August 19th Letter

Note from Kristin: Sorry I have been behind posting these!!!! I am catching up now!

Hello from Biloxi!

 

This has been an interesting week.  We had transfers and they white washed our Biloxi Spanish elders.  We got two new ones and they are AWESOME.  They get out and actually work and ride their bicycles.  It's awesome. We can actually depend on them.  I don't know if I ever mentioned before that our last elders were kind of lame.  Loved them, but they were lame.  We have so much potential to get work done around here.  We have two really great wards that we work with and everyone is enthusiastic about working with the missionaries.  Our bishop came in to Relief Society this week and talked about how hard we sisters work and how he wants the sisters in our ward to go out with us at least once a week.  It's awesome.  We're starting to get more involved with the branch on the air force base.  We were asked to teach a young airman named Brian who was introduced to the Church through his roommate.  We met with Brian and he had already read about the restoration and the beginning of the Book of Mormon and believes that it's all true.  We set him with a date for August 31st.  He wants to meet with us every day.  He asked us to meet with him EVERY DAY!!!  That doesn't happen here in Biloxi!  It just gives me the faith and confidence that Heavenly Father is a part of our work.  He has prepared people to receive our message and we just have to do our part to put ourselves in positions where we can meet those people. 

 

We have another woman who we have been meeting with regularly named Jessica.  She has been a puzzling investigator.  She's really nice and welcomes us into her home, but we can't tell if she's actually interested or not.  We found out that her husband is a very devout Catholic and has some strong objections to her meeting with us.  We finally asked her to talk to him and ask him if it's okay for her to meet with us and we even offered to have our Spanish elders (the new ones who are awesome) come over and explain what it is that we teach about to her husband (he doesn't speak English).  We'll find out either today or tomorrow what's going to happen with her. 

 

That's pretty much it as far as our investigators go. We spend the rest of our time knocking doors, meeting with less active members, and doing service projects.  Probably my favorite service we did this week was we cleaned a woman's home whose husband is deployed and her kids all have impetigo- which is aparrently a form of staph?  Anyway, I was super freaked out the whole time, but she really needed the help around her house.   We cleaned the entire downstairs part of her house for her and folded her laundry.  She cried when we left.  It was worth it.  But now every time I get a bug bite or a red mark on my body, I freak out thinking it's staph.

 

I forgot to mention that we have visited a woman named Michelle a couple of times.  She's really interesting.  The two times we've visited her in her home, we've taught the lesson while she put weave in someone's hair.  It's very interesting and distracting for me, but we get to teach 2-3 people each time we go in her home! And we're learning all about weave and weave products!  Maybe I'll become a hair dresser someday.  (Just kidding Dad)

 

I would be lying if I said every day was sunshine and happiness.  It's pretty stressful trying to teach people the keys to salvation and getting turned away.  But we always take time to find things to laugh about each day.  Sometimes we're so discouraged, we force ourselves to laugh until we're sincerely laughing.  Probably my favorite moment was when we were driving to lunch and the elders were following us. Sweet Sister Keyes, who is so careful with what she calls "The Lord's Car," flipped a u-turn in an intersection that was too small and instead of backing up to give herself room to complete the turn, gunned it and drove over the curb.  It was very abrasive and I'm pretty sure we need to get the tires realigned.  *PARENTS: DO NOT BUY TEENAGE GIRLS NEW CARS!*  They don't take care of them.  But we have been chuckling about that all week.  Any time things get stressful, we say "Hey, do you remember when Sister Keyes drove over that curb in the Lord's Car?" and we laugh our problems away.

 

Anyway, we're going to play frisbee and soccer on the beach today with our new elders.  I'm excited to expend some energy.  I love and miss everyone!  I hope everyone is doing well. 

Sister McElderry