Monday, May 19, 2014

Saturday was easily my favorite day this week! We met the coolest family! They're an inactive family in the ward named the Nottinghams, and they live on London Drive. Sounds like they should be British or something, right? (Or maybe that's just me) Well, they're not. They're actually Indian! And they're way cool! They're pretty much the only family on the whole ward roster we hadn't met yet so we finally got ahold of them and they invited us over for brunch. So after we ate they showed us around their property which was way cool! They're pretty much completely self sufficient. They built their own house entirely on their own. They even cut the wood and cleared the land and everything. And it looks really good! They also have their own herb garden, vegetable garden, and orchard. AND they raise chickens and turkeys for their own eggs, and cows for their own beef and milk. So...basically if all of society falls apart tomorrow and you can no longer go to the grocery store and pick stuff up, they're going to be just fine. 

 

What I thought was really neat about them was the way they mixed their Indian culture with their religion. Their kids have Indian names and they both went on what's called a vision quest when they were thirteen, which is where they go out into the woods by themselves for 24 hours with no food or water so it can be a time where it's "just you and your creator" as their dad put it. And they have a sweat lodge where they go to pray. So they've retained a lot of their heritage but it doesn't take away from what they believe. They're not active in the church, but you can tell they still have strong testimonies of the gospel. Marla, the mother, actually grew up on an Indian reservation in New York. So when she was first introduced to the Book of Mormon it meant a lot to her because if the final resting place of the golden plates was in New York, for all she knows the Lamanites that were there at that time could be her ancestors. How cool is that? Talking to them was definitely one of the most eye opening experiences of my mission.

This is a whale's "tooth"--actually part of their baleen plate. A friend of the Nottinghams who hunted himself the old fashioned way (with a spear) gave it to them. They said that's the only way you can legally have one; you can't just buy them anywhere.

Some arrowheads the Nottinghams had hung on their wall.

 A while back Sister Dailey and I discovered Johnny Lingo on Mormon Channel. We decided since we're surrounded by so many cows, we ought to see if we could get eight different pictures with eight different cows in eight different places during the week. I think I actually ended up getting nine. So--let it be known that I, Sister Glenn, am an eight cow woman! 

Also, it's looking like Sister Dailey and I may not be in Red Star much longer. So for any of you who are planning on sending me letters any time soon, please send them to this address (the mission office) until I know where I'm going to be living next! Thanks!

175 Burnham Rd

Brandon, MS 39042

Monday, May 12, 2014

Hello everyone! Hope everyone's Mother's Day was great! Mine was awesome. I'll probably never be that excited for Mother's Day again! It was so good to get to talk to my family. I even got to see my grandparents and my aunt and uncle so that was nice! 

So, this week our ward was hard at work putting together chicken on a stick. What is chicken on a stick, you ask? Well, quite simply, it's pieces of chicken, onion, and pickle all put together in a particular order on a stick, deep fried. The Red Star ward has been doing it as a fundraiser for the cub scouts every year so we felt quite privileged to help! And to eat them, too. :)

 

 

The unfinished product. Ew.

And voila! It's delicious!

 

I finally got to try a fried oreo! I've been wanting one of these ever since I heard of them. So unhealthy. Yet so good.

These are my newest investigators. I taught them the restoration and they all seemed very interested. I think they're going to be baptized. 

A family photo :)

Monday, May 5, 2014: Tornadoes, Bookcases, and the brothers of Ammon

Hello, friends and family!

So, guess what? The tornadoes didn't hit me and I'm still alive! Sorry to disappoint you! It wasn't really that exciting for us, actually. It looked one tornado was heading right to us but it ended up passing just north of us instead. We had already decided to stay the night at Teresa and Wade's house though, so we felt pretty silly when we got a little rain and lightning and then the rest of the night was still. Oh well, better safe than sorry, right? Not to mention I got to sleep on the softest mattress ever, so that was a plus. 

The rest of the week was pretty slow. We haven't really been able to teach any investigators the past couple weeks, so most of our time was spent organizing one of our favorite member's bookshelves! Her name is Amanda and she basically has her own library. I'm kind of jealous! 

Our ward was also asked to help with tornado cleanup in Louisville. We tried to go with them, but even though it's in our mission boundaries our zone leaders said it was too far. Lame! Instead we helped paint someone's house in Brookhaven. Yep, we did all the service this week! 

One of the best things about being a missionary is I read the scriptures in a completely different light than I did at home. So, here's a little scriptural thought for your brains to munch on. A few days ago I read the story of Ammon, and then the story of the brothers of Ammon. You probably already know both stories, but for a quick summary, all of these brothers went on missions to preach to the Lamanites. Ammon went to the people of King Lamoni and pretty much immediately found success there. Meanwhile, his brothers were thrown into prison and left suffering until Ammon was finally told to go and rescue them. As I was reading these stories this time, I couldn't help but wonder why that was--and why that is. Why is it that it's some missionaries' lot to "fall into the hands of a more hardened and a more stiffnecked" area and the lot of others to fall into thriving areas and find success relatively quickly? I'm sure Ammon's brothers had just as much of a desire to serve as Ammon did. 

And to be honest, I don't have an answer to this question. I don't know why Ammon's brothers had to be in prison the first part of their missions when everything was going smoothly for their brother. All I know is that from my experience out in the field, some missionaries are Ammons, and some are the brothers of Ammon. For the Ammons, the fruits of their labors are easily apparent and they are usually remembered for a very long time. For the brothers of Ammon, the fruits of their labors are harder to see at first, and they might be the quieter missionaries who people sometimes forget about--but we see from the scriptures that both kinds of missionaries find success in the end as long as they are diligent in the work, and that's all that really matters. And even if we can't understand why we're having to go through something, the Lord knows why, and someday we'll get to know the reason why too. Just something to think about!

Monday, April 21, 2014: My One and Only Easter in Mississippi!

This week was just full of adventures! First of all, we were just driving along our country road one day when all of a sudden the car starting beeping at me and this little symbol started flashing on the odometer. Apparently it was saying the engine oil pressure was low (whatever that means) so we stopped and called Elder Edwards, and he told us we couldn't drive the car anymore or we'd kill the engine! To make matters worse, he said he didn't have a car he could give us in exchange. Which is a problem, because going on foot or even on bikes in the country doesn't work! Believe me, we tried. We nearly got attacked by seven stray dogs...and also realized that by the time we got to our appointment, we'd be at least three hours late. 

Lucky for us, Elder Edwards is a magician and managed to conjure up a car for us two days later, so we didn't have to go carless for too long. Thank goodness! I didn't realize how grateful I was to have a car until I had to go without one. 

We got to help the ward out with their Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday. It was tons of fun! I didn't realize till then how many primary kids Red Star has in it. I also got to see a family who was visiting from Picayune, which was way happy making! 

We had Skyler's baptism right after the Easter Egg Hunt. We nearly had to have her be baptized in icy cold water because the water heater wasn't working, but we managed to get it going just in time. Michael and Brandee Falvey gave the talks and Madison (aka the sister I never knew I had) and Emma Falvey sang a musical number. I love that family oh so much! 

 

So overall, it was a really good week! Oh, and we had transfer calls! Sister Dailey and I are both staying, which came as no surprise to either of us. We're pretty excited. It doesn't seem like you get to have the same companion for more than two transfers very often. I'm fairly certain she and I were destined to serve with each other--we probably knew each other in the preexistence! Now let's just hope we can find enough work to keep us busy for one more transfer! Prayers would be appreciated!  

 

 

 

Monday, April 14, 2014: Just a Regular Week

Good morning everyone!

Sorry I didn't post anything last week. We've had some weird P Days the past couple of weeks that have been pretty much normal working days so I didn't have a lot of time to email. Luckily I didn't have a lot to update you on anyway! This week was good but pretty slow. Sister Dailey and I are hoping we start to get busy again. As much as I appreciate my extra study time a person can only read the scriptures and stay interested for so long! We also hit our seven month mark this week! We celebrated by going into town to get frozen yogurt. Twice. Rest assured, if I return from the south fat it will because of all the ice cream, not the fried food. 

We got to see Skyler twice this week and she's doing fantastic! Her baptismal date was set for May 3rd but we realized she could get baptized sooner than that since we're finished with the lessons, so we gave her her options and she chose the soonest date she could, which is this weekend! We're really excited. She's such a cute girl. She doesn't talk much in our lessons but you can really tell she's taking it all in. 

 

Oh, and for the first time since I came out on my mission I got to go on a full exchange  with the STL's, so I got to stay in Jackson for the weekend!Woohoo! It was fun! We even went tracting, which I hadn't done in three months! Fortunately, I hadn't forgotten how to do it. It's going to be weird to leave Red Star and go back to regular missionary life. That probably won't happen anytime soon, buy the way. Transfers are next week, but President basically told Sister Dailey and I we're both staying where we are. We probably won't be going anywhere. Although President does like to surprise us every once in a while. I'll find out what's happening for sure this Friday!

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.