Merritt, Shayden

Okay y'all so something I have to talk about very first because I forgot too last week was this Methodist church I went too. It's was a very very beautiful church! But it was interesting! They sang a lot of good Christian music and I liked that a lot! They acted out a scene from before Christ's death, and they also had this really big cross on the ground and during the service they invited people to go up to the cross and hammer these nails into the cross. It was loud. All around, I had a really good time at this church, and it was good for me to feel what it feels like to come to a different church for the first time! Now I will know when I have friends come to our church and they are coming for the first time what it feels like. But that was a really cool experience, I liked it! This week was great though, we spent a lot of time outside and I loved it! So we started up these new activities as a missionary district and one of the activities is a Chosen watch party, and tha...

y'all this was a crazyyyyy week! To start it off, on Tuesday we ate dinner at the stake presidents house. They live on a farm and they are always doing crazy things when the missionaries are coming over. So I told the stake president that I wanted to do something fun on the farm. And he goes "well we have to kill and burry this sheep" I go "YESSS" so we went down on the farm and they cut the sheeps throat and we got to burry it. It was a little violent for a missionary, but I had a blast! They gave us boots and cowboy hats, it was really fun!! Then on Wednesday, we had transfers and I went and picked up my greenie. She's cute, her name is Sister Bosted! She's doing really good, she isn't afraid of anything and that's really nice! Had to say goodbye to sister Campbell and that sucked. She was my bestie and I love her! I bet she will go to Japan and that will be awesome for her! She was an awesome companion and an awesome missionary!  Our district ...

Hey Shayden, I am sorry that I did not write you back sooner. To be completely honest when I saw your letter I thought "great another missionary wrote to me to tell me I need to serve a mission" but it wasn't like that at all. I relate to you a lot because just like you I love school, friends, and being social but I am also tired and really irritated, especially around my family and church. My whole life and even now I feel that the church is being constantly pushed on me. I feel a little trapped and restricted. Instead of turning to the Lord when I feel this way I tend to push myself away and make some poor decisions. It is not that I do not want to be in the church. I do just some of the rules I do not necessarily like and that makes the church so much harder for me. When I read your letter for the first time in my whole life I actually contemplated going on a mission. I have always said that I would never go. I shot it down anytime my parents or grandma would bring it ...

Hey Y'all!! This week was pretty good, I don't think anything too crazy happened! (actually something pretty crazy is coming)  We had Transfer calls on Saturday night and I do not like transfer calls. They give me so much stress!! But I will be staying in Oak Ridge to TRAIN a new missionary!! AHHHHHHH, that's a little scary, I don't know if I know enough to train my own greenie! I honestly don't know how I feel about this, I feel all of the emotions! My companion, Sister Campbell will also be training a new missionary, just in a different area! I'm so sad that she will be leaving, but next transfer will be a 7 week adventure for sure.  One day this week, my comp was dying because we had been inside all morning. It had been rainy all day and she just wanted to leave, so we did. We didn't know where we were going but we went. We decided to drive past the park to see if there was anyone there, and at first, we didn't see anyone, but then we saw one lady wal...

Happy Monday :)  so this week started on a low and just went all the way up!! M O N D A Y : This day was good as always except Monday night we got a text from our friend that we hadn't heard from in a while and he told us that he can no longer meet with us because he is moving to Memphis for a new job. We texted back asking if we could call and we've been trying to get in contact with him and he hasn't answered. This is so sad because he is out friend that was on date for baptism. We are kind of worried about him, but he is in our prayers.  T U E S D A Y : Today we didn't have really anything amazing go on. We did some gardening with some members. The we went and saw some of our friends and invited them to watch conference, then the next morning they texted and told us that they don't want to become members of our church and that they don't want to be active in the things we do, which was really sad. So that was rough... But guess what, the week gets sooooooo mu...