Hey Family,
Well your letters finally did it I'm sitting here crying in the middle of the library....which is ok I think the only one who has noticed is Elder Johnson who is sitting right across from me.
Things here are so great! We've been having some great experiences and some really difficult ones. Our miracle investigator Claude has had a hard week with everything, we taught him about the Word of Wisdom on the 4th and he said that he does not think he can quit smoking. He has been trying for years and years with no success. We promised we would help him in any way we could and then we told him that if he came to church on Sunday that he would be able to find the strength to overcome this problem and still be baptized on the 20th. Well as it can only happen in the South he said he would and did not show up....We went to his house last night and the first thing he said was wow your preacher gave a great sermon but I couldn't find you anywhere! He went to the Baptist church across the street........... AHHHH! We had to explain what that was and that he went to the wrong church. Only in the bible belt.
Mom wanted to know what I did everyday so here it is.... I wake up, pray and then say my pacing promises. Then I work out for 30 mins, usually it is me running about 200 laps in our living room and then I get ready. After getting ready and breakfast, we study for an hour by our selves. After personal study we say our standing quotes, read 3 pages out of our white handbook and then tell each other what we learned during personal study. Ok personal study is awesome! I've never read the bible, and with a whole hour I'm able to read a chapter from the old testament the new testament the Book of Mormon and a few sections from PMG!!! Wow I'm learning so much! (oh and the old testament is SOOO gory and violent! holy Moses!!) after that we plan lessons for the appointments we have that day and then we work on the training book called my first 12 weeks. By 11:00 we go to work. the rest of the day is filled with appointments and a little bit of tracting. Since the broadcast we have a goal of only 30mins to an hour of tracting everyday at the most! We do take short breaks for lunch (which is usually in our car) and then dinner (which is either in our car or at a members home) That's pretty much our days Tuesday-Saturday.
Last Monday I had my first opportunity to color my hair (which it was in desperate need of) so we were over at our ward mission leaders house washing our clothes and coloring our hair which was so much fun! Oh and we were over there because his wife, who is also a hair dresser, has Mondays off and refuses to let us go to the laundromats because that's where the undesirables go!
Tuesday we had the funniest experience at a less active members home! We had gone up into her living room which she never goes into and it was really dark. All the sudden we start sniffing and it smells horrible and we're like what is that! we look down and right next to my companion is a big pile of dog poop in which we just stepped in and smeared into the carpet. Ah!! Apparently she had been dog sitting the night before and the dog, unbeknown to her, had gone in there and pooped. We spent the next 30 mins cleaning dog poop off of our shoes and her $20,000 rug, it was hilarious! We called that our service for the week.
On the 4th we had ZTM which is just a training meeting with our zone (I had to do a training I was so worried!!) but it was so fun because I got to see Sister Walker (my friend from Clayton) and then we went and taught a few of our investigators. We then went to dinner at our WML's home and the Elders killed a rooster of theirs that has been pooping in front of all of their doors it was so funny! We then had "lock down" because of all the drunk drivers and such that are out that night they just want missionaries inside so we hung out in our jammies and watched 17 miracles and the testaments it was awesome!
We had an amazing experience on Friday with Dustin. We went over to his girlfriends house and had dinner and a lesson. The bishop came plus the girlfriends grandparents (who she lives with) sat in on the lesson. We taught a little about the Law of Chastity as we had planned and then we just answered all the questions they had about anything because Victoria, Dustin's girlfriend, is a recent convert. After that Bishop Ross and Victoria's grandfather gave Dustin a blessing so that he would be able to deal with his Word of Wisdom issues and any other temptations that would keep him from being baptized on Saturday. It was so spiritual and amazing!! I loved it!
That was about it for my week. It sounds like y'all had so much fun this last week! I hope all is going well!! I love you all! Make sure those little ones don't forget who I am!
Have a blessed day!
Love Y'all,
Sister Kate!
PS We got 4.5 inches of rain last week....I am VERY grateful for umbrellas! It was crazy!
