Photos from this Week

#1- my companion has CRAZY long hair, so we wanted to see what I would look like with blonde hair.  Not good. 

#2- Our GPS takes us all over the place in the wrong direction.  So I've gotten good at using maps.

#3- Our super snazzy apartment! (See the fireplace?)

5th Week in Biloxi

Hello from Biloxi!

 

All's well down here! Just truckin' along! I'm going in to my 5th week now.  5th WEEK! Almost a whole transfer! The work is starting to pick up! I can't remember if I mentioned last week that we finally cut Nykemia loose.  We couldn't get ahold of her and I think she was avoiding us.  Anyway, when one door closes, Heavenly Father opens another one.  We had two first lessons this week.  One with Lily (I think I mentioned her) and one with a woman named Amber.  They are both SUPER COOL! They both had their reservations about what we were teaching, but it's so gratifying to see the Gospel click in their minds.  We're not teaching them anything new, we're just helping them remember what they've already learned.  I tell you what, the fastest way to get pumped about a mission is to teach a lesson! We've also started volunteering at a soup kitchen.  We go around and talk with the people and enjoy their company.  Also, our service in the Biloxi Community Living Center got upgraded! Instead of playing in the corner of their cafeteria, we play in the front lounge where people can come in and sit on comfy couches! What an honor right?!

 

Zone Interviews. Sister M with her companions.

Update on my Portuguese.  IT STINKS! I've had two opportunities to speak spanish with people we tract in to, and both times I spoke this nasty combination of frustrated spanish and portuguese.  It was all "Eu posso hablar en espanol. Voce, I mean usted! quer, I mean quiere! aprender mais sobre Jesus Cristo?"  And then they would look at me like I was crazy.   I don't blame them though.  I wouldn't want to hear my message either, the way I was carrying on.  Anyway, I got two referrals for the spanish elders though! Success!  My companions just stood behind me and told me how great I was doing. 

 

Other side note, I'm going to get FAT if they don't get me out of here soon! #1 everyone eats dessert.  I probably eat dessert 3 times a day! IT'S NOT A TREAT ANYMORE! #2 I look at pictures of the missionaries who have been here for a while from before their missions, and they are definitely heavier.  GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!

 

But for realz dough (as they would say down here) I am enjoying Biloxi.  The work is good, but Heavenly Father provides. 

 

I love y'all and miss y'all.  Thanks for your love and support. 

Until next week!

Sister McElderry

P.S. People think it's funny to say "Haha, it's too bad you're not ELDER McElderry!" Josh, Joey, and John-David, how did you ever survive this? It gets old fast.

P.S.S. I'm officially a real missionary now because I was bit by a dog. 

Letter from 7/22/2013

Hello from Biloxi!

 

I hope everyone is doing well and I trust that you guys let me know when any important things happen.  I should write "cry for help" emails more often because I got a wonderful influx of letters in the mail! Made for a pretty good couple of days. 

 

It's always so hard for me to remember what happened during the past week.  Literally we all sat down last night and realized that it was almost P-Day and we couldn't remember where the week went! We taking a break from doing responsible things like grocery shopping and cleaning stuff today and we're going to play volleyball and have lunch with some other missionaries instead.  I hope we don't regret this decision.  But literally, I'm going to go nuts if I didn't expend some energy in a recreational way. 

 

Update on our investigators: Nykemia has dropped off the face of the earth! Literally we cannot contact her.  This makes me SO SAD! I hope things turn around soon.  But in the mean time, we have met another young woman whose fiancee is a less active member.  Lily and Carlos and this son Jemskdjfiwjefi, or something weird like that from the Bible.  The child is 2 and speaks this weird mix of Spanish and English that is unintelligible either way.  She is super nice and wants to learn about the church.  So far, she has been very aggressive about her desire and welcomes us back every time we talk to her.  We're pretty excited to start working with her.  We have been teaching a lot of practice lessons with members.  It's so much fun to teach the kids and sing with them.  I always feel the Spirit so strongly when we teach these lessons.  I'm really grateful for them because we don't get to teach very many other lessons.  We tried tracting yesterday and an old woman basically told us that she was going to call the cops on us because he pastor said we don't have the proper authority to go out preaching.  We just told her to have a blessed day and carried on knocking on doors! I got my first Mississippi sunburn.  I was wearing my turtle necklace and now I have a nice turtle silhouette on my chest.  I also got homemade jumbalaya and shrimp this week!  Yeah!!!! Finally some southern food! The couple who made it work at the casinos down here as dealers.  They're pretty cool.  They met on a casino boat thing up in Illinois.  We also met a less active woman named Jennifer Barger.  She lives in a retirement apartment complex and is constantly struggling with cancer and her smoking addiction.  It's really sad to see how her addiction has destroyed her body, but her mind is very sharp! She was making us blush telling us about drunkenly marrying a guy and stories about her wedding nights and such.  She's a little off color, but that makes me love her even more.  She just has a very humorous view of life and I really appreciate that.  We're going back to visit her tomorrow.  I'm really excited. 

 

The members in our ward are super cool.  The women are really excited to go out and work with us (and some want to take us shopping.  I'm pretty excited).  We have meal appointments every night and sometimes multiple times a day.  They ask us to come over and teach their families.  We're already getting referrals from them!

 

Anyway, I can't think of anything else that happened this week. 

I love y'all and appreciate all of the emails and letters! I'm making my way through them and trying to respond to as many as I can! Pray for my visa and pray for some pretty cool hurricane weather while I'm down here!

 

Love,

Sister McElderry

Second Week in Biloxi (+ Some Photos!)

Hey there from Biloxi!

 

I just completed my second week here in Biloxi.  We've been working hard and don't have too much to show for it, but Heavenly Father is blessing us with a lot of potential.  We fill our days with trying to find less active members from the ward roster and contacting people we've met through tracting.  People here are very set in their ways and prefer not to change.  I don't blame them, I'm resistant to change as well.  The ward here is really fun.  Lots of young military families who are enthusiastic about working with us.  We tell the elders (who have already been here for a while) that we're taking their ward from them because the members love us so much.  But we have earned it with our hard work! We have made a point to visit active members personally in their homes to get to know them and help them get to know us.  It's working too! We've already had people who were otherwise cold and closed off to the missionaries sign up to feed the sisters this month! Our evenings are always filled with dinner appointments but the elders often have to fend for themselves.  Suckers.

 

I do long to go to Brazil though.  We try to schedule language study time in to our days, but it never seems to happen.  I can already feel the Portuguese slipping from me.  A young airman who just came in this week served his mission in Portugal, so we've made an appointment to teach him in Portuguese this week.  I'm really nervous though because I haven't taught in Portuguese in over two weeks. 

 

I would like to tell you all about our one progressing investigator.  Her name is Nykemia.  She's a young single black mother that we met trying to find an old member.  We knocked on her door and realized that the person we were looking for didn't live there anymore, so we talked with her instead.  We talked with her about how her Heavenly Father loves her and is there to help her if she will turn to him.  And she started crying and told us that she had been praying to God to help her learn more about Him.  She told us that she felt in her heart that everything we shared with her was true.  We went back to visit her this week and taught her about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon and she agreed to be baptised on August 3rd.  FIRST LESSON! She is amazing.  She loves the Book of Mormon and has been reading from it in her spare time.  We went back two days later and asked how her reading was going and she said "oh, I didn't get to read as much as I should have." She was in the book of Jacob.  She had read almost 116 pages in two days.  She is a rockstar and a wonderful blessing in my life.  We're going back to visit her tomorrow and we're super excited.  Nykemia is a wonderful example of faith in our Heavenly Father. 

 

It rains here almost every day and it is wonderful! I put on my rain jacket and go out walking and enjoy every minute of it.  Utah dried me out.  I was a raisin when I got here.  The people from out west complain about how humid and hot it is, but I love every bit of it!

 

I feel like I'm rambling now, so I guess I'll bring this email to a close.  I'm sure I have forgotten lots of funny stories.  I should write in my journal more. 

Anyway, I love and miss Arkansas and everyone there! Mississippi is similar enough to Arkansas that it reminds me of home everyday.

Remember: Every time you help the missionaries, or feed them, or give them a referral, you are helping me out!

Sister McElderry

P.S. Apparently there is a mission blog here?  http://mississippijacksonmission.blogspot.com/

also, I participated in a Relief Society activity here in the Biloxi ward.  I know they posted pictures on facebook, so look up Biloxi Ward Relief Society or something like that, and you should find them. 

Editors Note: I just requested access to the Biloxi RS facebook to get photos. Below are some photos I snagged with Sister McElderry in them from the Jackson Mississippi Mission Blog :)

Mission Meeting during Transfers

New Sisters Waiting on Visas to Brazil

All the new arrivals to the Jackson, MS mission

Sister McElderry needs some love!

Share this with people.  I need letters.

 

Sister McElderry

1955 Popps Ferry Rd Apt. 1091

Biloxi, MS 39532

 

I'm surviving but the mission is hard.  Please send me some love.

Sister McElderry

Double the fun! A longer letter

Hello All!

I attempted to write another email, but I made eye contact with a lady across the library and ended up talking with her about all of her problems and God and such.  She is having a hard time but she has a lot of faith.  She cried and cried (in the middle of the library) and told me that I am an angel sent from God to comfort her.  It was really nice.  She said a prayer right in the library thanking God for sending me to her.

Biloxi is beautiful.  Northern Mississippi looked just like Arkansas, but Biloxi looks different because it is on the coast.  We visited the beach today and it rains a ton here.  I love it.  The trees are beautiful too.  Interesting fact, a lot of the people here were refugees of Katrina. I learned the hard way not to bring up Katrina because everyone has a tragic story to tell.

Biloxi is a tough area.  We just opened it up, so there hasn't been much for us to do this past week.  We had no current people to work with and we didn't know any of the memebers, so we basically had to start from scratch.  We have found about 8 potential people that we can meet and will be following up with them this next week. 

I don't have a lot of time (I spent it with the lady here in the library) so I will just tell about my favorite experience so far.  We had 2 really rough days of tracting and people were so rude.  So on the third day I was really not looking forward to tracting.  We looked up the address of a less active person and decided to track them down but when we knocked on the door they weren't there.  But the woman we met started crying and told us that she had been praying for help from God and loved our message and accepted an invitation for us to come back tomorrow.  We are super excited because she was so sweet.

Okay, well everyone is waiting on me to get off the computer.

I love you guys.  I love the Gospel.  I love Biloxi

Sister McElderry

Missionary Work is Hard, but Rewarding

Hello All!

I'm writing you from beautiful (rainy) Biloxi, Mississippi!

Well I don't have much time to write.  I literally had 23 emails in my mail box and I completely underestimated my time on the computer.

Missionary work is hard, but rewarding.  I've had some really cool experiences already.  I wanted to share them, however I don't know how to use my time wisely.

Love you,

Sister McElderry

Biloxi, MS

I have made it to Mississippi.  It is exactly like Arkansas.  It even SMELLS like Arkansas.  It's an odd feeling being here, but I know I'm going to love it once I get to work.  I haven't done ANYTHING missionary related in over a day now and it feels weird.  I just want to get to work and start meeting people!  

I've been assigned to serve in the Biloxi, Mississippi ward with Sister Keyes (my trainer) and Sister Thomas (another sister waiting to go to Brazil).  Sister Thomas and I will have time to study Portuguese each day, so I'm pretty excited about that.  

I met a woman from Brazil in the airport on my way here and had the opportunity to speak Portuguese with her.  I WANT TO GO TO BRAZIL SO BADLY NOW.  But all on the Lord's time.  

Overall, I'm happy to be here.  I'm just so happy to be out in the world working.  I know that my purpose as a missionary is the same no matter what country I'm in.  I know that I'm going to have trials and frustrations, but I'm going to grow so much.  I'm looking forward to loving the people down here.  It feels like I'm home.

Until next week,

Sister McElderry