Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Thanksgiving was great! We went to the Morrisey's, a family in our ward. Sister Morrisey was planning on being there but she had to make an emergency trip to her daughter's in Salt Lake, so we went over early to help Brother Morrisey and their other daughter cook the food. It was so much fun! All of us missionaries were there, including the senior missionaries, and the Demers, another family in our ward came as well.

Monday, November 25, 2013: Baptism Pictures

Anita was baptized by her husband on Thursday, November 21st. She only wanted her family and the missionaries there and I think it was perfect for her that way. 

 

I've already seen the gospel change the lives of many people. I admire their faith so much. If someone were to come knock on my door and start telling me about the gospel, I don't know if I'd let them in, but people here to it every day and that's amazing to me. I have a testimony now more than ever that this church is true.

Monday, November 18, 2013

What an amazing week it's been! We have truly been blessed here in Picayune. We had the Sister Training Leaders over (they're kind of like the zone leaders for sister missionaries--they come visit us and we go on splits with them) which mean we were able to get twice the amount of work done on Thursday! It also meant that we were both making appointments, so we accidentally triple booked ourselves for Saturday and Tuesday! Whoops. Fortunately the ward is very helpful and with three of us we can make it work. 
 

We had a ward Thanksgiving Dinner on Friday. It was so good! The Magallenes family was able to come, and they brought along their daughter, son-in-law, and grandson. I think they enjoyed themselves. I love that this ward does so much together. It's like one big family. 
 

We invited Anita Magallenes to be baptized several weeks ago. She said she would but she wouldn't set a goal date. During the dinner she surprised us by telling us she wanted to be baptized on the 21st, on her and Andres' one year anniversary. We were so excited! We've been working this weekend to put the program together. Andres is going to be able to baptize her. I love this family so much! It's been so amazing to see a change in them, just in the past month and a half. 
 

We've started the stop smoking program with Clint on Tuesday. He was afraid he wouldn't be able to do it for a long time but we taught him about faith again and promised that God would be helping him through it. When we came back on Thursday I asked him how he was doing with it, and if he was following the steps we'd given him (there are 15 steps to the stop smoking program to go through every day). He said, "Oh, I don't need those steps! I'm doing fine!" It made me laugh. I love that guy. Last I checked he's still going strong. 

Well, that's all for today! Oh, but for anyone who may have missed it last time, here's my address...I thought I'd better put it up again in case someone was just dying to write me letters or something... (Hint hint)

413 Bay Street

Picayune, MS 39466

Monday, November 4, 2014

 This is a banana spider. Super huge, super nasty, and they are everywhere. I wish I could have gotten a better picture.

 The swamp. Pretty water, huh? Nice and brown.

Me and my ward mission leader, Brother Gill! No, I wasn't actually fishing.. But I was posing with the rod, so that's a start. This, by the way, is probably the only time you'll see me in basketball shorts. My jeans hadn't arrived yet.

Things are going pretty good! My companion's getting transferred. That's not so good >:( I was supposed to have her her for another six weeks! At least that means I get to sleep on an actual bed now and not an air mattress. And I get my own closet! :D So I suppose there are some good things about it.

Snow is gross! It's only just starting to get chilly here. Lucky for me I bought myself a super cute blue peacoat at Dirt Cheap for... well, dirt cheap! Along with a dress I found for seven dollars. It was awesome.

Speaking of money, I had to return the bike I bought a couple of weeks ago. I had decided to buy a cheap one to save myself some money but it just wasn't going to cut it. But when I got to Walmart I found out they don't take bikes back unless you have a receipt, and I'd thrown away all my receipts the week before! Just to be safe though, I opened my wallet, and guess what? There was one receipt that had somehow managed not to get thrown away, and it was exactly the one I needed :) That was a miracle to me!

It's Fall, Y'all!

Despite the title, I have so far managed not to say the word "y'all" a single time since I've gotten here! That's my goal for my mission, to go the full eighteen months without saying that word.

Anywho, the seasons are most definitely changing! We've had a few chilly days and I feel like half of our appointments were cancelled this week because people were sick. Somehow, though, we taught more lessons this week than we have so far! This week our goal is to hit 30 lessons. We were only four off last week so I think we can do it! 

Gary didn't end up getting baptized this Sunday. He just barely started a new job so he's really stressed financially and he was busy the two days before Sunday so he never got an interview done. But it WILL be getting done this week! We're probably going to have his daughter Alexis baptized the same day since we're finished with the lessons and she's more than ready. 

Last week a lady in the ward asked us to meet with a family who recently moved to Picayune. I was so excited! I've been wanting to teach a full family so badly! For the most part we've only been teaching one person at a time so far and I just really wanted to see the gospel change an entire family's lives. The Greenes seem really nice. They have three little girls who are full of energy and they're currently living in a trailer park. They lost everything they had in a fire so this is all kind of a new start for them. I really think they have a lot of potential. They've already come to church twice and they're very open to what we have to say. 

So, I didn't expect what people eat down here to be much different from back home, but a lot of it is! If anyone's curious, here are a few things I've gotten to try:

Boiled peanuts-My uncle mentioned these to me a few days before I left. You can find them in a lot of gas stations here but my ward mission leader made a batch himself. To me they kind of have the texture of potatoes. They're a little weird but pretty good. 

Gritz-I only just recently got to try gritz and still don't know how I feel about it. I sort of feel like I'm eating baby food. It's not too bad though, if you can get over the weird texture. 

Hush puppies-The best thing I've been able to try so far! Basically all they are is fried pieces of bread with jalapenos in them. They're so good! I need to learn how to make them so I can still have them when I go home. 

Crawfish-No. Just...no. I'll admit, I haven't actually tried this one. I refuse to eat anything that still has legs and a tail. 

Fortunately for me, I haven't had to eat anything too bizarre yet. A lot of the missionaries here have eaten alligator though, so that's bound to happen eventually.

Monday, October 21, 2013

Just pictures from Sister Glenn this week:

 We caught a lizard in our apartment the other day. His name is Nigel. I wanted to keep him, by my mom (Sister Diehl) wouldn't let me.

 My companions, the elders, and I at our ward mission leader's farm. This is what happened to this farm as a result of Katrina.

A  swamp at Brother Gill's farm. There used to be a ton of catfish in it, by Hurricane Katrina washed them all out.

Another picture of the swamp.

Monday, October 14, 2013

We have a new opportunity for service here! There's a senior citizens' center nearby that needs piano teachers, and since my companions and I play we're going to help teach them! I'm excited about that. I hope I know enough to teach it. 

We've had a lot of really great moments this week! We set to more baptismal dates, one for a boy named Cory and one for Clint. I can't remember if I've talked about Clint already or not but he's one of my favorite investigators right now. He's in a wheelchair right now because of a stroke and is relearning how to walk. In ways this is nice because that means we have to send someone to pick him up for church...which means he has to go no matter what! :P He loves it there. Whenever I see him at church he's always smiling so big. He knows the church is true and he's ready to be baptized. His only problem is he's afraid he won't be able to stop smoking but I know he can do it!

I thought being in the Bible belt would make missionary work hard, but in many ways it doesn't. Everybody we talk to already believes in God and Jesus Christ. To them it's just a fact that they are there, not a question, so the foundation has already been laid for many of the people we teach! Many people are happy to listen to our message "and any message having to do with Jesus". We do get the occasional purpose who tell us they've found Jesus and we should go bother some of the nonbelievers, but for the most part people are very open and even if they don't want to listen they tell us how much they respect us for doing what we do. 

Last week we went fishing with the elders and our ward mission leader. Well, everyone else went fishing and I watched. When they asked why I wasn't fishing I said, "I'm afraid I might catch one." It was a lot of fun anyway, though.