Wipe your head, shake it off, then you stand

I love this song. I heard this the other day. I just wanted to quote the song real quick to explain my week....

"On your knees you look up just like you've had enough, you get mad, you get strong, then you stand." 

Sometimes, this work is so hard you just want to give up. On my knees multiple times a day I ask Heavenly Father to help me just get through the day because sometimes I've had enough. I get mad. I get irritated that people literally hate us and do not want anything to do with us. But as I push through I get stronger. And stronger. One day I hope to be able to continue to stand as a witness of Christ at all times. 

Let's just say that it was a rough week. Being pushed out of your comfort zone  sucks. Something that has been pushed a lot recently is talking to absolutely everyone you see. I'm so terrible at it. Tracting? Sure! I'll do it! But someone who is working in their yard. Busy doing something. On a run? I'm terrible at it. But! I'm getting better. And that's what matters. So that has been super stressful. No growth in the comfort zone 

Wowza... Anyway it's been super fun working hard though because we have seen the blessings from it! Chris and Travis  are preparing to get baptized this next week. They are doing amazing and will continue to progress. They are a little immature but that's alright. When you 12 and 13, who isn't? Lets be honest. I wasn't. Heck I'm still not lol But it's been super cool to see how their prayers have changed. They used to be... non existing. Now they still stumble through them but they are praying! It's so great. 

We were over at their house last night and they gave us some soda to during and I had a Mountain Dew. After I finished it, I remembered why I stopped drinking Mountain Dew. I thought back to many moons ago. In a land far away. In Hawaii I wouldn't be able to sleep after I had drank a Mountain Dew. So I stopped drinking them. And last night? There I was. Laying there. 12:00? Not tired at all. Oops. Ehh it's pday tomorrow. In other words. PAR-Day! (Parday?--Partay?--Party? Ehh worth a shot, hopefully I shot par.  (man sometimes I annoy myself) 

Chris leaves for his mission soon. I hit 15 months this week. I'm realizing that I'm going to be an old missionary because in 3 months over half the mission will be less than 6 months old. Phew. That's nutz... Greenies. Can't live with em. Can't live without em. Whatcha gonna do? Nothin. Go serve the Lord i guess... 

Hope yall have a grand ol week! 

Love youins! 

Reese 

Find the goober in this picture!! 

I got to ride this sick bike. 

I ain't as good as I wanna get, but I'm better than I used to be.

Ain't that the true Timmy. 

First of all I want all y'all to know. I'm tired. Let's just say that when I get home, a grand ol nap is in order. But I'm not home so back to missionary work. 

Phew, almost fell asleep lol Anyway,

This week some work was put in. Elder Quiring got here on Tuesday and he is a stud. He is from Utah. Wherever Lone Peak High school is. That's where he went. Cedar Hills I think is where he is from. But we have been out here in the hot sun knockin on doors till our knuckles bleed. One of the doors that I knocked on was soooo hot that it hurt to touch. No one answered so... Yah. But some cool stuff is going down. 

First of all, Chris Travis and Sarah, all less active/unbaptized members came to church? This week we set Chris and Travis on date for August 2nd!!! We had such a great lesson with them on Friday. We asked them if they needed a ride to church and they said nope their mom would take them! So we had the whole family at church! They haven't been to church since like 2009. Super exciting for them as they prepare for the baptism of Chris and Travis. Sarah and their mom are already members so they just need to get active again. Once again the youth in the ward are coming in clutch in helping them feel loved and welcomed. Sarah was able to go to youth night on Tuesday with some of the other young woman.  She loved it. We had a lesson with the them yesterday and it was once again fantastic. 

Don't have a whole lot else to talk about. Not exactly sure where this week went. Oh I did get a cool new bag! The missionary who went home last week gave me his bag. It's one of those tactical shoulder bags? I'll send a picture of it but on Wednesday we went to Lawrenceburg for a district meeting and we went to an army surplus store and I bought some patches to go on the bag. They are legit. One says "God's army." It's pretty sweet if I do say so myself. 

Read the book of Mormon this week. A page a day. It will change your life. I promise. 

Love youins,

Reese 

Bye Elder Overfield 

  Bag, Patches, and sweet 101st airborne sticker--That is the unit that is at the army base in Clarksville. 

MLC 

      Elder Jessop said, "My son's, who I am well pleased" He might get stuck by lightning for that one. 

Elder Quiring sweat stained his tie. Let's just say, it was FLIPPING HOT

Was in a Rob Thomas mood today as I write this but oh my goodness this week was LEGIT!! 

So let me take you back to biblical times--Thursday of last week... (Respond to this if you got that reference) So since Elder Overfield has been here he has had 5 baptisms. Two of them got switched out when the ward split 8 weeks ago. Right before I got here. So 3 of those baptisms are still active. The oldest of those baptism site 23. His name is Blake. Then Lexie and Martha are both 16. Lexie was baptized last week. Anyway, on Thursday we were able to attend the temple with them all for the first time!!! Along with the other 32 youth who came along! It was AWESOME!! The temple is so cool. The spirit is so strong inside the temple. Pictures will come at the end. 

Transfer calls happened this week! 

After the temple on Friday we had a lesson with an inactive family. They haven't been to church in years. So we were able to get in contact with them a few weeks ago and have been teaching them the lessons. Their progress is slow BUT the kids all came to church today!!!!!! Sarah, Chris, and Travis. Chris and Travis aren't baptized so there is potential there. They are super great kids. There is so much potential here in this area. 

Back to transfer calls. Elder Overfield will be leaving to go whitewash train in Princeton KY. I will stay here and receive Elder Quiring. I don't know a whole lot about him. All I know is that we will be the newest Zone Leaders in the mission in terms of time being ZLs. 

That's about it for this week! It was super hot and it rained quite a bit! I love life without a car! 

Love yall! 

Reese

Temple on Thursday!!! Blake, me, Lexie, Martha, elder Overfield 

This one just with Blake. 

Even in the darkness, carry your torches

Hey Jack, 14 months strong and i still have song lyrics to title my weekly emails

Oh man, oh man... These weeks are literally just flying by. It seems like I just got here to Spring Hill Last week. I was looking around at church today and i already know everyone in the ward. Well... at least know their name. I really hope to continue to get to know all of them really well in the next while, during my time here. 

Its really strange because i see and meet so many people every day. A lot of those people are actually from California. Yesterday we tracted into a guy from Thousand Oaks. When people ask me where i'm from I don't even say "Bay Area" anymore. I say, "Do you know where Tracy is?" and usually they say yeah. I met someone who went to Tracy High a few weeks ago. Haha small world.

We tracted all week this week. I would bet that is knocked more doors in this transfer than in all of 2017. Its mostly just because we don't have a whole lot of investigators, or even less actives. Those who are less active don't want to have missionaries come back. They are sick of people coming by. SO! We knock on doors. It is nice to have doors to knock on though. In Morgantown, there were not enough doors to knock on all year long. 

OH!!!! FOURTH OF JULY!!!!! I totally forgot about that. SO we had a great day on Fourth of July. We have some other missionaries who are in the other ward here in the city. We were on exchanges with them. So we are cruising around town and Elder Sanchez--from Corona CA--Friends with Stephan----Say "We need to represent America better." So we go to Walmart to get some Flags. Later on in the evening, after we had taped 2 of the flags to our bike rack and the other 3 are being held out the windows of the passengers, I look behind me and see blue lights... 

Sweet. I wasn't speeding.. @tiwi. I had my blinkers on. I wasn't breaking any laws. 

Anyway, I pull over and the Lady Officer comes up to the window and says "Sorry guys, I have to be a party pooper but you cant have your arms out of the window while you're driving." I said "Alright sorry about that" --"Alright your guys have a good evening!" 

And that was the end of that! 

So we came to the conclusion that she probably thought we were drunk and the arms out the window was just an excuse to pull us over. But that was fun. 

We had to go in early, but when it got dark we got on the roof of our home and watched fireworks for a while. It was so much fun! 

Anyway it was a great week. I hope yall had a great week as well!

Love

Reese

Firework watchin.

I made this a few days ago for lunch. Let's just say... 🤤

Now I'm knee deep in the water somewhere...

So I've been in this area for almost 4 weeks now.... I can't believe that at all... It's really strange being in such a big area with so many members. In Morgantown, by this time I knew all the families and their names. Here in Thompson Station, I know maybe half of them. Anyway it's a lot of fun. 

There are more youth in this ward than there are in the Tracy ward back at home. And our youth keeps growing. Last night we baptized a girl names Lexie. She is awesome. She is a great friend of some of the young women. In a picture I will send out later, there will be 2 recent converts in the picture. Lexie and then the super short girl (Martha) The youth are such great missionaries here. I'm totally going to brag on the T-Stat 1st youth because they are seriously the best!! They love sharing the gospel and when one person brings a friend to church, all of them befriend them. They show their love for them so much. This ward is awesome. At the baptism there were probably 70 people in attendance. That is only second to the Orrs baptism. We also had several non members and less actives there. It was so great. Much spiritual. Very baptism. W.O.W. 

Anyway other than that this was a pretty chill week. We were able to go do baptisms for the dead on Saturday with a convert of Elder Overfields. I was able to bring "Earnest A. Shufelt" and preform his baptism and confirmation!! I loved it. 

We are sort of running out of people to teach, but we are working with a bunch of Lessons active and part member families who haven't been to church in years but invited us back to have more Lessons with them. That has been a breakthrough because this family did not let people into their home before at all but now they let us in and let us teach them. Slowly but surely wins the race!!

Oh BTW I conducted and gave a training in zone conference this week... Haha kinda nerve-wracking but that's okay 

Guys I know that the Gospel has been restored to the earth. I know that it fluid fall away at one point. I know that through and only through Joseph Smith could the Priesthood be on the earth again so that we can be baptized by water to receive a remission of our sins. 

Love 

Reese 

Left to right: Me, Emma Stalker, Lexie Knutson, Martha, Ryan, Elder Overfield, Bro. Stalker

                                            Notice how I'm the only one with my suit buttoned? Oops lol. 

Reese