"What was his name??? Elder Klinglebat???"

Hey yall!!! Hope you all have had an amazing week! I sure did! It has been an interesting one that is for sure!

We had a mission conference on Saturday where all the missionaries in South Carolina gathered to hear one of our church leaders...his name is Elder Klebingat...but one of the senior missionaries I serve with called him Elder Klinglebat haha we all got a good laugh at that one and just grateful she didn't say that to his face!

It was an awesome conference though and I learned a lot on what I can do to improve as a missionary. I will go back to the conference in a second.

Earlier this week we have had quite a few interesting experiences. On Tuesday we were on exchanges where we switch companions for 24 hours with one of our Sister Training Leaders. I stayed here in my area and we went to go check on this women who had requested a Book of Mormon. Right after I got done introducing the Book of Mormon to her and inviting her to read from it and scheduling a time to return, her neighbor came up to me(meanwhile my companion is playing with the kids to keep them busy) and asked what are the requirements to be mormon. I knew that was a loaded question.....I started trying to explain having faith in Jesus Christ and trying to explain the priesthood(the authority of God), when she kept cutting me off and saying that she was just watching a video the night before about how mormons are a cult. I was like oh no.....she was saying I was saying a lot of things they did and she kept getting more angry and saying how she doesn't believe that there should be people higher in status in church which is why she chose the church she goes to where they don't refer to their preacher as preacher or pastor. They are all equal. I was trying to explain to here that we are all equal and we are given assignments at different times to help strengthen each other but we are all of equal importance. She kept cutting me off and started getting in my face...literally like an inch away from my face...I was for sure she was going to push me or something. So I just stopped trying to answer her questions and just started testifying of how I know that this is true and how God has revealed it to me as I have come to Him in prayer to ask these things. It took about five minutes for me to be testifying before she finally stopped getting in my face and then she just sat there and you could tell she was feeling the Spirit. She finally got up and gave me a hug and told me that she is glad that I have some wisdom and find out for myself and not just believe what is said to me. I told her that there is a lot of skewed information and next time she should go to the missionaries or one of the church websites if she has questions. It was such a neat experience to see when her heart was finally softened and she knew and felt that I was speaking truth.

That was a terrifying yet amazing experience that strengthened my testimony in trusting that the Lord provides for His missinoaries and helps them know what to say.

Elder Klebingat said at the conference that a person with a spiritual experience adn testimony is never at the mercy of someone with merely an opinion. That is so true so never back down from sharing your testimony of the Savior! May you all remember what He has done for us and that He helps those who have faith in Him. Hope yall have an amazing week and Easter Sunday!

Love,

Sister Rice

See if you can find me in this picture of the whole mission:)

Short update about this week

First off this new area is difficult but I am getting along great with my new companion. That makes the hard days easier.

Second we are super excited because we are doing a mission conference on Saturday where the whole mission will get together and we will get to here from a general authority(and I will get to see Sister Robins)!

Monday night we went over to a family in our ward for dinner and FHE. Their little kids were so cute and are so excited to be missionaries. Their youngest daughter went and made her own name tag and came and sat next to us. I will send a picture. Then their little boy kept showing us all these cool magic tricks and also was teaching Elder Bingham(a senior missionary in our ward) the missionary discussions.

Tuesday we were talking to this girl in the library and were sharing a scripture with her when this other girl turned around and said "Amen" so we went and talked to her afterwards. But weird thing was she quickly cut us off and told us how she is strong in her faith and doesn't agree with how we don't think Christ is Lord or Deity. So we tried to explain to her that we do but she wouldn't listen so sister Callahan just handed her a copy of the Living Christ and said that this is who we believe Jesus Christ is. A few hours later we got a call from her and she left a message saying that she had some questions. We thought for sure she just wanted to bash us, so we said a quick prayer and called but she didn't answer. Then two days later we got another call from her and missed it again but this time the message said that she wanted to apologize for how she came off and that she was hoping we could meet up and discuss what we believe and what she believes and see how they are different or if there really isn't any differences. We were super surprised and super excited. We meet with her Thursday so pray that goes well and that she ends up wanting to continue to learn more!

Friday was fun. We got to take out this young women for a few hours and answer her questions about missionary work and then go back and teach her family a lesson. They are kind of less active and her dad isn't a member. We were hoping the dad would sit in but he was doing yard work. We scheduled a follow up visit and hope that he will be sitting in next week. After that we went and helped out the other missionaries in another ward with a root beer float stand at the ward's Sock Hop. We got to dress up and it was fun seeing all the dancing going on and the activities they were doing. They did a great job with it. While we were cleaning up sister Callahan was dared to eat a handful of salt left at the bottom of the bowl of pretzels for $5 so she did it.....it ended up making her sick and she ended puking. She said that that was the worst $5 she ever earned.

Saturday we got to go to a kid's Blue grass music festival at an old mill that is actually still running. It was super fun and the kids were so cute with their banjos and mandolins. We also got to try boiled peanuts. They are good except they don't taste like peanuts they actually are so soft that it taste like beans. 

Last night Sister Callahan made me fried chicken. I made her take a picture so I could show everyone how awesome of a cook she is!

Today we got to go over to a lady's house in the ward and do a step by step painting. It was super fun and it turned out a lot better than I thought it would haha.

Anyways these are just some random updates from this last week. Hope all is well!!!! 

Love,

Sister Rice

"Can you guys come back. We forgot to give you LAMB HATS."

Well guys I have been transferred! We had transfers last week and they decided to take me and both my companions and have us all transferred, and brought in two new missionaries. They call that whitewashing. I was really sad to leave Charleston so soon. I felt like I still hadn't done a whole lot there, so it was a hard goodbye. But change is good and missions are full of change. I am now back in the upstate! I am in the Greenville 3rd ward which is the very north part of South Carolina and on the West side of the state. Some of the cities that are in my area are Travelers Rest, Easley, and Pickens....then a bunch of small cities in between. Our area is pretty big so it is hard to cover all of it. Everything is very spread out, but it makes the drives really nice. It is covered with trees here and very pretty! Way different weather than what I was experiencing on the coast. It has been rainy and cold all week. My companion is Sister Callahan. She has been out for 3 months. She is very sweet and hard working. The ward is on the smaller side of things, but from the people I have met they are all very sweet. We also have a set of Elders in our ward and a senior couple. We will see what this transfer holds for me! I am excited to try to figure out what my purpose is here and who I am here for. 

So knowing we were getting transferred we were saying a lot of goodbyes. The day before transfers we went and said goodbye to our zone leaders. After we said bye we got a text asking us to come back because they wanted to give us lamb hats .We were like what the heck are lamb hats, but we went back anyways because we were really curious. Turns out one of the elders worked with sheep back home and his family made a bunch of hats with their brand on it. This elder gives these hats out to only his favorite missionaries. It only took us 6 weeks to earn a lamb hat. At transfers everyone was like what you got a lamb hat! or they would laugh and say this elder's name. So it was pretty funny and cool and we felt pretty honored. haha. I will attach a picture of us in them!

Our mission has been doing a read the Book of Mormon in 90 days challenge and we are highlighting anything that pertains to the gospel of Jesus Christ such as faith, repentance, baptism, the Holy Ghost, enduring to the end. Then in a different color we are highlighting anything that speaks on the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It has been so neat to see that on everything single page the Book of Mormon teaches about Jesus Christ and what He has done for us and what we can do to follow His example. Being about half way through now, my testimony in the Book of Mormon has grown tremendously. In the introduction to the Book of Mormon Joseph Smith says, "I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book." I have this same testimony and witness of the Book of Mormon. I know that by reading it myself and following the principles taught in it such as faith, repentance, forgiveness, charity, and so on, I have truly come to know who my Heavenly Father is and who my Savior is. I invite each of you to read from the Book of Mormon and receive your own testimony and witness of it's truthfulness. I know that if you do so with a sincere desire to know if it is true, the Spirit will confirm to you that it is true and that by following the things taught in the Book of Mormon, you will have more peace in your life and understand your purpose here more fully and who your Creator is and Savior. I hope each of you take the time to study the pages and I know that it will bless your lives, just like it has blessed mine and millions of other people around the world. 

I hope yall have a blessed week and keep being awesome!!

Love,

Sister Rice

A Week Full Of Miracles!

This week has been pretty jammed pack of little miracles which has been really awesome. I just wanted to be able to share the two biggest ones I saw this week.

First one happened on Tuesday: 

There was this guy on our map that I have been wanting to try to see. I was reading his record history and he got baptized in 2016 and was pretty awesome and strong in the gospel....and then there was no history for him at all in 2017. No record of missionaries teaching him, or attempting to contact him. I thought that was weird that he had been a recent convert and all of a sudden no history with the missionaries. When we pulled up to the house there was a guy outside and I got out and asked if he was Steven and his mouth just dropped and he said, "Sisters! I haven't seen sisters in a long time! I thought yall forgot about me." He was in complete shock. We were able to visit with him and he is quite a character! He told us about how work has taken his Sundays away and how he has just been going through a lot lately and hasn't been able to come. He got a new phone and didn't have our number and really thought that we had just forgotten about him. He was pretty cool though and really southern and really funny! He told us about how he was still trying to do his best but has fallen short but is trying to be better. He just said a bunch of funny things. He told us, " Three days ago I had to break up with my girlfriend because all she wanted to do was the hanky panky! and Im not lookin to do that." And one of his neighbor kids came over and he said, "Boy! It looks like your daddy just put a bowl on your head and cut around it!" It was so funny. He was making us laugh so hard. He kept telling us how in shock he was to see us and that we made his day!. It was really neat. Later he texted us and I will attach what he sent. It was really sweet and made our day!!

The Second one happened yesterday:

A mother's prayer was finally answered! We were at church a little early because Trevor was receiving the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday. A woman came up to us from one of the other wards and she proceeded to tell us about her son. She said that he had moved to the other side of South Carolina and that she wanted us to get in contact with the missionaries there to give them his address so they could go check on him. She told us that we couldn't let him know that they were sent by his parents or else he would want nothing to do with it. So we got his address and told her we would call the missionaries and make sure they go try to visit him. Well while she is talking to us about something else we get a text from a number we texted a month ago!! We had been spending the beginning of February cleaning up our records and we texted and called a bunch of people trying to confirm they were at the same address we had record of. When we looked at the text this person had said that he had moved and that he wanted missionaries to come over so he asked us to send his information to the missionaries where he lives. When we looked at the address we realized that it was the same address this woman just gave us. We showed it to her and asked if this was her son's number. As she read it she just started to cry and fell into my arms. (We were all crying at this point). She told us that she has been promised that this son would come back and go on a mission but that she just needed to be patient. Well he reached out to us before we even had to do anything! He happened to text us back a month later at the exact time we were talking to his mom who had just told us about him!!! How crazy is that!?!?!? We also wouldn't have placed that together if he hadn't given us his address in the text he sent. It was so neat to see the Lord's impeccable timing and how aware He is of all His children and to see this sweet faithful mother's prayer finally answered.

Well the story doesn't end there! After church we got a call from her and she told us that her son actually called her and told her how he wants to come back to church and make changes and really just needs the gospel back in his life. So she called us and told us to make sure that the missionaries called him that same day because he is ready and she did not want to miss the window of time. How awesome is that?!?!?!?! I am so grateful that I was able to be a witness of such a sweet moment for this woman. I will never forget her face as she read that text and realized that her son was finally in a place where he was reaching out and asking for help. 

I know that the Savior is so very aware of us and what we need and He is just waiting with His hand stretched out waiting for us to grab it and let Him in to help us. I hope each of you will continue to develop your relationship with the Savior. 

I love you and miss you!

Thanks for all the love and support!!!!

Love,

Sister Rice​