Week of August 24th - Land of Milk and Honey

I don't think refrigerators
are supposed to do this....

Hey Y'all!

These last two weeks have flown by; time flies when you are serving :) 

Leesville is a very small town so it is an interesting adjustment...it is actually pretty similar to Logan (where I lived at college). Sister Tomblin and I have been working a lot with some of the less actives and trying to bring them closer to Christ :) The two sisters who were taking lessons dropped us. That was not fun at all...but I know that through the Lord's timing they will come back to us. 

Last week we discovered a place called Helping Hands. This is the ultimate Thrift Store. We got plenty of skirts and shirts for 25 cents each! It was insane :) 

Me and Nicki (recent convert) trying on jackets in the 
thrift store where she works

We didn't run into any creepy areas this week (thank goodness!). We visited a less active woman who is the sweetest thing there is. Her name is Ingrid. She has fire red hair and she is 78 years old. She has a really thick German accent and is in really good shape :) She returned to her primary religion (Baptist) and has a very strong spirit! We are going to try and get her to come to our ward and feel the warmth of the Holy Ghost again. It was really funny cause she came out and started showing us her workout stick, called a Body Beau. Ahhh I love her. 

There was only one awesome storm and that was about a week ago! It has been pretty dry for the south, but luckily it has cooled down a little bit. We are out of the 100 degree weather for now! 

This weekend we stayed in Alexandria to attend Stake Conference. All of the sisters in the zone had a sleepover and it was really nice to be around so many sister missionaries. 

Although a mission is very challenging, it is so amazing. I have learned so much in this two months and I have grown so close to my Heavenly Father. My companion is really awesome and she has a great testimony. I love doing the Lord's work. It makes me feel so good :) Although we haven't been able to do as much work with investigators, I have still been able to meet amazing people.

One talk at Stake Conference really stood out to me. It mentioned how Jesus would often say " Be of good cheer " (Matthew 9:2). Life is so hard, not just the mission life, but normal every day life. However, life is to be enjoyed, not endured :)  If we can allow Christ to lift our burdens and if we walk hand in hand with Him, it will make the tough times better. I know that He died for our sins and that He loves each and every one of us so much, that he gave his entire life for us. Heavenly Father is mindful of our trials and he will not leave us alone. It is our choice to come unto Him :) I encourage y'all to be of good cheer. Find a reason to smile and remember that God loves you. I am so grateful for this Gospel! It brings so much light into my life. 

Hope y'all have a blessed week!

Love,

Sister Cornia

Week of August 17th - No update this week

Week of August 10, 2015

Me and my companion with
Andy at the baptism

This past week went by really fast and I feel like it was just yesterday that I was at the MTC! The weather has been so ridiculous here! The heat with the humidity is a killer and although we are blessed with air conditioning in our car, it is still super tiring to be out in such heat. Y'all in the dry heat should be grateful each day that you aren't in the humidity haha. It really has been great here! 

On Saturday we went to a Baptism in our district for Andy. He is so great and willing to follow the Lord with such enthusiasm, he really has the best spirit!

This is my district with Andy
at his baptism!

On our way into the church we saw a black widow with a huge egg sack! It was really creepy looking...so of course I took a picture :) 

The crazy black widow we saw!

Yesterday at Church the Lord blessed us with a huge tender mercy! So there is this women in our ward that was recently baptized, she is from Ghana, Africa and her name is Tina. She owns a Thrift Store and is the best missionary! She is really bold and will just invite everyone to come to church and hand them all a Book of Mormon! So Tina invited these two sisters to come to church (Brooklyn and Brittney), the whole time it was so awesome! Towards the end of it they were both tearing up and the spirit was so strong. I am really excited to teach them this week. 

Earlier in the week we had a really scary experience. We went to go see a less active member in "Sunshine" Apartments (quotation on the sunshine because they were everything but that). We knocked on the door and someone said to come in so we came in the room and shut the door behind us. The second we came in the room there was a dark feeling in the room...me and sister Tomblin felt the spirit completely go away. There was a woman on the couch and she was in very bad shape. Not to sound like we were judging but she looked like Golum with a beard. She also had a black cat! We asked if she was Lynette and she said yes.  The cat crawled on the table and lifted up its paw and touched me (very creepy). We tried to get out of there as soon as we could. We prayed and tried listening to church music to bring the peaceful feeling of the spirit back in our hearts. Later we looked in the records and the less active person Lynette had moved and that lady wasn't even her! I feel bad for that woman but man were we scared for our lives.

On a brighter note I have a funny story. We saw an older lady on Sunday and she had two dogs with her. Sister Tomblin had one of the dogs on her lap when the women told us that the dogs had flees and she was trying to pick them out of her other dog. Sister Tomblin just got really stiff and made a really funny face. Then she tried to casually get the dog off her lap while we were still visiting with the elderly women. You may have just had to be there to get the humor but I was trying so hard not to laugh the whole time haha! I guess it wouldn't have been funny if the dog was on my lap at the time though!

I hope y'all are doing well :)

Love,

Sister Cornia

Week of 8-3-15

 

This week I have still been trying to adjust to the mission. I am adapting to the humidity pretty well though! This week is suppose to be pretty dry (for the south) with no rain and the temperature no lower than 100 degrees!!

We had quite the miracle this week while tracting. It was at the end of a long day and we decided to tract a couple houses before calling it quits. It was crazy because only 1 house in a whole neighborhood turned us down (which is crazy because everyone usually turns us down)! The Lord is definitely mindful of our situation with a low investigator pool and he has blessed us sooo much. We also taught a couple lessons this week, but some of them were hard because they were in loud environments that we couldn't really control. I just pray that we can find someone who will be ready to hear our message.

I was reading in Alma 26 and found some really amazing things that are very applicable to my situation right now. No matter how discouraged or down we may feel, the Lord will always be there for us and heal our hearts. It is up to us to turn to the scriptures and pray so that we can allow him to make the change in our lives. I know that my redeemer lives. I know this because I have asked God myself and he has testified the truth to me. This mission would be impossible if I couldn't feel the love God has for me and all of his children. I hope that y'all are doing well (: 

 

Love,

Sister Cornia



​Found this picture in a Thrift Store!!!
What are the odds in a bible town?!

Go LSU  (:



It was Sister Ririe's birthday so we all got

princess hats for our district meeting!

(Elder Bible, Elder Jensen, Elder Rush,

Elder Ralph, and Elder Forbush)

(Sister Tomblin, Me, Sister Ririe, Sister Honey)