Hog Wild Trail Run

My Mission in a Picture--Happy to the Core.

I'm glad you mentioned Grandpa and the Cabin. I'm so glad he's going up there. I'm kicking myself so hard for not making it up with him last summer. I've noticed on my mission how I leave little pieces of my heart in all the places I love.  One of the biggest pieces of my heart I left at Bridger Lake.

So this was quite an interesting week. It started off with a district meeting in Paintsville. We had another testimony around the campfire district meeting, which made me SUPER happy. Elder Prince, my new District Leader, is from Cardston, Canada. He has a pretty nice Browning hoodie, so he's pretty cool ;)  Also, my trainer Sister Boldrin was there! It was a lovely reunion!  She is so funny; I really did miss that crazy girl!

Tuesday was Zone Conference back in good old Ashland. We got to drive our lovely Nissan Frontier the whole way there! Everyone is pretty jealous of our truck, and with good reason.

Saturday this week will go down as one of the happiest days of my mission. I GOT TO RUN A 10K ON THE TRAILS OF PIKEVILLE!!!!!  AAAAAAA!!!  B----- invited us and we got it approved by our District Leader (as long as we wore our tags and gave out mormon.org cards, haha!) It was heavenly! We ran on the Bob Amos Park trails.  It did make me miss running on my Bountiful trails real bad though. Sometimes I dream about running up to Elephant Rock. I think enough of my sweat and blood and tears are on that trail at this point, that I'm pretty much part of it. Tell Bridger to take care of it for me. It was also kind of cool to see that I could still run 10K. Not like it's much, but it was good to know I'm not completely out of shape.

We ended our week with three member referrals.  Those always turn out well, and I am really happy because it means the members trust us as missionaries.

At the End of The Hog Will Trail Run 10K

Sweet Kentucky

A Favorite Investigator

A Little Gospel and Porch Sittin'

Kentucky Roads

The Voice

Easter at the C--------r's 

So it's been quite the week out here in these here hills. The week started off with a bang,  when we took a little road trip out to McCarr, a little "town" on the Kentucky/West Virginia border, trying to contact a media referral. So we're driving along, following the GPS as it takes us deeper and deeper into the hills of Kentucky. (Which are insanely beautiful right now by the way. I honestly had no idea God created this many shades of green. I can understand why people here have lived here for generations and generations. I guess these hills just get in your blood.) 

Anyway, we're driving along, and after we stopped on the side of the road for a bathroom break (NOWHERE has public restrooms out here, and there wasn't even anywhere that would have had even a remote chance of having bathrooms out where we were . . . so, you do what you have to, ya know?  #MissionLife  #WelcomeToTheWVCM) The GPS leads us to this little tiny trailer out in the middle of nowhere. The first thing we notice about this lovely home, is the wolf in front of it. I've never seen a dog in my life that looked as much like a wolf as that dog did. So we pull over, say a prayer that we won't be eaten by the wolf, and head over to the trailer. 

Everything was nice and muddy from the rain earlier that day, and we picked our way up to the front door dodging everything from random items of clothing, to car parts, to beer cans . . . you name it, it was there. So we get up to the screened-off porch, and we hear a TV inside. We knock . . . and we hear the door to the screened-off porch open, but we can't see the person who opened it, because a big black thing is covering the part of the screen we would need to see through to see this person. Then . . . we hear this voice. Now, this isn't just any voice, this is a voice of a horror movie. My first thought was "Oh fetch. We've found Satan." The voice was gravel-y, and sounded like it was the voice of a monster off a cartoon, or Batman or something, and it said, "What do you want?" 

Gosh, I so wish I had it recorded so you could hear what it sounded like. I was honestly ready to book it out of there, no joke. But good old Sister Morgan, with 14 months of weird missionary experiences behind her, puts on a smile and tells them happily that we're the missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and we are looking for Willis. Then the voice says, "Willis. They want you." I wanted to run more than ever now. You have no idea how creepy that voice was! It felt like I was in some scary movie or something! Anyway, Willis comes to the door, which we have to untie from the outside with a little string that was wound around the door and a nail on the side of the trailer. We talk to Willis--who really just wanted a bible and wasn't interested in what we had to say--give him a Book of Mormon, and leave. When we get back in the truck, needless to say, we laughed for a good long time.

#WelcomeToTheWVCM 

Yummy Easter

C------- Kids, real and adopted!

Eating at the Pig in a Poke

Welcome to Pikeville!

Beautiful is a Feeling

Meet My New Companion:  Sister Morgan!

I'm so excited about the new members in your ward!  Not to be an annoying missionary.... but you’ve  got be their friend. You have no idea how hard we pray for investigators to feel loved and welcome in the ward. Especially right after their baptism, Satan is going to come at them so hard and they're going to need real friends to help hold them up. It happens so often out here that people get baptized and then fall off the wagon within the next few months. Go out of your way to do something nice for them! It will make a difference!

It has been a great week here in Pike County! We had the most amazing lesson this week with the W-------s family, the ones who the Pitt's have taught. First off, this week has been beautiful beyond belief. I feel like the land is matching my mood.  The first of this last transfer was cold and hard, but as time has gone on, spring has come. The days are beautiful, the weather is warm, and the sun shines almost every day lately. I've never seen such green! It looks like God took the most brilliant shades of green he had in his paint box and painted all over these Kentucky hills with them. It's breathtaking. I never knew spring could be this gorgeous.

Well, on Saturday, we were up at the W--------s house, at the very end of a holler. They didn't even have a phone until just barely! We were all sitting around on their front porch, their three boys, V--------, and J-----. There was a warm spring breeze and the day couldn't have been more beautiful. We sat around and all shared our favorite scriptures and our testimonies. I wish I could explain how beautiful it was. I could tell you what everyone said, I could tell you their amazing conversion stories, and the miracles they've seen, but I think the most important thing I can share is the way it felt. It felt like home. It felt like peace. It felt like I was where I was supposed to be, doing what I was supposed to be doing, surrounded by people that I love.

I've actually questioned lately why, when I feel the spirit, and when I love my mission the most, the words and thoughts that come to me are always, "You are exactly where you are supposed to be, Darcy." I've found it interesting that those are the words I always hear. Well, this week I was reading my patriarchal blessing, and it speaks of my mission. It says that I will feel more joy than I ever have by "knowing I am doing what the Lord wants me to do." I feel that. When S----- would talk, he would talk about "his walk with God." I fell in love with that phrase, well, first of all because S------ said it, but second of all because I'm finally learning what it means to "walk with God" and better yet, how it feels. I know very well how it feels to walk alone, how it feels to do what I want to do and not worry about how closely my will is in line with God's, but I'm finally REALLY finding out how beautiful it feels to do what God wants me to do and how smooth and beautiful and peaceful that is.

I've also come to find out that beautiful is a feeling. It's not how something looks at all, it has nothing to do with appearance. My mission feels beautiful. My mission feels like dancing in T----'s kitchen with the dog, B----, or jumping on the beds with Sister Pierson in a basement apartment in Lexington, Virginia, or learning guitar in a little house on a hill in Pikeville, or sitting on a porch and feeling right to the very core, that I am exactly where I am supposed to be. My mission feels like home. It feels like family. It feels beautiful, and I can't get enough of it.