Here come goodbye, here comes the last time, here comes the start of every sleepless night....

My final week here in Sango was super hard. Probably one of the hardest I've had on my mission thus far. I thought I would be here for at least another 6 weeks, but on Tuesday, I had a feeling something was gonna happen. So here we are. I've got one more day here and I don't want to leave. Yesterday was super hard trying to keep a smile on my face when I really just wanted to cry. The hardest one was when a guy in the Ward (Bro D-- standing at about 6'6") said nope you're not supposed to move, you need to stay here. He told me that I have to stop by sometime before I leave. So we will be going by sometime today. 

I know that the hardest goodbye will be with the O's tonight. I am... worried about them. They are struggling right now as a family with a lot of stressful things occurring. They are so awesome. I did promise them that after my mission I will come and find them wherever they are and be how A says "A normal person" haha. 

Something that has occurred to me a lot, is that people in the church respect missionaries a lot. They expect a lot from them. Last night when we were at dinner, the father of the home asked us to "bring the spirit I to the home." I thought to myself, you guys can do that? Y'all are active member of the Ward. Nothing bad is going on in this home, y'all are a great spiritual family. I am just a kid who has barely any idea what I am doing out here. I guess that comes with the calling. That is why I have been set apart for this. So that I can, as I am obedient, have the spirit with me at all time and more abundantly that ever. I have been set apart to share the gospel with others and promised blessings and given authority to call people to repentance. I did that for the first time yesterday. I said this "You guys need to repent of the things y'all are doing. They may not be big, but you need to repent. Moroni 7:33-34 tells us that if we repent, we will have the spirit with us and we can be saved as we continue to work. So if you lack the spirit, repent."  I kinda shocked myself as I said this. But each one of the members of the family nodded their heads, agreeing with what I said. That was a scary moment because I didn't want to get called out for that. But that is the calling. I have been called to call people to repentance. Invite others to come into Christ, repent and be baptized. 

We still struggled finding investigators this week so good luck to the new elder who comes to this area. Hopefully he can find more success than I did! We did have something interesting happen. While we were biking up to the O's for dinner, a guy pulled off to the side of the road and talked to us for us for a while and offered us a job to work for him. But he said that if you guys are working this hard to bike around I might as well listen to what y'all have to say. So we are trying to get into contact with him so we can share the gospel with him. 

That's pretty much it for the week! Love y'all talk to ya from Murray Kentucky next week!!

Reese 

Johnny Depps house 

District selfie!

Cheesecake and BOM

Saying goodbye to the J family. We went over to their house almost every single Friday since I've gotten here. They are awesome. (Left to right: D, C, E, me, A, H, sis. J) 

Ya gotta dig your roots 'fore the sun goes down show some love back to your hometown..

Heard this song in the store the other day. Man. I guess FGLs (Florida
Georgia line) new album is 🔥🔥!!
This week was full of surprises and interesting things haha!! The
first thing that I can remember is how we went tracting on a street
that Elder Jessop knocked on while I was on an exchange... Oops.. The
first guy who opened the door said "You guys are leading people
straight to Hell." Wow. That is a great way to start off the day!! We
ended up later that day talking to some people and giving them a Book
of Mormon. Super good people. They were interested in the book but not
too much about the church. Maybe they'll give us a call later haha.

This week I did 3 baptismal interviews!! The first one was with a
little girl who is 9. She reminded me of KJ. She was so adorable and
sooooo shyyyy until I showed her some pictures of kaitlyn and told her
about KJ. Then she realized that I was a normal person and I have a
family. I just about started crying when she asked me when the last
time I say her was. I told her about 4.5 months. She told me wow!
That's a long time. When do you get to see her again?..... 2 years...
Tears ran down my face in front of this little girl.... She started
talking to me a lot after that. She invited me to her baptism but I
couldn't make it we were busy at the time she was getting baptized.

We are really just trying to find people to teach. We still have had
no luck finding anyone. We are trying to get the O's to invite their
friends  to come listen to the discussions. They are so
scared to ask them. We will get them to invite them.

Last night we taught them how to have a family home evening! It was
awesome. We sang I am a child of God and then A gave us a great
prayer (we are working on her praying) had a great lesson and showed
the video "Mountians to climb" talking about faith. Watch it. It's
bomb.

At church I learned a scripture that I love that says "How long can
rolling waters remain impure?" That hit me like a ton of bricks. How
long can someone who is going through trial after trial remain impure
by keeping their faith? What is cleaner? Stagnant water? Or rushing
water? Campers-- I lied. Anyone should know that answer. Rushing water
is cleaner. As we go through trials, as we have our faith tested we
will become more pure as we maintain our faith and trust in God.

Love y'all

Reese

this picture encompasses everything I think of when I think of "Country". Old truck. Run down barn, tractor, barbed wire fence, blue skies with puffy clouds. No filter. Insta worthy. (Rach that's all you)  

It's cities and farms it's open arms, one nation under God! It's America!!

This week was awesome. We are still struggling to find new people to
teach but we are searching. It is so awesome to try and find some of
these people. One guy we tracted into was on the board for the HOA
(Home owners association) and told us that we are not allowed to
solicit in the neighborhood. Side note. We are technically not
soliciting and it is proven in the law as well. Thank you Jehovah
Witnesses.  But he told us he wouldn't run us off. But we ended up
talking to him for an hour! He invited us inside and we talked and got
to know each other. He really wasn't that interested but it is always
so nice for people to just take time to talk to us about Jesus Christ.
This man studied Theology and is a minister at a Non-Denominational
church across from the interstate on exit 11. (Oh they call the
freeway the interstate here and the exit, like Tracy BLVD or 11th
street by their exit number took me sooooo lonnngggg to figure that
out.) But we talked for a long time about how we all just need to
believe that Jesus Christ died for us Yada Yada Yada. He started
talking about questions that he had and we were like WE CAN ANSWER ALL
OF THESE!! But there was some deep stuff that I know about but not
well enough to answer for him. He was such a good guy. He accepted a
Book of Mormon and his daughter took a pamphlet. She didn't seem that
interested but elder case was so stoked and excited when he asked them
if they would come to church. She said maybe..(No) but he was looking
for them and talking about them all day on Sunday. Haha ohh man:)
greenie fire right thuurrr haha. I had it too so I can tease about it.

The O's. Let me tell you something. BEST FAMILY EVAH!!! I don't care
what any of y'all say. These are the best people ever. When we go on
exchanges, everyone says "Man I wish they were in my area." N
texts us every day and asks the same thing. "Y'all know what I'm going
to ask... Do y'all have dinner tonight?" This past week not too many
people signed up for dinner so we were over there a lot this past
week. We have taught so many great lessons with them. Last night after
church we talked about where the "Pre-Earth life" information came
from. We started talking about the Pearl of Great Price and G was
super interested. We did warn him that we won't be able to answer all
of his questions about it and he was okay with that hahah!!

On Tuesday we were able to take G out with us to a lesson where he
did an AWESOME job. He made so many great comments and helped us so
much! He is such a blessing. He has also been called to be the Elders
Quorum secretary.  His baptismal records aren't even in yet... My bad.
A is the First councilor in the Laurel class. N doesn't
have a calling yet. She doesn't want one. But she will get one. Give
it a month or so.

Man I love my area so much. I don't want to leave this place. Thank
goodness I have at least another few months here. I love the Ward. I
love the people. I love this church. It is true.

Love y'all

Reese

I also decided to quit my job and become a sport announcer. By that I mean, announce the things that happen in the Orr home. Crazy things. Let me tell ya hahah 

A took my iPad on the way home from the temple on Monday

Oh man we were living, didn't waste one minute we talked and drank and danced and said goodbye, we laughed until we cried.

Wait... Has this really been 4 months??? Woah...

First of all I'm going to apologize that this email is going to be
short. We are going to the temple with the O family to walk around!!
I'm so excited for them to see the temple. Yesterday G(the dad)received
the Priesthood!!!!! I was blessed to have the opportunity to ordain
him to the office of priest. It was funny because I had NO idea what I
was going to say before the blessing but once I placed my hands on his
head, the words flowed out. I don't even remember thinking while I was
talking. The blessing was for him. He glowed. Oh. And he bore is
testimony during church today. You know. No big deal at all. I just
sat there and cried as he told his story about how he came to find
that all of this was true. He has told us a bunch of times his story,
but the things he shared are the things that you hear from converts of
years. Not days/weeks. I seriously wish y'all could meet them. They
are such a great family. I love them so much.

Man this week was a good'un. We didn't really get to meet any new
people. Something that we are going to start working on is the less
actives. We have so many in the Ward that just don't come to church. I
have met almost all of them. Most don't want to have too much contact
with the church but that's their salvation I guess... We did have a
somewhat strange experience however... A lady sent us a referral
online through LDS.org and she said that she was a very less active
lady who wanted to "start new" so we went over and talked to her for
an hour or so. She has had so many  terrible experiences with the
church. So much so that I don't blame her for not wanting to associate
with the people of the church anymore. she is hoping that since she
hasn't been in such a long time, she will find that "new" feeling in
the Ward. I really hope she finds that.

Sorry! That's all I've got time for this week! I miss all y'all so much.

Love ya
Reese
P.S. I'm doing a terrible job of taking pictures so bear with me.

All y'all should send me pictures so I can plaster this wall with em 

I finished the Book of Mormon yesterday!! It was so awesome being able to finish it. It is such a great book. If you know me you know I hate reading. But I finished this book faster than I have any other book (per the 500 pages) I read it I just over 2 months. Read it to know its true. I promise you, that if you read it you will know that it is true.