would lose his voice within 10 min. There were a couple others standing to the side too and Sister Whitmer said when we walked by they were just glaring us down, I didn't see them though. We met this sweet lady on sitting on her porch before she was going to Bible study and we got to talking with her a little about our favorite parts of the New Testament. Before we left we asked if we could pray with her and she agreed. You know sometimes when people say grace and they all hold hands? That's what she did with us and while Sister Whitmer was saying the prayer, this lady kept saying "amen"s and "praise the lord"s and I think even a "hallelujah". She sure was sweet and very kind. Definitely this is different culture than back home in Utah.

    Sunday evening, the elders and we were invited to the wards youth fireside that night. They asked if we would do kind of a missionary Q&A panel. The youth had some great questions and it was great to get to know some of them and hopefully now they'll feel like they know us and will want to come out on team visits with us.

    I think that is about it for this week. Thanks for the prayers and I will keep on praying for y'all! Tell everyone thank you for the letters I enjoyed reading them.

Love,

Sister Amelia Rust

First week In-field

Hello All!

I arrived safely in North Carolina on Monday and we all stayed overnight at the mission home for transfers on Tuesday. I have a picture of the missionaries who flew out to Charlotte that day that I'll attach to this email and a couple pictures of me with Kelsey too. By the way, so I sang on Saturday at the Relief Society broadcast and that was a really great experience. However, I don't think my face made it on camera (kind of a good and dissapointing thing). When they show the whole choir though I can point out exactly which one is me. Oh well, how many people get the neat experience to sit and sing where the Mormon Tabernacle Choir does? And not many people get to see the back of the prophets head during his talk haha. ;)

This week has been great. My trainer is Sister Whitmer and she is very fun and sweet so we get along well. We were assigned to Hickory which hasn't had sister missionaries in a number of years, so it's kind of like we're opening an area I guess. Brother and Sister Nielsen picked us up from Charlotte and drove us to Hickory. On the way there though the bike rack we had broke and my bike ended up dragged a little bit on the highway before we could pull over. It ended up wearing a big hole right through the tire. So I haven't even used my new bike yet, it's at the shop being repaired and I have a church loaner bike. I am just grateful the bikes didn't entirely come off and hit the car behind us. Sister Whitmer and I were positive about the whole thing though and we figure we'll have lots more adventures like that. :) The roads here are crazy and probably in Hickory they are the craziest in the whole state even with a GPS. I have never been more grateful for Brigham Young setting up the grid system back west at home. The members we have met so far (which isn't much because of Conference weekend) are very excited to have sisters again. Oh and they found out that we both like to sing so we've already practically been recruited to their choir. When I got here I just kind of jumped right into missionary work, there really isn't another way to do it. I have only been out a week and already I've taught lessons, door contacted, and we even have someone committed to baptism. Last night we were on our way to an appointment we tracted into on Friday, but he wasn't home. So our back-up plan was to stop by someone we saw in the area book. Well the address wasn't right or something, so we only had a little bit of time left and decided to just knock around the apts. the address had taken us to. We found a sweet family, mother, daughter and son, who let us in. Turns out they had a dear family member pass away just last month so we bore testimony that they would get to see him again and they agreed to pray and read the Book of Mormon together. We go back to see them tomorrow and we'll teach more about the Plan of Salvation. It was really neat to have been led to that family. That's one of the things about missionary work that I am learning and seeing unfold: you study and prepare to teach but you got to be open to the Spirit's promptings because what you originally have in mind might not be what they need to hear at that time so you take courage to let go of your outlined plans and follow the Holy Ghost. It absolutely happens and works, but I have to be willing to stop taking counsel from my fears and start taking counsel from my faith. Anyway, Sister Whitmer and I are excited about this family because just the night before we decided we wanted and prayed for to find a family we could help get to baptism and eventually temple covenants and then we found this family! President and Sister Craven call Charlotte, NC the mission of miracles and I know it will be.

Well, that's about all that has happened this week other than settling into our apartment. I hope to hear from y'all and feel free to write snail mail too. :) By the way I sent a card with our address on it, but I realized it was wrong. Our REAL address is 1209 5th St NE #240 Hickory, NC 28601.