Brave and Tireless

Hello my wonderful people!

The Seahawks lost. I know. I'll live.

SO much to talk about this week! First of all, I forgot to mention two things that happened on my first day/first week of being here in Macon. We drive past a lady, and we kindly wave at her, and she flips us off. Darn it. Hope her day got better. Secondly, we are walking out of the library and I look to my right and see this very sharply dressed man in a 3-piece suit. "Well, he looks sharp," I think to myself. And then I notice something on his head. I do a double take, and realize that he has shaved his hair, and jelled it into two devil horns on the top of his head. Now, this would not have been so terrifying and eerie except that he was totally clean-cut, well-dressed, and handsome. Guys, I think I saw Satan. I didn't talk to him. He scared me.

On a happier note! Some exciting things that happened this week:
-We did a "zone blitz" of our congregation here in Macon on Saturday and it was a huge success. We had all of the missionaries from the Macon zone (about 25 of us) come to our building and meet up with members and go out and visit as many people as they could. We worked on it all week, figuring out where everyone lived geographically, cutting out names, diving them into envelopes and typing out instructions, etc. It was a lot of hard work, but SO worth it! We ended up with TONS of information. Members that had moved, people that wanted to be visited, and over 30 referrals of people that wanted to be taught by missionaries. Happy day!

-This weekend, we had Stake Conference, which is when all of the members from many different congregations near us, get together to listen to awesome speakers and have a great time! Elder W. Craig Zwick from the First Quorum of the Seventy, and Elder Fred A. Parker (an area seventy), both spoke to us, and man, was it wonderful.

Elder Zwick: I was able to meet and talk to him before the meeting on Saturday, and the first thing he told me was that he loved the "z" in my last name. (Now this really meant a lot, because no one appreciates the z in my name.) I told him that I loved his too, and we became instant best friends. He told me that he organized the very first stake in Hungary, which was so awesome, and on Sunday, he mentioned this in his talk and then gave me a shout out from the pulpit! Pretty cool stuff. He's hilarious.

Elder Parker: Oh man. Oh man oh man. So for those of you who were able to go see the movie, "Meet the Mormons," Elder Parker was the one eating BBQ in Atlanta. And he is a hoot and a half. Just a few of the quotes that I jotted down while he was speaking, at stake conference:
-"Everyone who knows me knows.... I keeps it real."
-"We recognizeee that we have no visitors today, because it is impossible to a be a visitor in your father's home."
-"If you haven't come unto Christ, come on, ride wit' him. If you've already come unto Him, COME AGAIN."
-(in response to his wife telling him that she was going to listen to the prophet and be more involved in missionary work) "Welllll gurrl, you go for it! I love you, you love me. But I'm not gonna stand in the way between you and the prophet!"

Only in the south. You just don't get this same experience anywhere else. Let me tell you, no one, and I mean no one, was falling asleep. One day, Elder Parker, or someone like him, is going to speak at General Conference. AND IT'S GOING TO BE GREAT.

I love you all, so very much.
I wanted to end with a quote my mom sent me this week. It is from a show about a woman who left a comfortable home and family to serve as a midwife in a very impoverished area in England:
“Well, we were only in our early twenties, little more than girls. We served the women in the East End in their greatest hour of need. In return for our care, they gave us the most precious gift they could...their trust. This made us brave, and tireless. And in the main, we did not doubt ourselves, because we were not doubted.”

This is exactly how it feels to be a missionary. Every day, I knock on strangers' doors and they let me into their homes. And then they tell me about their goals, their fears, their deepest questions. They tell me that something told them to let us in. They tell me that they had praying for people to come talk to them. They tell me that they "normally don't talk to people like this".They tell me that they know God sent me.

I am a 22-year-old girl talking to people from all walks of life. Talking to people from every possible situation, sometimes to people that have lived 3 or 4 times longer than I have. And yet, they trust me. In that moment, they trust God. I love this place. There is nowhere else I'd rather be. This week, try something for me: trust God. And be brave. And tireless.

Love, Sister Szilagyi