Finding His Sheep

Dear Mom!!

Oh how I love you!! Mother's Day is this Sunday and I am so excited to be able to talk to you face to face. To think, a year ago at this time I was preparing my farewell talk and packing for my mission! I can't believe it has almost been a year. Crazy. After I talk to you on Mother's Day the next time I get to talk to you is in person!! that is so crazy to think about. Especially since that still feels like a longs ways away and that I just got out on my mission.

This week has been pretty slow, but good news!! I'm not getting transferred! So I get to stay in Albany for at least 6 more weeks. I'm super happy about that. Especially since Sister Danible gets to be my companion again for those 6 weeks as well.

It has been a pretty slow week this last week, so not much happened, but there were some really awesome moments where we were able to be in the right place at the right time for the Lord to help us find people that needed to be found.

Backstory-My trainer began her mission in Albany about 2 years ago. Of course when I remembered that, I emailed her and told her that I was here. She emailed me back and told me to go find a part member family that she had been working with, whom she loved a lot and to go tell them that I knew her, and that hopefully they would let us talk to them. Apparently somewhere along the way, the family got lost because none of the missionaries that had been here before me and was still here knew who they were. We had planned on seeing them last week, but due to other things coming up, we weren't able to make it to the city in which they lived and try to go see them. Last Saturday though we were going to the Farmer's Market because we heard about a member who grows fresh produce and sells it there, but who also gives it for free to missionaries. So we went to go see what we could get, and plus we really wanted to meet this person. We go and find him, and after talking for a while, the family that was there buying stuff too was about to leave, when the mom told us that her daughter had something to say to us.. Super shyly she told us her name, and then ran away. It was super cute. The mom then said that her husband and her daughters were members and then told us their last name. IT WAS THE SAME FAMILY THAT MY TRAINER ASKED ME TO FIND!! It was pretty awesome how random of a meeting it was. We were able to set up an appointment with them, and the member who was selling the produce was from a different stake but he volunteered to come with us to go teach them because he is good friends with them. That was so awesome!

Another crazy story. So on Wednesday, when we were on exchanges, I had to make a quick stop at Walmart to grab something, and for whatever reason, this Walmart didn't have any self checkouts, so I had to go to a regular one. While I was going through the line, the cashier lady stopped us and happily exclaimed, "Hey! They brought the ladies back!" We gave her a super confused look, and then she pointed to our badges and said, I'm a member! The missionaries used to visit her, but about two years ago for whatever reason they stopped. We were later about to go visit her, and her son who is now 8 really wants to get baptized! Super awesome!

The last thing that was super awesome was that on Sunday one of the young Women's leaders came up to us and told us that there was a young women who had been coming to church for about a year now that wasn't a member (how the missionaries didn't know this, I have no idea) but that she wanted to meet with the missionaries and have the discussions so that she could get baptized! We are so excited to begin teaching her! It seems like she already knows all that she needs to know, but that she just needs to have the discussions so that we can make sure that she knows what she needs to know. I'm stoked to see how it is going to go!

Oh! Also this one is short, but the awesome moment when a member who is less active calls you out of the blue asking for a ride to church for her and her son, actually comes to church, signs up to feed us, asks us to then visit her family (none of whom are members), and then volunteers to go teaching with us. Yep. That moment made me so happy!! She seems like a pretty fantastic person already even though I have only known her for less than 48 hrs.

There are so many people here that I don't know, and so many that are amazing people but because there are just so many people to see that are on our records and then lots of people that aren't either, we hardly get to see even part of them. (here is an idea of how many people there are- in Albany alone, there are over 200 families. In Leesburg there are about 150, and then there are a lot in the outlying areas as well.. Those are just the members. We then have a list of online referrals that people want us to come see them of about 200 people over the last 18 months.) So we can't see all these people all the time, but we are working on it!!. There is so much work to do here and I am so excited for the future!

Love you all!

-Sister Monica Walker

Love, Support and Testimonies

Dearest Mother,

Oh how I love getting your emails every week!! I was told again this week of some missionaries making the sacrifice of never once emailing their mothers or immediate families (with the families support) as a bigger sacrifice on their mission, and I am super grateful for these emails that I get. They are the highlight of my weeks:) So thank you for never forgetting to email me, even if it sometimes gets here right when I am on the computer already. ;)

This week has been full of situations that I have found myself in in which I am so thankful for the Spirit and the Lord watching over me every day to help me be in the right place at the right time to help the right people find their way closer to Christ.

For example, a few weeks ago, I told you about a new investigator we had that only speaks Spanish, but that his niece agreed to be a translator for us in our discussions. We met with them again yesterday, and we had a recently returned missionary who served in Chile come with us to help teach in Spanish, since the niece doesn't know the Spanish gospel words. This time though, her husband and his brother were also there sitting in on the lesson. All of them agreed to listen to the message we had about the Book of Mormon, and they all agreed to read and pray about it! The niece said that she hadn't done so already (we challenged her to last time) because she thought that we were like some of the other Christian denominations she has met with before, and thought we might have been giving her something that was a changed Bible. But when we explained to her what the Book of Mormon was, and its importance, and all three of us testified (plus our original Spanish investigator) of its truthfulness, in whatever language we could (Sister Danible and I in English, and everyone else in Spanish). It was one of the coolest things to be a part of because it really showed and testified to me the power of the Spirit because I knew that they didn't really understand what I was saying when I said it in English, but they could tell that I meant what I said, and even they said they could feel the Spirit as we taught them. I'm super excited to see where this goes!

Sorry this is a shorter email, next week will probably be its normal long length again. Oh, also, transfer calls are this Saturday, and transfers are next week. I don't think I or my companion are being transferred, but I wanted to let you know just in case.

Love you all!!

Thank you so much for all the Birthday wishes!!

-Sister Monica Walker

PS Mother's Day is coming up soon!!! Next week I will give you the details (if I'm not being transferred) or when and where I will be skyping home. (both in my time and in your time so there will be no confusion) Continue being the awesome people that I know you all are!! I get to talk to you soon:):):):)

Happy 20th Birthday Sister Walker!

[We, Monica's family, are very grateful for the friends she has in Albany, Georgia who can send us photos in the middle of the week. We know she's receiving some TLC from the people there. We wish her a Happy 20th Birthday! You can send her an email at monica.walker@myldsmail.net.]

Love Being a Missionary

Dearest Mother,

I forgot for a moment that Thursday is also the day Jake is getting married, and for a minute I was honestly shocked that all of y'all would get together to celebrate my birthday. I had a moment where I felt super important and loved and missed, and I knew I was the favorite and the "glue" that holds our family together, and then you reminded me that it was Jake's wedding, and reality came crashing down... hahaha I super excited for them though! And they couldn't have picked a better day to be married! Especially since you all will be able to celebrate my birthday too because of it:) Eat some cake for me! I never did get an official wedding invitation though, so could you send me pictures of the wedding? Because I know that you will be taking some, even if you aren't the photographer or whatever.. That's just you:)

My companion and I were talking about this being the nethermost part of the vineyard yesterday too!! Maybe it was because we actually got to go to Gospel Doctrine yesterday and you and I probably had the same lesson, but I do think it is pretty awesome that our thoughts were running along the same lines. Must be true then! Granted it is true regardless of where I am. Great minds think alike right?

When I get home from my mission, for the month that I will be home, I do want to help as much as I can with the people there. I'm not sure how much I can do in a month, but I will be back that following summer and I will do stuff then too. So you can tell Brother Hawkins he can use me if he needs me when I get home. I really do like visiting people, and sharing with them the gospel makes it all the more valuable of time used:)

I think the last W is Work. Except then it doesn't flow with the other words, but it would fit in the point of personal revelation! Because you have to work for it, even if you are willing and worthy and wise enough, you have to put forth effort to receive more from Heavenly Father. He rewards our effort more than our intention, even though He still takes that into consideration.

That is so awesome that the youth are singing to the people in the Retirement Homes. I have gone to visit a lot of members in those kinds of places, and it is so sad when I hear that we have been their only visitors for a long time, or we are the ones who come the most consistently, even over their own family that live in the same city just a few blocks down the road. They definitely love having people come visit them, even if it is just to sing songs to them. It doesn't even matter if we can sing well, as long as we try, they always love it. (So do the workers, I have had many refer to us as the angel singers) Super cute!

It is interesting for me to find people to teach who are your age Mom. I try to imagine what it would have been like if you hadn't known the gospel yet, and what it would have been like to teach you, and it has been pretty cool, first because I honestly don't know what you would be like if you didn't have the gospel in your life, and second, it really helps me to better relate to these people that we teach when I am reminded of you every time I teach them.

I really do love being a missionary! I have been so blessed to love all the people that I have met and I know I will continue to love people that I haven't even met yet. Yesterday was awesome as well, even though it was Sunday, and many people use that day as a literal day of rest and don't do anything, there were 4 members that were willing to come with us to visit some people, and some of them even drove with us an hour away to go give a blessing to a less active that will be going in for foot surgery this week! #Hisday That was a blessing in and of itself, because they hadn't seen this lady for a long time, and they were all good friends with her, but because they just expected her to come back by herself, hadn't seen her in a long while. Member relationships are important, and even if for whatever reason, friends aren't willing or interested in hearing about something important to your life (aka the church and the gospel) thats ok. BE A FRIEND FIRST. And then worry about the rest later. I talked a little about this in Relief Society yesterday, and really if someone says no to an invitation, its not the end of the world, just make sure you let them know that it is ok, that you still want to be friends, but if they ever do want to hear more, or they are ever curious, to let you know and that you would love to share. Christ's gospel is a gospel of love, not of forcefulness or condemnation. We are to love people to the church, not anything else.

Don't forget! 3 days 24 minutes and counting!! Also tell Jake congrats:)

Love you lots!!

Sister Monica Walker

PS I didn't really realize until my mission how close Mother's Day is to my Birthday.. I get to skype you in 3 weeks!!! Crazy right? Also it means that Dad has to find somebody new to speak on Mother's Day as I spoke the last two years on Mother's Day. Maybe it's just because he knows how much I love my mom:):)

Spanish

Dearest Madre,

Como esta? No hablo mucho Español, pero tangamos dos investigators de Mexico, y misionarios de español no vivan aquí. Mi compañero y yo vamos a leer El Libro de Mormon para aprender Español. Dios es Padre Celestial, El Niño es Jesucristo. Los profetas guían me. 

Yep. I'm not even sure I said that right, but there it is. My companion and I decided yesterday that we were going to read together the entire Book of Mormon in Spanish before one of us gets transferred, because as of yesterday, we have two Spanish investigators!! But due to the fact that there are no Spanish missionaries in the area, we get to teach them! It is going to be an adventure. We already taught them the Restoration, and luckily we had a Spanish book of Mormon in the car that we could give to them so they have it in a language they can read. We are super excited to teach them more about the Gospel. Fun story though, we found him through one of the dozen media referrals we received weekly, that take forever to contact due to the vastness of our area (probably two or so hours from the longest points), and it turns out that he moved here about a year ago from Mexico, where he was learning about the gospel from missionaries there. He had been taught for about a year before he came here, and his family is still being taught there in Mexico. I'm super excited to be able to help him. His niece (who is the other investigator) knows Spanish, and English is her first language, so she is acting as translator for us, when we can't figure out how to say it in Spanish, because we don't know Spanish, but she said she is willing to learn as well!! Super awesome! the only downside is that it is an hour away from where we live, so its a long drive, but the Lord willing it will all work out:)

Bro. Hawkins (from my home ward), me, Sister Danible

There is a great work to be done here, and I am so excited to see it come to fruition! Sister Danible and I are working hard to be the best missionaries we can be, and while it is true that we still have our ups and downs, we are still going strong. We had interviews with our Mission President and his wife last Friday, and it was really fun seeing them again! I loved what Sister Cottle talked to us about though, and I thought I would share some of my thoughts on it with y'all. First, a few months ago, she committed all of us to choose happiness every day. That is a lot harder than I thought it would be. But I did my best to do so. Last Friday, she checked up on us, to see how we did in choosing happiness, and then committed each of us on top of that to choose gratitude everyday. For me, the way that I am going to implement that into my life, is that any time I am feeling sad, depressed, angry, tempted, or whatever, I will begin a list of things that I am thankful for in my life. And I will continue listing until I can be happy again, and the moment of weakness is gone. I tried that over the weekend, when I was feeling particularly stressed, and I was amazing how quickly I was able to get around it, and to focus enough to get through it. The feeling of true gratitude that we can have in our lives, is akin to the feeling of happiness and love. I am so thankful for this opportunity to serve a mission and help those around me! I am thankful for my family who supports me from so many states away, and for all my friends who do so all around the world. I know that this is God's true gospel restored once again on the Earth, and that it will never again be taken from us! I know that through the gospel, and temple ordinances, that families can be sealed together forever, and I hold on to that hope and that knowledge as I go through life. I love my Savior! I know He lives! Not just as a spirit, but as a corporeal being with a perfect body of flesh and bone!

Thank you for all of everything that y'all do for me and all the missionaries in the world! Remember each one of them is a beloved child of someone else. Treat the missionaries in your own areas as you hope people around the world are treating your children, siblings, friends, etc. Love them, help them. This is your work too:)

Mucho Amor!

Hermana Walker

P.S. 9 days 23 hours and 54 mins until I have lived 20 years:)

General Conference Weekend

Dear Mother:)

It is interesting that I am away from so much at home and home life. There are so many things that I forget that I used to do when I was home, and a year hasn't even passed! It is crazy to me to think that at this time next year I will be in school, and continuing my education, when I still have a long time to go on my mission. There are some awesome memories being made though here:)

For example, last Monday it rained super hard pretty much all day long (which it does every other day it seems like), and so Tuesday in the earlier evening, so before it got dark, Sister Danible and I and a recent convert who was in the car with us were driving down this road to find a potential we wanted to see. The GPS took us down this dirt road, and it came to this curve with a mud puddle in the middle of it. We looked at it for a while, but because we really wanted to see this potential, we decided to try to see if our car would make it (not the smartest thing ever), and our car got stuck. We realized pretty fast it was stuck, so we didn't try super hard to get out, because we didn't want it to sink even more. We rolled the windows down to see how far up on the car it was, and it was pretty far up. We didn't dare open our doors for fear of mud getting to the inside of the car. Plus it smelled nasty and we really didn't want to have to smell that until we could get it cleaned. But since we needed to go see what the address was where we were, and to see if there was anyone who could help us, we climbed out of the window of the car (after taking off our shoes so they wouldn't get muddy), well Sister Danible and I did, the member just stayed in the car, and ran barefoot across lots of rocks to a trailer park to ask for help. Long story short, the people in the trailer park couldn't help us as far as getting it out, but they did offer up their homes for us to stay in until a friend could come tow us out. We took pictures of it, because it was funny, and an adventure, and when the member who was towing us out came to get us, he made us get back in the mud so he could take pictures too.. And then he posted them on Facebook.. So those pictures are out there somewhere too.. Super fun:)

The car is ok, minus a few unnecessary pieces (something about a splash guard? The Firestone guy said we didn't need it on the car), one of which fell off in the mud, and the other which got bent when we went through the car wash, and it got super bent and scratched the pavement until we were able to get to a Firestone to have them remove it. *hides the whole way there because it was super loud and embarrassing* We turned the music up loud so we didn't hear it scratching the ground, and laughed the whole way out of the parking lot where we had inspected it and seen it bent in half.. Possibly the best part. Everyone's attention was on us. We are ok too:)

Conference was wonderful! We worked it out so that we were able to go to some members homes with some of the recent converts, and it perhaps was one of the best conference experiences I have ever had. After conference at each members home, we went around and told each other something that we had learned, something that struck us, or a talk in general that we really liked. It was really cool to see the different things that people had pointed out, and what struck different people. One of the members afterwards came up to us and thanks us for asking them to have us over for conference and dinner because it was a wonderful spiritual experience for him that he hopes to be able to one day repeat. He said it brought a great spirit into his home:)

Love you all!! If you didn't get an opportunity to watch conference then I really recommend you do so:) It was awesome for sure!

-Sister Monica Walker

My mailman from my last area

Kalani was a recent convert who I LOVE!

Not a pro player, don't even know which string is which, but we were helping some lady move and she said I could take a picture with it, so I did:)

We celebrated Sister Danible's birthday shortly after transfers:) It was super fun!

New Place, New Companion, Stronger Testimony

Dear Mother,

Now that I hopefully don't have to worry about bed bugs (hopefully, unless I carried them with me when I left Columbus), I am doing a lot better. As I told you last week, I got transferred, and I am now in Albany, GA!! Side note for Brother Hawkins, yes, people remember him, and I was told that I can have some good stories of him when he was a kid here. From what I can understand, they are very similar to Robert Stories. Super excited to hear more. They think well of the Hawkins family here though. So it was cool to be able to make that connection to this area even in my first week.

I love the area already! There is an investigator here who has the same name as me, and it is the strangest thing to hear people say my first name, even when they aren't talking about me. Mostly though that is because it doesn't feel quite like my name right now. Kind of fun though! Monika is super nice and she is currently on date to be baptized in June. Hopefully that date sticks, because she thinks she might have to move to Atlanta soon, but whatever happens, I know the Lord will provide a way:)

My new companion is Sister Danible, and she is super awesome! It turns out that she served in my last area, and that she left 6 weeks before I got there, so she knows a lot of the same people as I do. It has been fun in the last few days reminiscing about all the people we knew there, and the many more people that came or progressed after she left. I was surprised to find out that there were a lot of people that she had been talking to that had somehow been lost after she and her companion had been whitewashed (her companion completed her mission, and she got transferred). It really hit home for me the importance of record keeping. Its also why it is so important for the ward members to be involved in everything because when things like this happen, then the members know who the missionaries had been seeing and will be better able to help the new missionaries figure out what they need to be doing, and giving them some people that they can go see. 

Sister Danible is from Idaho, and she has actually been out one transfer longer than I have, which is definitely a change from being the "oldest" sister missionary in my last zone. I was pretty sure there weren't that many Sister Missionaries that were out longer than I was, and I am glad to report that there are some, but they are hidden all in the other zones. I love Sister Danible already though because she is such the sweetest person ever! She also is more willing to go on fun adventures than some people are, seen by the fact that last Saturday when we almost slid into a ditch (multiple times), because it was stormy and we were on a dirt road, she and I just laughed and screamed the whole way through. Haha It was fun:) and it reminded me of all the fun adventures we have gone through on our trips to Utah and Oregon.

I've settled in pretty well here, which is awesome. And I am certainly ready for some fun adventures in Albany!

Well I love you, but I have to get off soon, so I will end my letter with a short testimony. 

I know so much more so now than ever before, of the reality of Christ's love for us! He is real! He really did suffer so much for us so that we can be happy. He did not have to do any of what He did, and if He so chose, He could have left us to ourselves, but He didn't. He sacrificed himself for each and every one of us. And He felt everything we did. Not just something similar, but EXACTLY what we feel. He is the only one who knows. He knows how to help. He loves us. And I love Him. I am honored to be numbered among those around the world who bear His name on a little black name tag. I am honored to be considered worthy enough to represent the one perfect Being. I, an imperfect person, representing He who is above all. What a responsibility. I love being a missionary, and I am super grateful for the opportunity to serve all around Southern Georgia! I love it! I bear my witness to you as His missionary that He lives! In Jesus Christ's name, Amen.

Love,

Sister Monica Walker

PS at the time of this email, 24 days exactly [until her birthday]!! Cause I'm sending it right at 9:55 California time:)