Training her up right...

Alright so I know that past two emails have been really short. I am going to try and make up for it this week. 

Who doesn't have the Ten Commandments in their yard?!

Eduardo and Estefany are doing really well. This past week we met with them twice. The first time we talked about keeping the Sabbath day holy. What we should and shouldn't do and then committed them to come to all three hours of church. They accepted to come this week but not every week. That is the day that Estefany gets everything done so she had a hard time wanting to fully commit. They did come to all three hours and i believe it went really well. We were suppose to meet with them again this evening but the weather is suppose to be really bad and so they don't want to come out. The other time we met with them we had a member come. We talked about prophets again. Estefany is still searching for her answer. We gave them an article to read from President Monson and then asked them to pray about it so they can have a testimony of modern day prophets. They were scheduled to be baptized this weekend but we are going to have to reschedule that.

Brother Bibbes is in a rut. We were thinking of ways we could help him receive an answer. We decided we wanted to talk about the word of wisdom and he did not like that. He wouldn't commit to live it and so we asked him to pray about it be he wasn't so sold on that either. We don't really know what else we can do at this point so please pray for us.

We are still helping and teaching Diane (the hoarder). She is having more and more questions about our church and so we are just letting her ask questions. She will come around one day. 

The first week Sister Burgess and I were together we met the Clark Family. They are looking for a church they all feel comfortable in. We taught them for the second time this past weekend and they are awesome. They are accepting everything we are teaching and keeping their commitment to pray about it. They were going to come to church yesterday but their nice clothes weren't clean and so they said they will be there next week. We are hoping they stick with it. We are meeting with them again on Saturday. 

We are teaching a guy by the name of Chris Evans. He was a referral that lives in the farthest part of our area so he is kind enough to come here so we can teach him. The first time we taught him in Taco Bell and that was very distracting. But he told us that he couldn't think of a time that he has felt God's love. So we told him to pray about it of course. The second time we taught him after church and so a lot of the members were there and talked to him. He felt really welcome and it was great. We taught about baptism. The importance of it, why we do it, and that we will be blessed with the gift of the Holy Ghost so we can always feel of God's love. He said he wasn't sure if that was something he wanted to do. So of course we asked him to pray about it once again. This past weekend we had a ward activity and watched Meet the Mormons. We had everyone in the ward invite people and it was great! Chris came to that and enjoyed that as well. He feels loved here and I think that is what keeps him coming back. He came to all three hours of church on Sunday and then we taught him a lesson afterwards. We asked if he had prayed about being baptized and he had and received an answer. We committed him to be baptized on March 21st. We showed him everything we needed to teach him before he was baptized and arranged when we would be meeting so he can meet that date! We are so excited for him. He said he can feel God's love and that makes me so excited. That is why I love being a missionary!

When Sunday came around we still had 3 hours of tracting to do before we met our 7 hours of tracting. The weather was terrible but we were determined to do it! We tracted for about 2 hours while it rained. It was so cold, and we only taught one lesson. But we met our goal and that is all God asks us to do. We are expected to do everything we can to reach our goals and find progress in this work.

 Drenched!!

I am so grateful for this gospel and the blessing it has brought into my life. I am so thankful that i was raised knowing that the Lord loves me and wants me to succeed. I love helping those here in Clinton Mississippi find the truth and the light. I hope you are all doing well. I pray for you and love you. Don't ever forget what our Father in Heaven has done for you! 

LOVE YOU, Sister Erika Kelly 

Sister Burgess and I have so much fun!

This week has been crazy! The week of transfers is always a little rough but it picked up towards the end. Sister Burgess and I have a lot of fun together! I am so excited for the next few weeks to work with her. She came pre-trained! She is an awesome missionary.

This week we have been trying to figure everything out together. The mission took the car back on Wednesday and I know nothing about our biking area. It has been quite the adventure. But we have found quite a few people to teach and i am really excited to see if they really wanted to be dedicated to the wonderful way of life. 

Not much has changed with our investigators but they are all doing well. Eduardo and Estefany were at church again Sunday and I know they feel of the spirit when they come. They have been coming to the first two hours of church and we are hoping to commit them to come to all three hours next week. 

Brother Bibbes is still doing well, we just need him to accept that everything he thinks to be true isn't true. But we are working on it :)

I love training. It is more of just like having fun. The other day Sister Burgess' front tire on her bike popped. She brushed her teeth with hydrocortizone on accident hahaha She doesn't cry either. We met an awesome family. I love being a missionary.

This church is true and i love being able to share it with those around me! 

Love you all, Sister Erika Kelly 

 Out tracting and met this cute little girl

Emailing on P-Day at the church

Transfers...and I'm a Trainer

Well it has been another crazy week! I don't have tons of time so i will just give you a recap of all our investigators. 

We met with Eduardo and Estefany twice this past week. Estefany wanted to see the quote from Joseph Smith where he clarifies about coffee and tea. So we started with that and she accepted it thank goodness. Estefany is a very strong feminist and she has been struggling with the priesthood ever since the beginning. Well she was doing some research and found an article about ordained women and that caused her to have a lot more questions. Thankfully we had a member with us and she was able to say just the right things. I was so stressed by the end of the lesson though. But before we left i felt prompted to commit her to living the word of wisdom and then promising that as she did that her concerns about the priesthood would be resolved. She committed to do it!!!!! And she has been doing it! Im so excited. When we went back for the next lesson she said she had been having headaches but still hadn't had any coffee. We shared with her D&C 1:38 and Amos 3:7 about the Lord working through his prophets. When we read that she pointed out that the word used was "servant". I think she is finally seeing that the prophet isn't just any man telling people what to do. But that he is tell the people what God wants us to do! 

Brother Bibbes is still doing really well too! He is still reading the Book of Mormon everyday and comes to church. He refuses to set a baptism date but we are working on it. ha They were suppose to move March 1st but they are moving back to April 5th so we have some more time to teach him :) 

Hanging out at the church waiting for vehicles for transfer day.

Elder Smally finally got his Visa so he could go to Australia

The only other exciting thing that happened this week was transfers. I am training Sister Burgess and was are going to have so much fun! She is from Utah and we graduated high school the same year. I got to see sister Brog and that was the best! I was so sad to say goodbye and have her going all the way back home. But i was so glad i got to spend a lot of time with her yesterday! 

I love you all lots!!! Thank you for everything,

Sister Erika Kelly 

Got to love the SOuth! 

Sunset

Oh What a Week!

Ate dinner with the Kelley family! There is a family in the ward with the last name Kelley. They are great! The first Sunday there brother Kelley told me I was spelling it wrong and he would order me a name tag with it spelled right. But we ate dinner with them and they are a great family. They have a son preparing to leave on a mission in the next couple of months.

We were out tracting and ran into a really nice older guy. His wife wasn't home so we scheduled an appointment for the next day. When we went back they were showing us these birds they had. One of them flew in sister Bills hair twice! It was so funny. The lady finally put the bird away. They were really nice but not interested. 

We met with Eduardo and Estefany on Thursday. We were talking about faith and how we need to act and then our faith is able to grow. They knew that we don't drink coffee but we hadn't taught it yet and she happen to bring it up. It was a rough lesson. She couldn't understand why God would give such strict rules and said that was keeping her from being baptized. On Saturday we went back to talk more about faith. That as they apply faith with the word of wisdom they will be able to gain a testimony of it. It was a much better lesson! The spirit was really strong and at the end of the lesson Estefany said she would give up coffee if we brought her where it was revealed not to drink coffee and tea. Because in the Doctrine and Covenants it just says hot drinks. We also reset them with a baptism date. They were suppose to be baptized on Saturday but obviously that didn't happen. We had picked the first two dates they were working toward so we let them pick and they picked February 28th! We are really excited. One of my favorite parts of being a missionary is promising blessings. And i was able to promise them both that if they did everything they could to receive and answer that they would be prepared for that date. Now it is just up to them to act!

We taught Morgan this week about Christ's earthly ministry. We watched Finding Faith in Christ and she cried! It was great. That was the strongest we had felt the spirit and it was so good!

We started teaching Diane this week and I am really excited! She is the one we help clean her house. We just taught that God is our loving Heavenly Father and you could feel the spirit so strong! I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to share the spirit with others. 

Because Sunday was the super bowl we got all of our tracting done early! Saturday we were tacting and met a lady named Ms. Beverly. She let us in but was very skeptical of everything. We shared the restoration with her and answered a lot of questions. We invited her to church because that is where a lot more of her questions could be answered. And it is habit in the south that if someone invites you to their church you invite them to yours. And so she did. So Sunday we woke up and got ready really quick so we could make to her church that started at 8. It was so interesting! It was fast Sunday and so one of the things I was fasting for was to feel the spirit testify of truth in both the Baptist church and our church. Well Sister Bills and I were the only white people in the whole church. We stood out so bad! but it was such a great experience. They were singing and clapping and there was loud music. It was good to see but it was really hard to feel the spirit. When we got to our church it was amazing to feel the difference the moment I walked in the building. All through sacrament I was able to feel the spirit so strong. It was such a testimony to me that this is the true church. Although the church we went to had doctrines that taught good things and they were doing all they knew to in order to have Christ in their life. But this gospel just has so much more to offer and i am so glad to be apart of it!

Thank you for all the prayers and love. I'm so grateful for y'all and most importantly, for my Heavenly Father and Savior!

Oh and only one more week until I can drive again! It has almost been 6 months and I'm so excited haha 

Love Sister Erika Kelly