Sarah Jane Meservy

Subject:  LOVE, LOVE, LOVE! 🙂

Dear Loved Ones,

So, this weeks email probably won’t be as great (you know, because usually my emails are really good.  entertaining. funny.  spiritual. uplifting. etc.) but I usually make an outline, and I haven’t had time to do that, so you’re gonna get whatever comes out of my fingertips. 🙂

First of all, everyone, you can send me emails.  🙂 I can print them off and read them later and respond. 🙂  I love you all.

Second, You know when you send a really funny text, and the person who responds doesn’t even acknowledge that it was funny.  It’s the worst.  (Brighton, you know what I mean. “. . .” ) Well… I’m funny. 🙂 Joke.  But all I’m saying, is you can respond.  🙂 My email is sarah.meservy@myldsmail.net 🙂

Cara Ray, You get points for writing the most and the longest letters.  🙂  Thank you SO MUCH.  You have no idea how much it means to me. Michael Bishop gets second place.  🙂 I love you both. No worries though, I love everyone else as well. 🙂 Even one letter makes me REALLY happy. 🙂 I just wanted to give some acknowledgement to those going the extra mile. 🙂

Also, My companion is Hilarious. We were at dinner with a family last night and the whole time she was acting like my mother.  Telling me to eat more peas.  Wash my hands.  Etc etc.  It was funny. I love eating with families that have little kids. . . and making the kids laugh.  One of my favorite girls in the ward is eight years old, and her name is McKenzie. 🙂  Last night when we had dinner with her family and shared a message, I told them about when dad would make us go around and say what made us happy that day before we would say prayers.  Then I told them how me and Lyss would try to get dad to do it when we were older… and then how I would do it with my friends in provo. 🙂 We proceded to go around the circle and ask each family member what made them happy that day. 🙂  They loved it. I loved it.   . . . Thanks, Dad!

This week has been INCREDIBLE.  We started teaching a man whose wife was converted when she was 20, but has been less active for 30 years or more.  She has recently become very active again, and her husband decided to take the lessons.  Well… on Wednesday, he accepted the invitation to be baptized! 🙂  I cannot even tell you how happy I am.  On sunday we went over to read scriptures with him and he showd us that on his calender, on the days we come over, he has written “Missionary Angels.”  He came to church and said that he thinks he has really been missing out not coming with his wife. He loves his wife so much and wants to be with her forever, more than anything. He has a lot of health problems, and doesn’t know how much longer he will make it, but he is so sweet and wonderful.  I LOVE HIM.

After our visit on Sunday he said he wanted to call us The Moroni Girls. . . But his wife explained that Moroni is a man… and he was very confused.  He thought the angel moroni was a woman. 🙂 Moroni’s Sisters is what he was calling us as we left. He is on date to be baptized on May 18th. We have a ways to go and a lot to teach him, but I love him.

There are a few potentials on the horizon as well, we pray for them and hope things will go well.  But let me tell you, having just one person progressing towards baptism MAKES EVERYTHING WORTH IT. Ever door knocked.  Every rejection.  Everything. 🙂 I love it.  I love to love all people no matter what, but it is wondeful to see people come closer to Christ, and realize what a blessing that can be.

In a talk by President Uchdorf called “The Love of God” he explains that in order to be a true disciple of Christ, we must Love God, and Love everyone else. 🙂

He says, “If we truly learn to love our Heavenly Father and our fellowman with all our heart, soul, and mind- all else will fall into place.  The divine love of God turns ordinary acts into extraordinary service. . . . Love is the measure of our faith, the inspiration for our obedience, and the true altitude of our discipleship.  Love is the way of the disciple.”

I promise that the church is true. 🙂 I’m so grateful for it. 🙂 Don’t forget to LOVE EVERYONE, as the Savior would.

I love you.

Love,

Sister Meservy

Subject:  The things a missionary SHOULDN’T do…

Dear family and friends,

I love you all. 🙂

The theme of this letter is. . . The Things You Proably Shouldn’t Do on a Mission. . . So pay attention future missionaries.

Tip #1:

So, Sister Hood and I went to visit a less active family a couple weeks ago.  I was still getting used to talking to people (a skill I thought I had before I came out here…) so I was pretty nervous because it was my turn to talk at this door. The 20 year old daughter answered the door without and giving it a second thought, I started, “Hi, I’m Sarah, what’s your name?”  Not realizing my mistake, I continued, But we had a good laugh later…

Nevertheless, tip number one: Remember that you go by your last name. Not your first. 🙂

Tip #2:

At church this Sunday Sister Hood and I were greeting the members as they walked into the chapel.  When in walked a woman we had met earlier in the week.  She was married to a non member and he had just accepted the invitation to take the lessons. Which is really exciting.  He has anxiety and really struggles in crowds, so we knew that we’d struggle getting him to come to church.  To our surprise, in walked this woman AND HER HUSBAND.  This was a big deal.  He is my first investigator. We didn’t even invite him to church.  As she walked into the chapel- she pointed at her husband and said, “this is a miracle.”

I was seriously grinning from ear to ear.  Probably past each ear actually. . . Let’s be real. Anyway, I was so excited and I looked to Sister Hood with my eyes wide open, shook this mans hand, and then began to look around the chapel, thinking that these people had no idea what a big deal this was. The bishop then walked over to me and kindly said, “Don’t look so shocked, Sister Meservy.” . . . Yes, that’s embarrasssing.

So Tip Number Two:  Don’t Look Completely and Utterly Shocked when a New Investigator Walks into Church (even if you are shocked out of our stockings. Which I was. Almost).

Tip #3:

Heavenly Father loves us, and wants us to be happy. How are we happy?  I asked myself the same thing.  Then Mr. Investigator came to church. Was I happy then? You bet.  The way to find joy, as a fully time missionary, and as anything else- is to BRING PEOPLE CLOSER TO CHRIST.  My companion is having a hard time because she is used to having people to teach.  We haven’t really had anyone to teach for the last three weeks.  For me, well, I’ve never seen how joyous it is to teach people so I have nothing to compare this to.  I’m doing good. But it’s hard for her because she has seen how much joy it brings her to have people to teach.  The philosophy I’ve come to is that I CAN BRING PEOPLE CLOSER TO CHRIST IN MORE WAYS THAN BY TEACHING LESSONS. If I’m doing that, then I’ll be happy, yeah?  So, It’s not just about teaching lessons to investigators, but bringing members, less actives, and random people we meet, closer to Christ.  True, I can’t see if this is really happening, BUT, I’m doing my best. 🙂 So… am I filled with joy? I’m sure trying to be. 🙂 Because I’m doing all I can to bring souls unto christ! 🙂 (D&C 18:15-16)  I also love verse 19 of D&C 18.  We must push forward with Faith and Hope! 🙂  God has promised that as we keep his commandments, he will “lead us to a better land.”  🙂 I trust him. 🙂

So Tip Number Three: Trust God and Do Your Best. DON’T GET DISCOURAGED!

Tip #4:

Everyone, pay attention to this.  It’s kind of heart breaking. . . I was reading in Moses 7.  God is crying over the wickedness of the people, and Enoch asks twice, “How is it thou canst weep?” The response is what breaks my heart, “The Lord said unto Enoch: Behold these they brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency; And unto thy brethren have I said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father; but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood;”

It is so important to God that we love each other.  He has given us everything that we have.  our knowledge. our bodies. our talents. EVERYTHING.  he has even given us agency so that we can decide what we will do with all he has given us.  It must be so hard for him to see us use this wonderful gift to act selfishly. Remember to love all of God’s children.  We are each the workmanship of his wonderful hands.

Tip Number Four: Remember the Great Commandment to Love.

Alright, that’s all folks. 🙂 Washington is as beautiful as ever. 🙂 My companion is still wonderful. My Savior is my best friend.  My Faith is increasing.

I am giving my heart, though at times it will hurt,

I am giving my hands, to fulfill Thy great work.

I am giving my feet, guide them where they must go,

I am giving my mind, and sharing all that I know.

I am giving my eyes, for compassion and tears,

And I’m using my faith to trample my fears.

Yeah.

The Church is True.

I love you all, thanks again for the letters. 🙂

Congrats on the engagements Seth and Lyss! Love you both!

Love,

Sister Meservy.  Your favorite missionary.  The one that you want to send packages of LOVE.  and Letters. And love. and Letters… 😉  Not that I’m begging. Yet.

Subject:  Did you know sixlets have flavors?

So, I’m just going to jump into story time today- because I have about 30 minutes!

Story number one:

Sister Hood and I were out tracting this week and we saw an old man getting his mail.  We walked up to him and began talking to him.  He informed us that he was deaf in one ear and couldn’t hear us. So we proceded, yelling. . . . He told us he already knew about mormons because people had talked to him about mormons before.  I yelled, “Have you ever talked to a mormon about mormons?”  the conversation continued and we ended with a simple testimony… (remember: we were yelling the whole conversation.) As we walked away my companion said, “Well… we just taught like five lessons.  The whole neighborhood had to be listening.”  It was funny.  I promise.

Story number two:

We were teaching an active family the first discussion, because this girl needs practice, and they were pretending to be investigators.  We were talking to the mother about prayer and she was asking some very good questions.  Mid-lesson, her husband walked in the house and joined the lesson.  To his surprise, his wife expressed concerns with prayer and confessed that she didn’t pray very often and couldn’t see the importance of it.  Sister Hood asked the woman if she knew that prayer was a commandment.  She responded that she didn’t know that.  Her husband, deciding to speak up, looked at his wife with concern and simply said, “Honey, you didn’t know that?” To which all the children began laughing.  As did we. 🙂

Story number three:

This ones for Tyler.

Sister Hood and I came into the apartment after a long day and I set our things on the table.  I dropped my apple and as it smacked against the table I expressed, “Man, I just bruised that apple.  Hard ‘core.’ ” Again.  Laughter. 🙂

Alright, the point of all of these, if there is a point, is that missionary work is FUN.  Heavenly Father is so good at giving us things to be happy about.  And those moments are just the simple joys.  The real joy in missionary work is beginning to manifest itself as well. As I explained in my last letter, most people here just don’t want to listen.  But this week we have met many incredilbe people who were more open to this wonderful message we have to share.

Sister Hood and I have started teaching from the pictures in the Book of Mormon, and bearing testimony to all that will listen, of it’s truth.  The Book of Mormon is true.  It is powerful.  It has been incredible this week to see that so many people are willing to listen when we begin by bearing our testimony of this book. As we simply share that we know this books is true.  It testifies of Christ.  The Holy Ghost takes over, and has moved people to tears.  People feel that desire to read and to pray about the truth.  It is heartbreaking to see that some people, even when they have felt the truth, still deny it.  It’s easy to get caught up in the distractions of the world.  I will admit, that even as a missionary I get caught up in SO MANY DISTRACTIONS.  But we cannot let the world distract us from the truths of the gospel.  It breaks my heart that people are so close, they feel it, and then something happens to weaken their desire.  Nevertheless, we are planting seeds.  My companion and I just keep on saying, “if we are here to plant seeds for the next 5 weeks, we will do it.  We will be the best seed planters the Lord has ever seen.”  … Well, we’ll do our best at least and let the Lord take over from that point.

Everyone reading this- find at least one thing that is a distraction to you from the things God wants you to do.  Maybe it’s electronics, sports, anger, music, etc etc- I don’t know what your personal distraction is, But you do.  So find that distraction and change it.  Just change one thing to come closer to God and build a better relationship with him.  Ask him for help and you will be able to give that thing up.  🙂  You can do it.  I promise!  And you will feel so much joy as you work to come closer to Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father.

I love you all.  Keep being incredible.  Thanks for the support.

Love,

Sister Meservy

Oh boy. 🙂  Well, my dear family.  I sure do love you.  This week has been crazy. I loved flying into Spokane.  IT IS BEAUTIFUL.  Farmland?  Heck yes. 🙂 Green? Heck yes.  🙂

So on monday: Woke up at the crack of 3:00 in the morning.  Joyous.  Packed up, headed out. 🙂 Arrived in Spokane, Washington around 9:00 am.  Which was fun, because the flight left at 9:00 am, Utah time.

This may have been the longest day of my life.  starting at 3:00am and ending at 10:30 pm…. while adding an extra hour on the plane that didn’t get counted.  And did I sleep on the plane? Of course not. I had to get to know the people sitting around me. ANYWAY- it was long, and I’ll admit, it was hard for me to focus in training because I was EXHAUSTED.

But Tuesday was better.  I wasn’t quite as exhausted, which was great because I met my trainer.  WHO IS THE BEST.  Yeah.  Her name is Sister Hood (which is fun because my last companion was Sister Wood). She’s been out for 6 months- to be honest, I don’t think I could have been put with anyone better.  She works HARD, but she has fun as well.  She is super humble, super kind, and understands what its like to be a new missionary (because she’s obviously been there…) BUT REALLY, she’s the best.

Usually, when a sister or elder comes into a new area, there is an elder or sister who has already been serving there for at least a transfer.  Then they know some background of the place and the people and can continue the work.  When they bring in two new elders or sisters, its called a sweep.  Well… Sister Hood and I are sweeping into the Valley. (It’s gorgeous.  Exactly what I was expecting and hoping for.  I wish I had time to take pictures of everything and send it home so you could see just how perfect it is.  I’ve probably seen 3 stop lights in my area… other than that it’s just houses.  Old houses, with character.  And white picket fences.)   We are serving in the Ponderosa Ward. (Which is where, ironically enough, ELDER DOWSE just finished serving).

Speaking of Elder Dowse, it was AWESOME to see him my first day in the field. They took us out fearbusting, so right when we got off the plane we went out with an experienced missionary and knocked doors and shared the gospel.  🙂 It was fun.  But, we met at the church after and ELDER DOWSE WAS THERE.  I jumped out of the van and we almost hugged each other- OOPS. haha. Handshake.  SO yeah, we talked for a while and it was so awesome.

Sister Mullen also said that she’s had a bunch of people tell her about me… but she doesn’t remember who.  So we share some mutual friends… but not sure who.  Then, one of my zone leaders,  Elder Whiting, knows my friend Liz Jensen really well- So we were instantly friends.  Also, he’s just a really great missionary.  Since my biggest weakness in the field is missing the people i love, I think it’s so great that the Lord knows that and is helping me feel welcome and not so alone in the field.

Anyway, back to the important things:

This week has been great, getting familiar with things… My companion and I, since we are sweeping into the area, have had a lot of work to do, just so we can start the work.  We really needed to organize the records and things.  Anyway, the work (actually teaching) is finally picking up  and we are starting to teach lessons.  We just feel that we really need to show the Lord we are willing to work hard so that he will send us to the people who are willing to listen.  So we knock doors.  and we knock more doors.  We have failed to make it inside, but we are doing better every day.  We are getting to know the members and we’ve been getting referrals.

It’s hard for me to see so many good people, that don’t see the importance of the gospel in their lives.  I have met so many people who are firm in the beliefs they have now.  Everyone says they are happy with what they have and don’t want to discuss more. All that we can do is bear our testimonies of the truth.  I’m not very brave… but I am getting better, and when I bear my testimony I can feel people begin to soften their hearts.  There was one man, a catholic, who is very firm in his faith.  I looked at him and bore testimony and I know he felt it.  He told me that he had his faith and he needed to stick to that, and I know he saw my heart break.  I didn’t mean to show it, but I was giving everything and I was so sad to see him not accept even one lesson.  He told me he wasn’t trying to offend me and I promised I wasn’t offended.  All week, I keep telling myself, that I have been planting seeds.  At night I pray for the people we have met, and pray that the seed will grow.  We try to always leave a pamphlet, book of mormon, pass along card, or our mormon.org cards with the people we talk to, so they have something to think about. It’s hard to see so many people turn this away, but I’ve been learning a lot, and loving a lot, and growing a lot.

On Easter, everyone kept saying, “We already went to church today,” when they would see us walking towards them.  And I just wanted to scream “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND THE HAPPINESS AND THE BLESSINGS YOU ARE MISSING OUT ON!!” We’d usually talk to them and try to share something, but everyone has their agency.

Through all of this, we have seen SO MANY MIRACLES, every day.  My companion is great at pointing them out, and now I’m really starting to see them.  We finally have a couple people to teach, and I pray they will be home for their appointments.

It’s cool to see that even if people aren’t accepting the gospel fully, we usually leave them happier than we found them.  Most people answer the door and aren’t happy to talk to us, but those that give us a second to speak, usually close the door with smile on their faces.  We want them to know that God loves them and there is more happiness in this world.

Anyway, sorry there’s so much there, I am loving this experience.

It’s great to hear from family. Thanks for the letter, Alyssa! (and Ryan)  I love you!

Cara, Happy Birthday! 🙂  Sorry I didn’t get a letter out to you, I can only write on P-days and I didn’t even think about it last P-day. But, I hope that you had a wonderful Birthday.  I love you! (Also, Thank you to all the Rays for the letters,  they have made me so happy.  I’ll respond soon.  Hopefully today. 🙂  Jeff, I was super impressed with that letter.)

Also, I never said thank you to Aunt Lynda for the journal she sent.  It has meant a ton to me. 🙂  I already LOVE it.

To finish up, I know that the church is true.  It is worth every sacrifice we could ever make.  I have loved sharing Easter messages with people this week, because I know that Christ is my Savior, and I know that he is yours.  I know that we can find peace and joy in this life because of him.  Moroni 7.  Read it.  My favorite verse is verse 41.  “And what is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise.”  We can have so much hope in our lives, knowing that Christ has felt our pains and has been resurrected so that one day, we too, can be resurrected and have eternal JOY.  🙂

The Church is TRUE.  Don’t forget it.  Read your scriptures.  Go to Church.  Pray.  Those things are SO important.

Thank you all for the support- it means so much to me.  I love you and I am praying for you.

Much Love,

Sister Sarah Jane Meservy