Oct 27th Letter

Oh no! sorry mom! I am alive though so that's good.  There have been no more tornadoes since Monday, so I think we are good for a while.  That night though Sister Pratt woke up yelling at me that we needed to get down stairs because there was a tornado...we live right next to the train tracks. She thought the train going by was a tornado.  The mission office watches the weather really closely though, so they will tell us when ever we need to go find a basement. 

Its crazy how frustrated you can get with others agency on your mission, but sometimes all you can do is plant a seed.  We did find a golden investigator this week though!  We were tracting and we knocked on Cheryl's door. We asked who she knew who would want to hear our message about Jesus Christ. She said her kids needed it. I wasn't sure what to do! No one had ever let us in through tracting before. We went in and started talking to her about her religious background. She told us she had read the Bible before and started describing how she had felt when she read it. She had felt the spirit while reading the Bible. We gave her a Book of Mormon and told her that she would feel the same way when reading it and that it would bring her closer to Jesus Christ. Her two children, just that week, had been asking about being baptized. We took that opportunity to ask them if they would be baptized and they said yes! It is crazy all the miracles I have seen so far on my mission. The rest of this week has been kinda crazy.  Sister pratt is getting transferred.  We both knew that would happen, but its still scary to have to introduce my new companion to the area on Wednesday. 

I can't wait to see the Phoenix temple! Did they tell you why they decided to put an oval font in it? I haven't even heard about that video.  This P-day has been crazy too, and I only have a few minutes, but I will be praying for Timmy and everyone.  I hope the kids have a fun Halloween take lots of pictures for me! Love you!

October 20. 2014 Letter

The temple is gorgeous! I'm so jealous! Thanks for the pictures :) I've just been staring at the drawing of it that they have on lds.org.  My week has been crazy! I guess I'll add some stuff that I forgot to tell you last week too.  All Monday we were camped out in a members basement because it was supposed to get really bad.  It never did get too bad, but I'll send you some pictures of the damage closer to our apartment.  We had exchanges with the STLs last week and that was really fun.  We had lots of really cool experiences too.  Like when sister McDougal and I were walking home from getting some addresses, we almost got hit by a car...Alabama has literally no sidewalks.  The car pulls over a little ways down the street and the lady gets out and starts saying sorry and telling us to be careful.  She realized we were the missionaries and starts getting really emotional.  Sister McDougal and I had no idea what was going on.  She told us that her cousin had just commit suicide and that the church had really helped her through that.  She was a less active member and didn't know how to get back to church.  We taught her some and set an appointment to come back.  I haven't been back because this was in Madison, but it was a really cool experience...then we had a sleep over and pulled pranks on each other.  The next day I went out with Sister Brunner.  She's legit.  Roll model missionary right there.  Anyways we went tracting and ran into a guy taking out the trash.  We tried talking to him to find out that he only spoke Spanish.  Sister Brunner tried talking to him anyways.  She was doing really well, but couldn't understand what he was saying.  I kinda could so I would tell her.  It was crazy how we both worked together to talk to this guy who didn't know English.  She would speak and I would translate.  We set an appointment to come back and teach him, so we will see if our Spanish skills extend beyond contacting people.  We had a lot of really cool experiences last week, but this week was kinda off.  Sister Pratt says its because we had a baptism yesterday, so the rest of the week everything went wrong.  We were out for an appointment about 20 miles away and had some time before hand, so we decided to go tracting...There is no off time apparently, just tracting time.  This guy we came across was interested so we set an appointment to come back.  His kids really liked us and were excited for us to come back and play.  We came back a few days later for our appointment and his wife answered the door.  She said they weren't interested and shut the door.  That wouldn't have been so bad had we not traveled so far to get there and had the two boys not run out after us asking why we weren't staying to play.  I didn't know what to say to them.  Then on the way back to the car, this car full of college girls yelled something at me that I cant repeat because I'm a Mormon.  I was somehow able to hold off the hulking out until we got back to the car and away from people.  That bothered me for the rest of the night though.  The next morning I prayed to get some answers and comfort in my personal study.  That day in my 8 pages of the Book of Mormon that we are reading together as a mission, I ready the story of Alma and how he was spit on by the people, but instead of being angry, he was sad for them because they didn't have the gospel.  It was crazy to get such a straight forward answer...I gotta go soon because we have a meeting early, but we might be able to get back on later.  We had a baptism yesterday!

p.s. if I don't get back on to email everyone else, could you send this to them.  Sorry I couldn't be on for long today.  Miss and love y'all!

10.13.14 Letter

Hello Mower family! I have heard that Arizona was getting lots of rain...right when I leave too. The weather here is crazy we have been getting huge thunder storms all week and are supposed to be getting tornadoes tonight.  I'll send you the picture of the one that was forming near our apartment last Monday...and the pictures of the hike we were taking while the tornado sirens started going off.  I wish I was there to see all those crazy storms with ya'll though. Thanks for being smart enough to pack hydro cortisone with me Emmy. I didn't think the bugs would be so bad here...they are. Sounds like ya'll got to experience your own little Alabama down there.

How are mom and dad doing? Is Brooklyn talking a lot more? Hopefully we will all get to skype together this Christmas. It's good that she still remembers me though, I miss the kids a lot, but it is good to hear that they are doing well. Don't let them get too old while I'm gone.

Conference was really good, it was crazy how fast it went by and how much you learn when you are really trying. The missionaries were the only ones in the chapel. We got to see meet the Mormons too. It was really good, but kind of cruel to show a room full of missionaries a segment on a missionary mom dropping her son off at the airport. How is "baby brother" by the way? Are you thinking any names yet? Poor Brooklyn I hope she isn't scared of girls wearing name tags now.  

I haven't sent any letters yet. It's kinda hard this week because the library is closed so I'm on an iPad. So emails might be kinda short and all over the place, but if I don't get it this week, I'll catch everyone up next week. It's definitely been crazy here. I love and miss everyone and can feel that I am in your thoughts and prayers. Ya'll are definitely in mine.  I have to try and write president now, but I'll get back on if I finish in time love you!

Greeeeen!

This is Joyce.  Joyce is legit.  She is always telling us stories about her kids and all the funny stuff she did when they were growing up.  She just had her son and daughter pass away, so we try to help her out.  She is my favorite crazy southern lady in Cullman.

Aaand then we ate fried snickers bar.  Alabama is heaven.

This is Tucker... he is crazy.

How to tell the missionaries are having a meeting.

Sister Brunner customized our name tags.

.... baby Nader.

We closed the door to our laundry room and the washer walked itself in front of it.

This is a goat... in a stroller.  Only in Alabama.

Hiking before the baby Nader.  "Twas crazy!

Oct. 6 2014 Letter

Letter From Mom and Dad to Sister Harris:

Hello Sister Harris

It's Saturday after 2nd session of conference. I went out in the front yard with mom and tried to do some trimming. the gas weed wacker flooded and wore me out trying to start it so I came in to shower and get ready for Priesthood. Last night mom and I went to the Fun Factory to try their new salad bar and ended up getting salad soup and splitting a hamburger. Eyes bigger than stomach. but it was good. I sitting here sweating on the keyboard so I'd better go clean up and get ready for PH.  Will write more tomorrow. Love you.

Dad

Response letter from Sister Harris:

Did you guys play any games at Z Fun Factory... is it still Z Fun Factory? Conference was really good, but the only session we watched with an investigator was of course the first Sunday session where they were talking about patriarchal blessings and the celestial kingdom...but it was good.  This has been a crazy week; very busy. Busy is good though right? I am still very much enjoying being a missionary, even at the times where is seems like we might not be getting all the results we want, like investigators keeping their commitments. I have especially seen that this week. With most of our investigators saying that they would try to come to a session of conference with us, but not showing up. If you were to stand at the very back of the chapel, you would be able to tell who the missionaries were. Just watch for the two girls constantly turning back to see who is walking through the doors. We worked all week to try and get our investigators to come to conference. Is it bad to pray for an investigator's plans to fall through?  Anyways this week has been pretty uneventful compared to my first couple weeks.  The elders we had in our area left so we had to take over all their people.  It was nice to be able to talk to other missionaries sometimes, so it was sad to see them go.  We did have to break into their house to get their area book though.  That would have been funny if anyone had seen us, a couple of Mormon missionaries, trying to break into a house.  Didn't you do that once? Its gotten really cold here really quick...I don't like it.  We had tornado warnings on Wednesday. I slept through it.  Anyways all is good here.  Hope to hear more from you soon.  Love you!