July 29

Dear Family,

Well was I wrong about transfers.. I'm not staying here in the Midland 1st ward :( It was hard for me to hear. I just felt like the work was finally starting to go somewhere and its hard having to say goodbye to those we are working with.

I will be training yet again two sisters. One I am finishing up the 2nd half of her training, and the other will be straight from the MTC. I will again be opening up a brand new area, this time not far away! I will be staying here in Midland actually! Just a new area and a new ward. So I'm grateful to at least be in the same city. I will still be a sister training leader, but I may be getting more areas, so please continue to pray for me. ha. Just when I think the load can't get anymore...I get more. ha. But I know with the Lord all things are possible!

Sister Fife is staying and she is training two sisters, and Sister Kramer will be going to Abeline and she will be training two sisters as well! I am so proud of them! They have changed and grown so much in the last 3 months I've been able to train and serve with them.

We had 43 baptisms this month in our mission! So that was exciting! Missionary work is growing and booming and its so exciting!!!

Laura sent me an email talking about an experience she had going out with the Sister Missionaries this week.. I will share her experience below...

"This guy overheard us talking and told us how to find out where her room was...and then he started asking the missionaries which church they were from, which Jesus they believed in, etc. Turns out he was a chaplain who only wanted to Bible bash--questioning our belief in Jesus Christ (which Jesus do you believe in?!), if we were saved (he was confident we were being deceived), why we believed in the Book of Mormon, etc. It was intense for about 5 or 10 minutes...and he would just ask questions and quote verses from the Bible and give us no time to respond. It was crazy--and i thought, "Now I know what Kari's mission is like!!" Turns out it was Sister Mims first experience with this too (her senior companion is a Sister Training Leader so she was at a meeting and a sister from another area came with us), but she handled it pretty well and kept her cool. At one point he said, "How can you prove the Book of Mormon is true? There's no proof!!" And I said, "Sir, you're right. There's no way to prove the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. You can only read it with an open mind and ask God if it is true." And we kind of left it at that. We got up to leave and I put out my hand to shake his and wish him well, and he totally rejected it!! Hhahaha. He was pretty intense...so now I guess I can say I have a tiny glimpse into your interactions with people in the Bible belt on a daily basis."

I laughed so hard, because this is my day every single day!! But I love it!! I have learned how to really bring the spirit to a conversation like this believe it or not. ha. Number one thing is to NOT bible bash. You just testify and let them know you know for yourself its true, sometimes their heart softens instantly and its the coolest thing ever. But most of the time they still aren't prepared to receive the gospel and are too hard hearted, I tell everyone I train that within 5 minutes of a conversation you will be able to tell if they will soften or not. There is nothing more powerful than a testimony though. They never can come up with a come back when you simply bare your testimony.

Well I love you! Hope ya'll have a good week!

Sister Turner

Texas Sunset