Sister Kendra Reynolds: Episode 23: The Waves of Missionary Work!

Hello from Lynchburg, Virginia!

Wow...ok so much has happened! We are in this phase of...we have a down week, drop a couple of people from our teaching but then the next week we will pick up double! So in total since I have last emailed we have picked up 8 people to teach!! Life is so crazy for us!! So in total we are teaching 11 people, and helping teach a recent convert family and 2 less active families! My head feels like its going to explode sometimes haha. But I feel so humbled to be able to have the trust of my Savior to help others come to Him!

This family, the Campbells, are an old referral from when I got to the area and we were finally able to meet with them and the whole family has stated wanting to learn more. So here we are with them! We testified of the Book of Mormon and asked for them to read it. This week we will meet with them once more!

The two teenage girls have shown tremendous progress!! One of the girls has a boyfriend who previously was meeting with the missionaries but was dropped. This past week, he reached out to us again asking to be taught and wants to be baptized!! We were so pumped! We will be meeting with him and the girls too this week!

A referral from Appomattox, the Davis', are slowly progressing and we taught the Restoration to them. They know SO much about Christ and His teachings and it was so fun to teach them. They come from a Baptist church and so there are plenty of "Amens" and "Hallelujahs" going around during the lesson, I love it lol. These people are so great!! The wife, Adrienne, plays the organ too and we recommended her to listen to the Tabernacle. We are hoping she did because we LOVE the Tab!!

We also started teaching some people online! My companion, Sister Harrison's Dad isn't a member and his wife is a less active member and they have shown a lot of interest to not only get back into church but they recognize their relationship with God is either, not where it should be or is hardly there. He was so humble coming to us for help and is so willing to do what it takes to get to know our Heavenly Father and Savior, Jesus Christ. We've been able to meet with them twice this past week and they are making some fast progress. We are so so excited to see this personal progression!

We still have a couple of potentials:
Lula, a sweet old lady who "just loves talking about God!"
Joshua, a new father and husband, wanting to find his personal relationship with God.
Diane, a sweet sweet lady who has been taught before and has a member friend that lives in Florida. We have gone over and helped do some service and she wants us and is willing for us to come over for dinner! Maybe drop a couple of Book of Mormon verses with her too haha. No but really she is so great!

We also had our first Zone Conference with our new mission President! President and Sister Newman! Wow bless their souls, they have such a deep love for us, for this mission, for our Savior and Heavenly Father and the gospel! Meeting them was amazing and feeling of all the sacrifices they made to be here for us was incredible and truly humbling. He talked a lot of the difference of repenting and being repentant. It's a state of mind and also an action word. Are we doing both? As missionaries what are we doing to be repentant? As members what are we doing to be repentant? Another awesome point was "Getting out of our heads, and into our hearts." What does this look like? Are we truly pushing aside all of our doubts, fears and worries to receive the Lord's guidance? Are we putting what we believe in and say in our minds into our hearts? Wow...I was just full of revelation from that conference. I had a headache the rest of the day!! My headache could have been because we rode with some other sisters and one was a crazy driver on even crazier Virginia roads!! I lived...it's ok. We were also lucky enough to have interviews with President Newman and he was impressed with how many people we were teaching and asked if he could help...first thing President, is finding an apartment closer to Appomattox!! Haha..it's killing us having to waste so much time driving an hour to the area!! He also counseled me to Listen more...Listen to those you are teaching and God will tell you exactly what they need. Listen so they feel loved, Listen so you can love them! This man must be called of God or something...lol.

President and Sister Newman (on the right)

I've had to really use my brain and organization skills the past few weeks so I apologize for not emailing! But my mission President also said to me "Don't let your mind overrun your heart" so to all those who are stressed beyond Satan's power, take a step back and know who is there with us. The Creator of this world, the Creator of US. Let Him in and allow Him to work a miracle.
I love you all! STAY STRONG!!
Sister Reynolds