Sister Neel 4/24/21

 

Zone Conference

Hello everyone!! 

If y'all haven't heard, my new area is LITTLE WASHINGTON!!!! And no I did not move states, there's actually a city in North Carolina called Washington;)) but your girl made it to the coast and is loving every minute of it!! For those of you that don't know, I wanted to serve a mission where I could see the ocean or at least be near the water. God gave me that wish for my second area and I'm not sure I'll ever be able to leave! It's BEAUTIFUL here!! This town is like a beach town. Oyster and crab shops galore, boat lots, the smell of sea air is very prevalent, lots of people ride bright neon bikes to get around, downtown Washington looks like the 50s time period and jazz music is always playing, they have a town square where a bell plays music every hour, you can always hear the bells ringing from the harbor where the boats pull in and every store has white lights strung up outside. Such a cute beach town! Our house is even beach themed! It was built in the late 1800s and has seashells and ocean plants galore. I'm in heaven! 

My new comp is Sister Crockett and holy moly do I love her!! One of the most down to earth, genuine and loving people I have ever met. I keep getting comps that are like my other half but Sister Crockett is something else and we're already the closest of friends! She's a split STL meaning the other STL in our zone has a different companion as well. Why do they do that? I'm not sure but I get the inside scoop on the mission and get to go to MLC!! Woot woot! We are also white washing the area and just like last time, none of the people the previous sisters taught want to reach out to us. Interestingly enough, there haven't been sisters in Washington for a few weeks because they both went home unexpectedly so everyone is SO excited to have us back. I think that's another reason why their teaching pool is drained because they lost contact with the missionaries for a while. So it's back to level 0 and on the grind to find! We've been told Washington is a difficult area but that's nothing we can't fix ;)) we are pumped to work hard and live up Sister Crockett's last 9 weeks before she goes home! 

Washington has a branch and it is TINY. 85% of the members are 60 and older which means most of them stay home to watch church over zoom due to covid. President Wilson, the Branch President, took us out for dinner on Wednesday and explained that they only get about 15 people to church each week. Well...that was confirmed when we got to church yesterday and only saw 5 couples and one family XD because of how small they are the young women's president asked us to be her counselors (to the whole 2 young women we have XD) and I was assigned to be the branch chorister XD which im not good at but this should be fun. President Wilson had us bear our testimonies and afterwards the members swarmed us with excitement to serve with us. So sweet! We also had second hour church, which I haven't been to in over a year! They held it outside in the forest and Sister Crockett and I were able to teach the Sunday school lesson! It's nice cause out here not very many people care about covid so the restrictions aren't bad. Even though most members don't come to church they have no problem with us coming inside XD. We are assigned a member dinner each week which means we get fed by the same 7 people. Kinda fun cause then it helps us get to know these couples all the better! This area has some serious work to be done and Sister Crockett and I feel honored President placed us here :))

We were able to have a few lessons this week. One with Rita who is a former. She has a copy of the BOM and has been taught the restoration but it's been a while. We got in contact with her, she talked our ear off for a solid hour and then we read from the BOM with her. She wants to continue reading which is huge! We also met Charles who loves and adores the missionaries. He has a lot of specific trials he's going through and hopes to find peace through the gospel. We meet with him on Wednesday. We met Sister Milan, a lady from the branch and she is Tina Marie 2.0 XD. All about missionary work, very southern, has the missionaries over for food and service a few times a week, calls us to see how we're doing and acts like our mom. She too has very severe health issues and has to be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life but her faith is huge! We did a pass off lesson with the Greenville Elders with a guy named Hector. We were all able to teach a portion of the restoration and man was that a beautiful experience! The spirit was evident and Hector was riveted on each word we spoke. We are excited to meet with him this week to go over his reading in the BOM! 

I know my emails are always a beast but it's just because there's so much that has to be shared! Lastly, we had zone conference this week and the Mauers highlighted that we as missionaries need to be ALL IN when it comes to sharing the gospel. They required 100% focus and dedication to the Lord and promised they would give that same effort. God is counting on us to feed His sheep and our hearts need to be centered on Him. I invite all of you to give your all to the Lord and be ALL IN for this gospel! We are placed on earth at this time for a specific purpose and our talents and skills are needed and crucial! I invite you to pray about more ways you can give consistent devotion to the Lord and how He can work through you to be the means of positivity and growth today, tomorrow and forever! He has such a big, unique plan for each of us and I'm grateful to know we are being watched over.

I love you all!! 

♡♡♡

Sister Neel