by K Fletcher

THE ONE YEAR MARK

I never thought I would make it. 1 year. 365 Days. 525,600 minutes (please sing the song).

Through a picture essay I will describe the events of the past few days:

We had another sisters conference that I believe I've talked about. This was the Nags Head reunion picture. Left to right: Sisters Limb, Earl, Brakey, Evans, Fletcher, Barker. During the conference, which was all about light and letting our light shine, President Baker gave a talk about humor. May I just tell you all that President Baker is the definition of an engineer. I knew there was a reason I liked him so much. Who else would make a zipline with brakes made out of bungee cords and test it by using a living human being? My president.

This is a mini celebration of Sister Brakey's birthday. She saw my painting and art supplies and asked me almost a month ago to draw her an octopus and I feigned disinterest and told her I would get around to it. Little did she know I knew that her birthday was coming up!

One of our favorite investigators texted us one day and asked us, "Are you allowed to wear lotion?" We replied with, "of course we are! #bedbathandbeyond" (yes, I still hashtag on my mission. It's a habit). She told us that her husband told her we weren't allowed to! We all laughed and then that night we went over for a lesson and she had bought us lotion, earrings, and lip gloss... from Bed Bath and Beyond! It was wonderful and I LOVE them!

And a member bought all the missionaries in our ward super deluxe caramel apples! We just about died of happiness. Thanks, Brother Shafer!

And in case you all were wondering how we've been extending Halloween and having fun on P-days, we paint our faces and scare the sisters that live in our apartment complex. We take turns doing each others. Keep an eye out for more!

This is my beloved companion practicing a very difficult piece to accompany an elder when Elder Mervyn B. Arnold of the Seventy came to our mission.

We had a mission tour where he came to us and helped us to build a mission with more conversion and more strength. I learned a lot and most of all it was that our job as missionaries is not to knock doors. We are willing to do it, and we will, but of the people that missionaries find of their own efforts, 1 in 70 get baptized. If we have to knock 10 doors in order to find someone that will listen to us, that means we have to knock 700 doors to have a baptism. But when we receive a referral from a member and have their help in introducing them to the church, 1 in 6 investigators get baptized. What on earth are we doing knocking on doors?!

Here is your lesson of the day, "introduce your friends and family to the gospel". 1 in 6 could be baptized. How wonderful would that be?!

And then I learned even more about how to apply that from going on exchanges with my new Sister Training Leader, Hermana Johnson! What miracles we have had from reuniting old companions!

(And of course we match. Yes, it was planned)

Another miracle/really awkward experience was when we were tracting and while we were on exchanges. It was a really good exchange. We were finding so many people to teach and we were getting so many referrals. So we decided to contact an investigator's family. We knew where they lived so we thought we would stop by and see if they were interested. We knocked on the door and our investigator opened the door. We knew him pretty well and he tells us to come in. We come in and sit down and they are all watching this really big soccer game. He looks at us kinda awkwardly because he doesn't know what to do next. We then look around awkwardly because we don't know what to do next either. After a few awkward moments we ask if we can share a lesson. He turns down the TV and we go through the Restoration. It was a pretty good lesson but in the middle of the first vision a really inappropriate commercial pops up on the TV. Moral of the story: always turn OFF the TV, not just down. But on the bright side, we are now teaching his mom! Maybe she will come to church with him next week :)

I love these people. I love this mission.

The greatest miracle of this week was that after knocking on the door of the hooligan 14-year old son of an investigator for over a month, every time we go over there, he finally joined us for a lesson! He didn't really participate, but he knelt down for the closing prayer. And then, fast-forward to church: Hermana Limb and I are sitting in the back of the chapel, translating, and in walks that same family with their son, and another neighborhood boy! We couldn't stop smiling the entire meeting.

Life is good. God is merciful.

Con amor,

Hermana Fletcher

PS- enjoy this picture of me holding a tiny fat puppy.

11.17.2015

by K Fletcher

God's Elves

Once upon a time, two freezing cold missionaries were walking to visit a 14 year old male investigator without a third female, so they could not even go into the house. But he had a serious question about the gospel and we had a serious little discussion about said question and ended with the fact that we are representatives of God to help him find the truth, whatever it may be. We are here to help, and he responded, "So... you're like God's Elves?" Yes I guess we are.

So what have God's Elves been up to lately? Well.... we've been getting people to come to church! It is so exciting to be sitting in the chapel and see someone that you have invited to come to church walk through the doors. I cannot express the joy of seeing them in the church building. And this week we had another investigator come to church!

Vicente had told us that he wouldn't be able to come to sacrament meeting until the 22nd, but at our last lesson, when we were setting up our usual weekly time he said he couldn't because he had to work extra. We ask him why and he said because he moved his schedule so he could come to church! We may have had a mini celebration right there in the lesson.

We also have one family that came for the third time in a row this week. And one of them said the prayer in Gospel Principles! It's so.... exciting? satisfying? inspiring?! to help someone progress in their knowledge and their relationship with God. It's like making a perfect brownie batch and sharing it with people you care about, but you can keep on eating and keep on eating and you never get full or fat and you just get to keep on enjoying it.

AND we got one of the Elder's investigators at church as well. We actually knew her before the Elder's did and referred her to them (They were the ones with the GIANT leaf pile we raked and played in). Anyway, the other day they followed through on their promise to give us a big bag of blueberries, so we made blueberry muffins. We wanted to return the kindness, so we took a couple over to their house. The wife was outside and we asked her if she wanted to go to church tomorrow. She said that she did, but she would feel uncomfortable if she came without a dress, and she didn't have any dresses. No problem. I had a nice dress that I wear with a belt that would fit her and donated it to the cause.

Life is so good. God is so gracious.

I do apologize for no pictures this week. There was an unfortunate mishap with my memory and I may or may not have left my wallet, camera, cord, and planner at home. These things do happen.

In other news:

I...

Got into a small fight with a rooster

Sang a duet in the sister's mission conference

Graduated from counseling

Discovered a creek in the park behind our house

Dumped another investigator's coffee

Painted an octopus for Sister Brakey's birthday

Got pushed around in a hammock by little children

I love you all and wish you a week full of snowball fights and hot chocolate.

Con Amor,

Hermana Fletcher

PS-an old picture from Nags Head I just received from Sister Lowry

11.09.2015

by K Fletcher

One of My Dreams

This week I fulfilled one of my dreams of dumping out the coffee of an investgator. Vicente got a lot of points for letting me do that. I'm pretty sure he thinks we are a little bit insane, but he said that he is pretty sure Joseph Smith was a prophet, and that he will be going to church in the next two weeks, so if he thinks we are a little crazy, that is alright.

Also, Huber and Nancy and family came to church for the second week in a row! And then they invited us over for some of the best enchiladas I've ever had. I need to learn to cook Mexican food like that. Or maybe not. I think I might get fat.

We've been getting some incredible food recently. Hermana Cisneros fed us tacos with guacamole,

and Hermano Nefi Garcia invited us for his birthday party where they gave us some 'wishing balloons' where you make a wish and let the balloon take your wish up to heaven. It was very cute and I enjoyed it a lot. Also, Boston Creme Pie is absolutely divine.

We also came to understand the needs of another investigating family. It's a great show of trust when they finally tell you what their struggles are. The greatest part of being a missionary is seeing the need of someone you love - temporally or spiritually - and being able to fulfill it. On the other side, the greatest sorrow of a missionary is seeing someone and loving them but then being unable to fulfill that need. There are many reasons why a missionary would be unable. One is rejection - the person will not accept help or accept what we teach about the Lord's promises. Another is that it is beyond our reach - beyond our influence. There is this family with little ninos that we found and have been teaching. There is no father in the home and because of that, the mom works crazy hours. She is never home. It breaks my heart. I can't help them. I just want to stay with them all day and hug them and teach them and love them. But I can't. It's out of my reach. It breaks my heart because I have learned to love them so much.

That is where trust in the Savior is key. I can't help them. But He can. I can't change the situation. But I can pray. Sometimes that is all we can do to help the people we love is pray for them. Prayer is such a gift. It allows us to be able to always help the people we love even if they - or their trial - is out of our reach, out of our influence. Prayer is such a blessing and such a gift.

I'll keep it short for now, but just to share a few adventures:

Nothing will keep us from contacting a potential investigator, not even a surprise canal.

We've also become professional bubble-blowers. Tools: hands and dish soap. Purpose: pure entertainment.

We also have some really good faces. The following are: The face when someone doesn't keep an appointment.

The face when you get caught in the rain without an umbrella (we got the umbrella later).

Also, one of my joys is taking pictures of random things and kicking over mushrooms. When those are combined, happiness occurs. :)

I love you all and hope you can see the light of Christ in every day.

Smile!

Con Amor,

Hermana Fletcher

PS- Shout out to Daniela Wheelwright for a very happy birthday and giving me some of the happiest news I've ever received!

11.04.2015

by K Fletcher

goals

Let me just tell you about this week. Hermana Limb and I made goals. Heck yes, we made goals. We decided, "you know what? We have the faith to baptize. Let's baptize. Let's have people talk about us like in Acts 4:13 'Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.' "

The emphasis for our companionship this transfer is baptismal dates, sacrament attendance, and short lessons (under 1/2 hour in and out). I took a note from my friend serving in Mexico when he told me that in his mission they were expected to set a baptismal date every day. Maybe it is a little far-fetched, but why not try? So we are working on extending dates to everyone that we are teaching. As Jeffrey R. Holland said, " If they are ready when you extend the baptismal challenge, then it isn't a challenge!"

And guess what? We are so so blessed by the Lord because this week we set 4 investigators with a date and an entire family came to church.

Watch out, world, Hermana Limb and Hermana Fletcher are in Goldsboro and they've got God on their side.

This week really was miraculous. I'm so grateful for the chance to be here. I finally feel like I'm doing something, like I am useful, and like the Lord trusts me to assist in the work. I'm in a good place right now.

Also, Nate got to talk to the Bishop and is starting preparations to get ready for a mission! We gave him a Book of Mormon in Haitian Creole (his native language) and he loved it. He's going to Haiti. I'm calling it now.

He made us some incredible Haitian food the other day:

And we had a family and another investigator show up to the Halloween party (where, of course, we had to dress up! Can you guess our costumes?)

And one of my favorite experiences this week was when we were tracting around and we look and see maybe 2 or 3 dozen Spanish speaking people all working in a field. Hermana Limb asked me if we should go talk to them (she hates talking to big groups) and I said, "Why not?!" So we hike over there and talk to a few and they say they'll come to church and that we can invite the rest, so we go over and start talking to them and bit by bit they all start joining in because it is break time and what on earth are two white girls in skirts doing in this field. Well, we've got a crowd, so lets go wild! We break open the Book of Mormon and have a short discussion on the words of King Benjamin. It was so much fun. No one came to church, but I think we lifted their day.

This is a sneaky picture of some of them:

And finally, one of my favorite experiences of the week had to do with Nena Bobby, the adopted Grandma of Hermana Limb and I. She's so cute and ready for the gospel, but we can't teach her because we teach in Spanish. So we just visit and help lift her. But she smokes and drinks coffee. And she knows how I feel about that (I can be bold with her because I love her so much). I will now relate what followed in the words of Hermana Limb,

"So, let me tell you about the funniest thing that happened this week. Hemana Fletcher and I were visiting our Grandma in this area: Nena Bobby. We found her our first week here and we hadn't seen her in a while, so we decided to stop by and give her a Happy Halloween card. I wrote a nice little note and Hermana Fletcher added a little "P.S. Quit smoking" (she can get away with saying things like that). As soon as Bobby saw it she looked straight at Hermana Fletcher and said "you leave my cigarettes out of this" And then Hermana Fletcher went off about all the reasons why Bobby should give up smoking. Hermana Fletcher is really good giving undebateable arguments. They go off for about 5 minutes and I just laugh the whole time. Bobby then goes off about how we just come over to pick on her (not true by the way). Hermana Fletcher says that she would be happier without her cigarettes. Bobby just looks at her and points at the coffee table. My whole life is on that table. Hermana Fletcher then goes over to the table and takes the cigarettes off of it and puts them in her pocket and replaces them with her scriptures, then she takes the coffee and replaces it with a wallet. Bobby is just sitting there yelling at her. It's an I'm-joking-but-kind-of-serious kind of yell, so it's funny. Then Bobby demands her cigarettes back. Hermana Fletcher finally gives them back to her, but puts a picture of Jesus in it so that Bobby sees it every time she gets a cigarette. Funniest night of my life. One day Bobby will stop smoking. I know it."

It's a good life.

Stop a bad habit. Pick up a good one. We'll get through it together.

Con Amor,

Hermana Fletcher

PS-

We found a relic! (Finding faith in Christ in spanish and on VHS!)