Sister Neel 4/12/21

found this while tracting ;))

What a week! 

I don't think I've ever had a stronger attitude to find people than this week. Sister Larsen and I spent double the amount of time Facebook tracting and cold calling. We finally found a prefix and area code that matches to our own and doesn't end up being landlines! Most of the people that answered were genuinely interested in hearing a scripture and wanted to meet with us again. Which was a huge turn around from the other cold calls we did! We found a few golden people who live outside our area but are excited for the few that we just added to our teaching pool! Speaking of which we weren't able to teach a whole lot of lessons this week. Most of them fell through.. again XD. Sometimes it's so hard but we keep the faith and re schedule! 

Update on Jaw: he's working two jobs and is trying to help his wife learn English and get a driver's license which makes it difficult to meet with him but late at night he'll watch gospel discussion lessons in the Karen language put on by other missionaries and he learns a lot! We are hoping that once he gets back from his vacation we can finally meet him in person! Update with Eddie: he too works a lot and in his spare time likes to go spend it with his son. We keep in contact almost daily by either sharing scriptures or inspiring stories that happened. He is progressing really well and continues to read the Book of Mormon. We plan on meeting with him this week as well! Update on Mike: he's been really sick lately but would still like us to drop off a Book of Mormon and give him a lesson. He hasn't brought up his pastor being there yet so we are hopeful haha! Other than that we've gotten in contact with a lot of less active people and are planning times to drop by and give service or plan a lesson and we are shocked at how many are more than open to do so! That will for sure keep us busy this week. 

We have Sunday ward correlation meetings and our ward mission leader is so on board with getting member referrals for us. Our video we made ended up being a huge success with our members and it inspired many of them to share the gospel! We already have 5 new people interested in hearing from us which is huge! They are on fire! Brother Day and Brother Huff thought it would be a good idea if they made a YouTube channel, run by our tech guy in our ward and we post content for members that will be shared to their friends. There's a man in our ward named Brother Garcia who actually has a whole camera set and filming crew that he wants us to use while we create our content for the ward and even for our new mission Facebook page that was launched! (Which you should go give a follow! It's on my page!) We are excited with how eager our ward is to bring souls to Christ! 

We had a pretty interesting experience this week. Each Friday we serve at Restored Habitat and each Friday the same pastor 'happens to be there.' The first week he approached us first after he noticed our badges and wanted to let us know he's neighbors with a bishop in our stake. The second week he was there again, same time we were after finding out our service hours and was 'shocked to see us again.' He asked how long we would be serving here in NC and kept making sure we wouldn't stay in the same place for too long. The third week, sister Larsen and I were putting out new books when we saw him watching us over by the tool section. When we made eye contact he quickly pretended to shop around. We left the books and were hanging frames when he made his way over to the books and pretended to hide his face in one while glancing at us often. He then happened to run into us and reiterated how long we would be staying here for and what our purpose was. He let us know he had talked to the Elders in Chapel Hill about us and even Bishop Lee wanting to know more about our service. He seems very passionate about us being fed by Bishop Lee which is strange because he's not even in our area. We asked him how close of contact he had with Bishop Lee and if they had done any gospel studies together which he laughed at. We told him there was no problem with studying other religions and keeping an open mind to other opinions which put him in his place XD when he walked away he leaned against a table to send a text and when we walked past him it was a picture of us he was sending to Bishop Lee. So weird and creepy!! He's a very friendly man but has some very odd intentions. He never buys anything, just happens to be there every Friday when we are and he lives pretty far from Hillsborough. This time, he hung around until it was time for us to leave and walked out shortly after we did. We didn't feel comfortable going to our car so we went into other stores to look around waiting for him to leave. 20 minutes later after leaving a boutique he had just barely pulled out of the parking lot. So creepy! Next week if we see him again, we are gonna call him out cause 4 times in a row is no accident. Anyone else been stalked by a pastor? XD if so give some tips cause man this is weird XD

Our zone had interviews with President and Sister Maurer which went really well. They are such amazing and genuine people who love their missionaries, the NCRM is so blessed! I'm grateful for the opportunity to serve and the growth that is taking place in me. Missionary work is anything but easy. I was telling President Maurer I least expected a hard area right off the bat but the Lord teaches that "by small and simple things are great things brought to pass." I firmly believe that! Hillsborough has taught me more about myself and the things that I can handle. I'm growing so much! I'm grateful for my Savior Jesus Christ, for helping me see that anything and everything is worth it. I can confidently say the GOSPEL IS WORTH IT! 

I love you all!! 

♡♡♡

Sister Neel