Hello From Northern Alabama!! Things are starting to cool down here. It is brisk in the mornings and even in the middle of the day it is survivable! It is a very nice change! (: I am serving in the Anniston ward, but we live in Jacksonville. It is a college town, with a small little university. It is really really nice! The rolling hills remind me of the mountains back home. It is a big change to be around young people! But people who are 18-25 are the ones who are generally the most open, so there is a lot of potential in this area!! My companion is Sister Moyes from Farmington, Utah. She came out last transfer, and she is a lot of FUN!
It was hard to leave Clanton. I really loved it there, and I love the people, and we were starting to see a lot of success, but I felt ready to go. If that makes sense? I felt like a cold hearted person because I didn't cry.. I am getting better at containing my emotion! Even though it was hard, I was ready. On wednesday i was ready to find my new companion and to get to work!! This area is a lot different, and people work differently here. But it is great! There are a lot of less-actives and for the last few days that is were we focused all of our attention. It was really cool on Saturday night we were going over the roster and just visiting ALL of the less actives. We came to this less active sister, and we just about decided not to go, but we decided to go and see her. When we got there she was so excited to see us! She said that she has been praying for sister missionaries to knock on her door and help her get back on track! That was a miracle!
Yesterday we tried to find people up at the university, and as we were tracting this apartment complex we saw a guy walking to the door that we were planning to hit next...very awkward missionary moment... so we awkwardly yelled across the complex at him. He asked who we were looking for and we told him that we were missionaries and that we wanted to talk to anyone. He said, 'well I will listen to you!' haha. He is so prepared! We talked to him for a while and he asked us a lot of questions. We gave him a book of mormon and he is excited to read it! He told us that back home, in texas, there is a huge mormon church. (temple) haha. He was really excited! He was prepared! And we were at the right spot at exactly the right time. I love one thing that he said is that the reason why he was so open to listen to us is because we were willing to listen to him and to get to know him. That is a really important concept that i have learned. We really just need to have a love for people, a pure love that leads to us forgetting about ourselves and listening to them. That is the most important thing that i have learned. If we will just love people and love God then we will have success! I am reading the BoM right now and marking each Christlike attribute in a different color. This morning I read 1 nephi 6 were Nephi explains that he is only going to write on the plates that things that are of worth to people. His motivation in writing was that of love. He knew that recording his dealings with God would bless his future generations. His whole motivation was that of love of God and of all men. (2 nephi 31:20) That got me thinking this morning about what my motivation is, and what all of our motivation is. I know that as we remember the two greatest commandments. 1) Love God 2) Love your neighbor that we will have success. We will be happier. We will be more open to share the gospel. We will have Happiness. And really that is what it is all about. HAPPINESS.
This is the gospel of happiness. Share it.
Sister Casperson
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