Holy Houston it's hot!  For those of you who know me, you know that I really really really really hate to sweat.  The good news is I'm over it, mostly because I don't have a choice, and partly because everybody is sweaty and it's just a fact of life, haha.  But really though, even though we have a car we have been trying to walk everywhere so we save miles. By the time it's bedtime I am exhausted but super content.  Also I have developed a love for running.  I don't know what it is about the mission, but I have started liking things I never did before.  Like running.  We get 30 minutes in the morning to exercise, and unlike my usual reaction to physical activity, I am super stoked to go run in the morning. I've been running 3 miles everyday and I feel great.  Hopefully, this new love will keep me from getting as big as a house while I’m out.  I'm not kidding, I ate waaaaayyyyyy more than any one person should ever eat in one sitting yesterday.  I was praying and making promises out the wazoo if only God would take the discomfort (an understatement) away.  Haha it is just way too hard to say no to that second dessert!   

So the second week in the woodlands brought some pretty cool things with it.  Like I said earlier, we are not allowed to tract in the woodlands because most houses have a no soliciting sign in their windows, and therefore we end up walking around knocking on the few doors that don't say anything.  Most of the time people just politely decline our message and that's fine I guess.  Sometimes they let us say it and then decline hearing more, and sometimes we get doors slammed in our faces.  Super cool.  Anyways, one day we were having a particularly unsuccessful day and even though I was trying super hard not to get discouraged, it was getting to me.  I wasn't angry at God or anyone else, I was getting angry at myself because I felt like I wasn't doing enough.  Like I wasn't trying hard enough to show them how wonderful this Gospel is.  At one point I had had just about enough and I stopped walking and had a talk with my companions about the importance of our message and how we needed to somehow convey that to the people in the woodlands. We all ended up crying in the middle of the street and saying a prayer ( haha, girls) and then we started up again.  We knocked on a few more doors with no success and then this idea came to me, "sing to them".  So that's what we did. Instead of knocking on their doors and introducing ourselves as the sister missionaries who wanted to share a message, we instead knocked on their doors and introduced ourselves as the sister missionaries who were going around singing to people in the neighborhood.  The difference was night and day.  Instead of getting irritated with us and asking us to leave, they would get really excited and call their families to come and listen to "songs about Jesus" and then afterwards they would thank us and take a mormon.org card.  We were so excited.  We had found a way to tract in the woodlands.   

The last house we knocked on that day was a woman named Miriam.  When she opened the door she told us that she didn't have a lot of time but that she would let us sing her a song.  After we sang we gave her a mormon.org card and started to walk away when she said "Oh!  You're Mormon?  I didn't realize!  I know a Mormon." It was awesome. We talked to her a little about what she already knew, what she believed and cleared up a few misconceptions.  She told us that she wanted to go to church on Sunday and when we asked if we could come back and teach her she said yes!  We were seriously on cloud nine after that.  We taught her on Friday, gave her a Book of Mormon, and got a return appointment. We got our first investigator!!! Ahhh, so cool.

Later on that week while we were walking around meeting with less active members, we walked past this house that had a car in the driveway with a door that was left open.  We knocked on the house door to let them know and the owner came out and thanked us for our kindness.  As he started walking back inside we asked if we could sing to him.  He immediately got suspicious.  He asked us what we were selling and we said nothing, we were just missionaries and we would like to sing a religious song to him.  He then promptly informed us that he was atheist and that he had never believed in God and that unless he had hard evidence he never would.  We got to talking about his profession and his beliefs and after a bit he became less defensive and more conversational. He told us that he didn't want to take the discussions but continued to talk to us anyways.  His name is Tom Clayton and he is a radiologist, his wife is a paraplegic, he hasn't believed in God since as long as he could remember and despite what he was saying, you could tell he was sad and lonely and was looking for answers.  After we talked a little while longer I felt like I should ask him again if he would please let us come back and talk about our religion with him.  He said he had a very busy schedule but that he would like us to come back. We gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon to read, which he said he would, exchanged information and we went on our way.  

Can I just say that missionary work is the coolest.  Maybe it's my lack of faith, but there is just something so surprisingly wonderful about someone actually getting interested enough in what you're saying to let you come into their home and teach them. The Lord really has prepared thousands of people to hear the Gospel, and it is up to us to have enough faith to find them.

Anyways, I'm hot, I'm happy and I'm healthy and I love being a missionary!

See ya soon!

-Sister Williams