Week 5

wowza been out for over a month now hollaaa! 

This week has flown by it's been craaazy. We did a loooot of tracting and knockin doors and I love it! Funny thing, we went to go meet this potential investigator, debbie, and we were talking with her and this boy says "hey debbie your squirrels are out!" well whatdya know she is raising 2 squirrels and she just walked right up and picked them up and they were runnin all over her and biting her hahaha! Then we were praying with her before we left and sister simmons asked if theres anything debbie wanted us to pray for and she said "probably my squirrels that they will be obedient!" ha! so sister simmons said the prayer and prayed for squirrels. lol. 

 Riding bikes is the best especially that we get to ride where its sooo pretty! Theres always little deer jumping out on the trails too!! We did a lot of service helping out at the food bank this week as well which was way fun. Its funny cuz they always play christian radio channels  (shoutout K-love quinn and shay and nichole) so christian rock is the best. We were in a town called senoia a lot of the week and fun fact its the town where they film the walking dead! so theres a lot of little tourist attractions cuz of it. On friday we were home for lunch and got a knock on the door and this lady was like "hablas espanol?"  and we were like "uhhhh no" she started talking and said something like "Jehovah's Witnesses" and we were like "we're missionaries... Mormon" and pointed to our name tags haha and she was like "Ohhh!" and just turned around and left ha!!

But we had a miracle on friday so we went to go find this lady, Donna who has met missionaries before but never been taught. We stopped by and it was this old lady and her dog. she was chatting with us and just said "I'd like to have you guys over again could we do next wednesday?" ha WHAT?! we hadn't even asked yet if we could come meet with her again! Shes the sweetest and I'm so excited to meet with her this week. I think she holds a lot of potential and she says she has a copy of the BOM that shes read a little bit from and she likes it. But yeah me and sister simmons have a goal to baptize her before Christmas. So with a lot of prayer and hard work, we're gonna make it happen!

Saturday was the great day to end the week with nothin better than SUSHI!! We went to this sushi restaurant called Ichiban and got some dang good rolls. Also talked to our korean waiter and he said a prayer with us so that was cool! 

Anyways, we've been workin hard in Peachtree City, life is great in the south! 

Also last thing, this week we listened to a talk on the way to our zone training and it is the most amazing talk ever. I was basically in tears by the end! Y'all should listen to it if you have an extra hour on your hands. It's called " CONVERSION OF A CATHOLIC PRIEST" by Elder Bill Carpenter. Ahhh I just love it so much.

Love you all and miss you! You're all in my prayers and lemme know if you need anything at all! 

Atlanta Georgia--The Mission Field

WOAH is this real life? A ton has happened this week. So tuesday at 330am we took the frontrunner up to SLC airport and after carrying my 10 million pound bags across the airport we finally made it to the gate and I was able to call my family and talk to them. Ah I love them so much they're the best ever. We flew to Atlanta and all I can say is I've never seen so many trees in my entire life. and WHERE ARE THE MOUNTAINS?! It's not as humid as I thought, the weather is just fab haha. President and Sister Foote (or the feet i guess haha) picked us up and we drove to the ATL temple to do baptisms and the whole time I was just confused if we were going north or south or what cause its literally just trees and open sky. Crazy. We went back and ate dinner at the mission home and stayed the night there in Peachtree City. The next morning we went to the church and had transfer meeting. They assigned us our new companions- SISTER SIMMONS- and did a little training and sent us on our way. So I am with sister Simmons she is from St. George, UT and it's her 16th month on the mish, crazy. (she calls me her baby haha). She's so fun and we get along just great. We're assigned to the "Whitewater area" which is really close to the mission home here in Peachtree City. We live with two other sisters. We are one of two biking areas. So we have a car and two bikes and we switch off with the sisters we live with. I love biking though its a blast.. except for having to wear the helmets haha! Peachtree city/Fayeteville are the really nice parts of GA. I'd say like the Saratoga Springs kinda. All the homes are really nice and the ward here is big (there are few black people) and everyone is sooo nice. We have people signing up to feed us everynight  Oh and funniest thing. Here in ptc there are these little black paths by the roads and people drive golf carts on them everywhere. They use them as cars! there are golf cart parking spaces everywhere and people just drive them to school and church and to stores and they have radios in them and its so cute. Wish they gave us missionaries one!

Anyways my first night we had a couple appointments and then Katie Anderson (from BYUH who lives in Georgia) lives 5 min from us! The other sisters were eating dinner there so we dropped them off and I got to say hi and visit with her! She leaves to the SLC west mission November 3rd. 

The rest of the week we had appointments and lessons with recent converts or less actives. We tracted for a bit... everyone kinda says no. Its funny. Here in the south, when you're knockin doors you say "Hi we're representatives of Jesus Christ and are goin around saying prayers with people, could ya'll use a prayer or could we say a prayer with ya'll". It's CRAZY people usually decline or say yes. Since theres tons of baptists and christians its not uncommon here. There are like 15 different church buildings like baptist, lutheran, christian, non-denominational, etc in the area that people already go to. But Anyways we got one lady to say yes so she came on the porch and my comp asked if theres anything we can pray for and the lady mentioned her son and her mother... then sis simmons said a prayer and by the end of it this lady was crying. THE SPIRIT WAS SO STRONG AND I KNOW SHE FELT IT. We talked more and asked if we could come meet with her another time but she declined. Ah so crazy. hopefully heavenly father can prepare her more so that she can meet with missionaries in the future. 

this one family: the whites are recent converts but haven't been comin to church for awhile so we stopped by to visit. They basically told us they got baptized cuz they were going through hard things at the time and have a lot of questions about joseph smith and his validity (the fathers parents tell them a lot of anti-mormon stuff) anyways we had a long talk with them and we're meeting again tomorrow to re-teach them the lessons. We just keep prayin they'll be willing to read it with an open heart and be willing to pray about it. 

Saturday we got to go singing hymns at the old folks homes with the elders and that was fun! We do a ton of service here. Most missionaries only get to do 2 hrs of service a week but our president lets us do up to 10 a week! 

Sunday we went to church and I met more people in the ward and we spent some time with the medical senior missionaries in our area and our district leader and his comp. I honestly just love everyone here. I hear a lot of "ya'll"s and "have a blessed day"s out here. Not a ton of strong accents but i've heard a few. Oh! Jake: we went to volunteer at a thrift store and the lady workin there said "Hey could you grab that buggy over there" haha she was talking about the shopping cart and it just made me think of you. But yeah, sorry this is so long I just have so much to say! The south is beautiful (btw haven't seen 1 peachtree yet SMH). But I can't wait to see what this week has in store. Missionary work is amazing. Church is true. book of mormon is true. READ IT. god be with ya'll till next monday! 

             

 

                  

                       

                    

                        

MTC week 2

Oh wow where do I start?! This week flew by so fast. The days are passing so much faster I love it. I leave to Atlanta a week from today! CRAZY. 

WEDNESDAY:  Me and sis winters got to welcome the new missionaries tonight since we're sister training leaders so that was a lot of fun. But our zone leaders, elder dayley and oyewole, would hardly let us get a word into the orientation! Everytime we would try to explain or point out things elder Dayley would just say it again super loud ha!

Also saw Elder Simons at dinner (the elder I gave my farewell with!)

THURSDAY:  We taught harper another lesson tonight, it was okay but didn't feel like we really got anywere :/ its okay we're still learning. 

FRIDAY:  Just another classroom day... but at dinner Sister Winters and I were sitting with elders from our district and after 10 minutes I looked over and realized this elder was sitting with us just staring at us ha. When he saw me look at him he was like "Are you the sword of laban?! cuz the workmanship.. i mean uh.. the liahona... uh ahh" Then he just laughed and ran away. It was sooo funny! We actually saw him yesterday and its a joke going around the MTC "are you the sword of laban? cuz the workmanship there of is exceedingly fine" hahaha!! 

SATURDAY:  GENERAL CONFERENCE IS LIKE CHRISTMAS! Even though we had to be in church dress and in hard chairs the whole time, I've never listened so hard in my whole life. and listening as a missionary is sooo special. 

SUNDAY:  Conference again was sooo good, this weekend has been the best. And instead of the weekly sunday devotional, they had a special program... BYU VOCAL POINT! Ha we got a one-on-one concert with them it was sooo cool even though they didn't sing come thou fount :/ haha. 

Also at the MTC my favorite thing is we always sing "Army of Helaman" with all the MTC but we sing "We are now the Lord's missionaries we'll bring the world his truth" I just love it. 

MONDAY: Taught our new TRC investigator... Leah... so our lesson was over an hour long and shes legit an evangelical christian and her room is covered in posters of crosses and stuff... We tried to go into teaching her about the restoration.. but she has zero interest in listening and she kept cutting off sister winters so I just kinda kept quiet.  Sis winters tried to bear her testimony towards the end and Leah was like "No stop I don't want you just reciting things to me I dont wanna hear that" Oh man I just wanted to cry in the middle of it. I just felt so uncomfortable during it. but hey that's real life on the mish I guess. It'll get easier as we get more experience though. I'm just not looking forward to teaching her again ha. (also chik-fil-a for dinner tonight. yes the mtc loves us)

Anyways Imma wrap it up here but two quick things. 

     1. The womens session was the best and if you didn't watch it, go read/watch Prez Uchtdorfs talk it's amazing I was like crying the whole time.

     2. At devotional, the speaker said a quote that I love:

 "Your whole mission, you'll be thinking about home... but once you get home and for the rest of your life, you'll be thinking about your mission & the things you did and lives you changed" I love it because not only does it apply to missionary work, but to anyone. Wherever you are in life, you might often find yourself wanting to be somewhere else. But just remember to take advantage of what youre doing and be the best that you can. Make it the best situation, have fun and be the best you because you might not ever be at that place or in that situation again. Live "no ragrets" and do and say only what you'll be proud to look back on. 

That's all! Sorry this one was long! Love you all, thanks for everything. 

 

                                            

 

First Week Letter in the MTC

Wow where do I even begin. First week in the MTC! I made it till Sunday, and now pday!!

First of all my district is so awesome, we all get along super great. We're all going to the south: Atlanta GA, Knoxville TN, and Little Rock AR. There are 6 sisters and 6 elders. 

My companion is Sister Winters from Duchesne, Utah and oh my goodness. What a blessing she is to me! How did I get sooo lucky to have my first companion be one of my best friends?! We get along so great and laugh and have so much fun together. Anyways I'll try to keep it short but lemme tell ya how this week went:

Wednesday-- Got dropped off by my family and the host sister was helping me take my luggage into the MTC, I had just said bye to my parents and my mom was crying and I was a wreck still tryna wipe off my tears and a group of elders walked by and was like "Hey it'll be okay sister!!" Haha it made me smile. I walked in and they gave us our nametags and keys and took us to our rooms then straight to our classroom. We sat down and met our district and companions and jumped right into class for a few hours. We went to orientation and dinner and I ran into sooo many friends!! Sister Eaton (my roomie from Hawaii) and Sister Warren and Sister Soifua and a couple other sisters from BYUH. ALL day we have these little orange stickers on our nametags called "Dork Dots" that let everyone know "hey we're new missionaries and its our first day so cut us some slack" haha its funny and EVERYONE says "Welcome to the MTC sisters!" everywhere we go. Everyone is so friendly here and I can't believe how many missionaries there are. The caf is exactly like BYUH and most of campus is outside too so thats what it reminds me of haha. Also the hardest thing is getting used to calling everyone sister and elder instead of "guys". I keep finding myself wondering where I put my phone. smh. We had this huge meeting for new missionaries and the president asked me to read out of the handbook during the meeting so I had to stand up and talk in the mic and everyone knows who I am now and is like "hi sister collings" so thats funny.

Thursday-- Every night feels like you shut your eyes then all the sudden your alarm is going off at 6:30. We have 3 hour blocks of class with studying and lunch and dinner inbetween. The days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days, can't believe I've been here a week! We met our branch president tonight and turns out... Me and Sister Winters are the NEW SISTER TRAINING LEADERS! Haha we've been here 2 days. When the sisters leave on monday then we're basically taking over! Crazy stuff. 

Friday-- Just another long classroom/study day. It's a little hard adjusting to church 24/7 but hey thats what we missionaries signed up for! Oh yeah at lunch today, we sat by some elders and when we were about to leave this asian elder was like "hey sister can I get your email?" HAHAHA I was laughing so hard inside I was like WHAT. anyways I wrote down my email on his card and pen that he had ready and we left and me and sister winters were laughing so much. It caught us off guard but we see that elder like 2 or 3 times a day and he always waves and is like "HI SISTER COLLINGS" from across the caf and down the hall haha. My district teases us about it all the time.

Saturday-- Just long classes again... also had Bro and Sis Clayton of the seventy come and talk to our class, they were soo cool to visit with and it was like being in the presence of one of the twelve!! Also all week we've had brother reid (YES FROM THE DISTRICT) come and help out our class cuz he works here which was funny for everyone to recognize him.

Sunday--SO LONG AND SO MANY MEETINGS. Wow. Power went out while all the sisters were getting ready. that was fun :-) Sacrament meeting and RS and a Devotional and then we watched a film of Elder Bednars talk and I've never been more tired than I was at the end of today!! (but we got to all walk to the temple with all the missionaries in the middle of the day so thats what got me through it. I'll tell ya it was so much fun leaving the MTC and seeing the snow on timp I was SO EXCITED! I hope it snows before I leave) but yeah I crash at 1030 everynight and I wish we could go to bed at 930 instead!! 

Monday-- We taught our first investigator, Harper from HALEIWA HAWAII! Perfect connection and we talked all about hawaii and I told her how me and kendra biked from Laie to Haleiwa to get acai bowls and she loved it haha. We totally bonded. It was so awesome our lesson went so good and I am excited to meet w her on wednesday.Our district was so excited for Pday and we did a "pday eve" dance before we all left last night (shoutout dad and his story about doing that with his elders in argentina haha). 

And today we got up at 8 and got to go participate in sealings in the provo temple which was such a good way to start off the day. Loving taking a break and can't wait to go do laundry haha. 

Anyways I'm loving the MTC, doing so good and I hope that the next 2 weeks goes by so fast so that I can head out to georgia already! Thanks everyone for all your love and support, you're all in my prayers. Until next tuesday!!

Life in the MTC: Week 1

     

Hi guys, just letting you know I'm all good and starting classes and orientation today. Everyone is so nice here and I've never seen so many missionaries in my life.I love you all and miss you already!! Talk to you monday! 

xoxoxo

sis collings

Go Forward In Faith

   

September 21st Last Good-byes

Missionary:

Someone who leaves their family for a short time, so that others may be with their families for eternity.