Sister Taylor Goes to Washington D.C. (South): August 2, 2015

Tuesday: was uneventful. It was preparation day.

Wednesday: Sister Wright went on the departing temple trip with all the missionaries going home this transfer, so I was with Sister Wheeler from the Warrenton 1st Ward. She is an amazing missionary. When she was 28, she got a very strong prompting to go on a mission, so she put her career as a 1st grade teacher on hold and came out on a mission. She is so much older than the rest of us and has so much more life experience, but she is super humble and doesn't treat the younger missionaries like they are any less capable than she is. I thought I would feel intimidated all day, but Sister Wheeler was awesome. I would love to actually be her companion someday.

We went to visit Connie, our investigator. She has been super excited to get baptized. She has had to give up smoking, and was really struggling when we showed up. She said she had been irritable all day and had snapped at her granddaughters a few times. We talked with her about reading daily from the Book of Mormon. She said she had been reading a few times a week, but we promised her that if she read daily, she would feel more peace and have the strength she needed to quit smoking for good. She said she would and thanked us for coming. She told of us that having us come over helped her to feel much better.

We also went to visit a woman in the ward named Angel.. She has fibromyalgia and has a hard time getting anywhere, including church. We talked with her about 1 Nephi 3. She really loved verse 7, "...I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them." We talked about how God not only provides a way for us to keep His commandments, He also provides a way for us to overcome our trials. We talked a lot about the Atonement and it was one of those lessons where I felt like I learned more from the person I taught than she learned from me. It was amazing. On Saturday I talked to the sister who was in Warrenton before me, and she told me that Angel had messaged her on Facebook and told her how much she loved me. I loved hearing that.

Thursday: Also pretty uneventful. Sister Wright had her departing interview in Burke, so that took up a large chunk of our day. In the evening we went to the Woodsens. Jordan (12) and Mason (10) are the sons of a less active member. The sisters here have been teaching them for a while, and they are getting close to baptism. The mom, who is a member, is getting closer to coming back to church, and her non-member husband has started asking questions. We're excited for them! It was a fun visit. Mason wasn't there, but we showed Jordan and his mom a Mormon Message and talked about obedience to God's commandments.

Also! On our way back from dinner, we saved a turtle that was walking across the road. It was fast! I couldn't catch it. Sister Wright had to do it.

Friday: In the afternoon we went with the Elders to do service for Sister Norris. We pulled lawn furniture out of a sketchy garage and washed it off, raked leaves out from under her porch, and painted a little bird cage thing that she puts candles in. First of all- SO MANY SPIDERS. They were everywhere! There were all these clumps of web stuff hanging from the ceiling of the garage and from the bottoms of the lawn furniture. You could see the big spider crawling around on it, and when you looked closely, you could see hundreds of little baby spiders crawling all over the web clump. They were cute. In a disgustingly disturbing kind of way. I killed a lot of them....

Later, once we got to the painting, we learned a very important lesson--paint creates too much power for 20 and 21 year olds to handle. Even if they are missionaries. Elder Massey was holding the ruler we used as a stirring stick and that was now covered in red paint. He looked at the ruler, then at his companion, Elder Sanders, then back at the ruler, then back at Elder Sanders. Elder Sanders just shook his head and said, "don't even think about it." Elder Massey shrugged his shoulders and then looked at the ruler, looked down at his own shirt, back at the ruler, back at his shirt, and proceeded to draw an "M" on his chest. Sister Norris came over in her wheelchair and offered to decorate his back. She drew a heart with an arrow through it and wrote "MASSEY." He thanked her and then stuck his hand into the can of paint. He looked at his hand, looked at me, looked at his hand, looked at me, and asked, "how much do you care about that shirt?" I said, "More than you care about yours." Somehow, though, I ended up with paint on my shirt and my jeans. Some was self-inflicted, some was from Sister Wright, and some was from Elder Massey. Elder Sanders was just appalled that his companion would actually put paint on a sister. (I suspect Elder Massey may have a crush on me. He's always doing stuff like this to me. Thank goodness he's going home in a few days!)

Saturday: CONNIE GOT BAPTIZED!!!! She was so so happy! Her whole face just glowed all day. About 15 of her non-member family members came to the baptism. It was so great. She said she felt all warm, but also like there was a cool breeze. She couldn't stop smiling. It was so sweet. Her sister, who introduced her to the Church, gave a talk on the Holy Ghost and Sister Wright gave a talk on Baptism. Both were wonderful. I gave the closing prayer. It was such a happy day!

That evening, we were driving to meet someone (who ended up not being home) and a truck full of teenaged boys drove past us. They stuck their heads out the windows and waved and and cat-called and made the "call me" sign. I dug through my bag for a minute, then looked back up at them totally dead pan, and held up a picture of Jesus. It was pretty funny to see their looks of bewilderment before Sister Wright slammed on her brakes and got behind the people driving behind them.

Later, we went to visit a less active older woman in the ward named Sister Barlow in the hospital. We sang some hymns and read some Book of Mormon to her. She told us that being in the hospital had given her new perspective. She told us she wanted to talk to the bishop and come back to church. We were so happy to hear that, even though we were sorry she was in the hospital.

Sunday: went to church. It was good! After church and dinner, we had about an hour before we were going to visit the Prices. I started contemplating what we needed to be doing during that time, since we didn't have any set plans, and a name jumped to my mind. Cherokee is a high school girl who is the step-daughter of some less active members in the ward, but isn't a member herself. We helped her and her brother break down a fence last week. She is super sweet and also plays the trumpet. Her name popped into my head, so we went to visit her and she came out to meet us as soon as we pulled up. We had no idea what we were going to say, but we knew we needed to be there. We talked for a few minutes and suddenly she told us that she found her grandma's scriptures. Her grandma (who passed away last year) was a member, and Cherokee had found her quad (Old and New Testament, Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price). She told us she had been looking through it. We asked her if she would read from the Book of Mormon, and she said she would. She told us she had thought a little about being baptized before. We asked her to read Alma 32 and set up an appointment for this Wednesday. She was very willing and excited to have us come talk to her about the Book of Mormon and the Gospel. We're super excited!

Today: We went to DC! We went to the National Archives to see the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Then we went to the Library of Congress and saw the Thomas Jefferson library and got official library cards. :) Super cool. Be jealous.

Anyway, I love you all! The Church is true!!!

Sister Taylor

Library of Congress: