Monday, March 31, 2014

Hello!

Well, I don't have too much time because we have some people to see (today isn't much of a P Day for us) but I did say I was going to be better about keeping up with this thing so I thought I'd better write something! This week went pretty well! Sister Dailey and I used our spare time to visit those on our list of ward members we haven't met yet. We knocked a good amount of them off! Only 21 more people to meet! They'll be the more challenging ones because some of them live a good 40 miles away but we'll get it done somehow. 

This week Skyler, the one investigator we've been waiting to get to church, finally came! Woohoo! I think she's been wanting to come but it's harder for her because since she's still a kid she has to rely on her grandparents to get her there. But she made it this time! That means all five of our investigators made it to church this week! It's not exactly fun having so few investigators, but hey, how many missionaries can say that all of their investigators made it to church on the same Sunday? Probably not very many! We might not have too many investigators in Red Star but the ones we do have are golden. 

So on Wednesday night around midnight I woke up and our whole house was shaking. I thought we were in an earthquake for a minute! But it turned out it was actually thunder. Me being from Utah, I don't think I've ever seen a storm that bad! The lightning and thunder was just going nonstop for several minutes. We're surrounded by trees so I was terrified one of them was going to fall on our house. We did have some trees fall here and take out some power lines but luckily we were safe! Good thing we have the Lord on our side, eh? 

Oh yeah, and I also had the chance to try the thing I wasn't sure I'd ever be brave enough to try: crawfish. And I'm now convinced these things are called Mudbugs for a reason! They look like mutant bugs from some horror movie or something! I don't think it's even the taste that bothered me, I just can't get past how they look. But at least I can say I tried them! Now the last thing I have to tackle is alligator... (Not literally though. That would just be stupid.)

 

 

Monday, March 24, 2014

Hello, Everyone!

 

So, it's occurred to me that I haven't been very good at keeping up with my blog since I got out here. Sorry about that. I'm going to do my best to be better about it starting today! 

I don't think I ever even explained what Red Star is like on here. Let me do my best to explain as briefly as possible: A very very long time ago, two missionaries came through this area and baptized one family, the Britts. But instead of moving west like most of the pioneers, the Britts just stayed where they were, and they had ten children, and their children had a lot of children, and so on until basically a whole ward was built up out of just one family. Now a few others have moved in, but seriously everybody in this ward is related to each other. Everybody. It's like nothing I've ever seen in my life. But they love their family and they're proud of their heritage. 

But this is why Red Star is such a different area. First of all, it's not actually a town; we're way out in the middle of the woods. There's not even a gas station. Second, people don't really move out of the area, they just raise their family right by their parents, so everyone in our area is either already a member, or they've already heard of the church and have no desire to become members. Therefore, tracting here is pointless. So if we're going to get any baptisms here, it's going to have to be through the members. Which, it turns out, is not too easy sometimes. But that's ok! 

So, we had interviews this week, and President gave us kind of a new assignment to meet every person on the ward roster (even he doesn't know what we're doing with Red Star for sure so we're just sort of playing it by ear). So last week we got to work! We made a list of all the people we haven't met. There's actually not too many left! We have about 35-40 names, which, out of 150 people on the roster, isn't too bad. I think the only challenge is going to be that some of them live really far away, like 45 miles, and we don't have a lot of miles so we're going to have to get a lot of help from the members in meeting these people. But I'm excited about the new assignment and looking forward to meeting all the people! 

We've also been working a lot with an amazing woman named Tracy. I've seen huge changes in her even in just the past two weeks. She left the church a few years ago but she really wants to come back. This weekend we celebrated her successfully completing the stop smoking program! We did it at a member's house and a few people came to show their support. It was fantastic. She has a goal date to be baptized again and she's hoping her son will be able to be the one to baptize her! 

Spring is also coming quickly here. It's beautiful! Sometimes it's hard for me to be so far out in the middle of nowhere, especially considering all manner of beasts are currently getting inside Mortimer (our house)--but you've got to love the scenery.