Sister Zackrison: I Survived

Hey y’all!

First off, to my embarrassment…I found out that I actually had chigger bites…not trigger bites. We don’t have those nasty little bugs in Utah and I haven’t quite picked up on southern…but my family and just about everyone else corrected me. On the bright side…they are gone now so the nail polish worked!

I just wanted to thank everyone for the prayers offered on my behalf this week. As many of you know, the south was hit this week with a series of tornadoes. But let me be the first to testify that the Lord’s protection and watchful hand is so real. I know it with every part of me.

Let me tell y’all a bit about what happened. Monday afternoon, a tornado started in the Tupelo area. President was up in that area doing interviews with the missionaries when it started right next to the stake center! He let us all know that we had to stay in for the night. The AP’s called us later that night and told us that the tornado was headed right for us and that they didn’t want us to stay in our apartment. My companion and I moved from our second story apartment into the complex’s gym. We camped there for a few hours until the storm let up. Our weather radio went off like four times and I am not gonna lie…I was pretty dang scared. All the other times we had warnings they weren’t serious…but this one was. I had never had to deal with tornadoes before, and now I was doing it all by myself in Alabama as a young missionary. We prayed for a long time. I was scared, yet I had a peace about me. I knew that we were prepared for the worst and I knew that the Lord would protect us. Around 12:30 in the morning we went back to our apartment. The next day the tornadoes were expected to start up again at 2…so we were locked in again. This time, we went to the other sisters’ house because they live in a members’ basement. We felt safer there. The members kept us informed with what the storm was doing. But nothing happened the second day, which we are truly grateful for. That is what the pictures are of…one is the camp out in the gym…the other is with Sister Neufville in her basement. A member told us later that the tornado was headed straight for our area when it randomly jumped and missed Hoover all together. That is how I know the power of prayer, and I know the Lord protected us. The towns around us were all hit. But since we weren’t in those areas, we aren’t able to help with the service. The other missionaries are though, which will be great for them. Some towns were hit pretty bad, and so I am very blessed to be able to say no damage happened here. We have had some bad thunder storms, but for the most part, we are all doing well. Thank you again for your prayers!

Camp out in the gym.

Sister Neufville and me.

That is about it for us! We went back to normal missionary life towards the end of the week, and it has been a good week! My new goal is to find joy in even the hardest situations. Which brings me to the quote of the week, by Marianne Williamson. She says, “Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things are.” Let us all see the good this week. We have trials and disasters (especially in Alabama) but we have an overwhelming amount of good. Which brings us so much joy. Have a very joyful week this week!

With love,
Sister Zackrison