January 20th letter

Hey there family!

Hope everyone is doing well.  I'm alive here in Clinton, in case anyone is concerned for me.  Everything sounds like it's changing back home.  It's weird catching snippets of people's lives in emails.  I have to piece together situations from multiple different perspectives.  But I miss everyone back home.  Probably now more than ever before.  I'm coming up on my halfway mark and it's all downhill from there! 

We had a really funny experience yesterday.  So we were tracting yesterday after church and lunch.  We didn't talk to many people during those two hours, but at one door this very energetic black man answers the door.  We were a little scared because after we introduced ourselves he said, "Hold on, let me go get something."  That's never a good sign, but he just gave us some invitations to his church.  We talked for a while about the Holy Ghost which naturally lead into gift of tongues.  Of course we do believe in that gift, but not in the way most people down here do.  Long story short, we didn't get far.  Suddenly this woman steps out from behind him with the most disagreeable expression on her face.  She invited us in so that they could pray for us (they tag-team the ministry), which is weird because usually we're the one's offering prayers.  So we stand in a circle holding hands and she begins to pray.  My eyes are closed, so you must imagine my surprise when I feel her put her hand on my forehead/face and begin speaking in tongues!!!  Honestly, it sounded like the snake language in Harry Potter.  One by one she does this for each of us, expecting us to "receive the Holy Ghost", which meant that we would have started speaking in tongues too.  They were really nice and invited us to come to their church so we could have this gift.  They even took our names so they could pray for us.  We thanked them for their kindness and left as quickly as we could.

We had a way cool spiritual experience this week.  We have been fasting and praying for a good person to teach.  We went out knocking doors and this family lets us in and we teach them the first lesson.  They are super amazing and we are so excited to go teach them againtomorrow night.  This doesn't happen! Please keep us and this family in your prayers because we don't want to lose them! 

My MTC companion got her visa this week and flew out today.  She called and told me over the phone.  I instantly burst in to tears and tried to tell her through my tears that I was really happy for her.  I was, but I was also sad that I am the last one waiting here in the US.  It's okay though.  I still have a purpose here! 

Well, this email is long enough.  Hope you guys have a great week! STOP CHANGING.

Love,

Sister McElderry

January 6th letter

Happy New Year everybody!

We are freezing to death right now in case you were wondering.  It's not even as cold here as it is in Arkansas and other places I've heard about.  I can't even imagine trying to work in anything colder than this.  Despite it getting really cold here and raining on us, we worked out butts off tracting and getting ourselves out there.  Luckily people have had compassion on us and let us in to their homes because it was so cold.  We have taught some really neat families.  

Funny story: My companions told me that we were going to visit a member who lived in the neighborhood we were working.  My companions didn't tell me her name and I don't know all of the members in the area yet, so it wouldn't have done me any good anyway.  So instead of walking to her house, we ended up in a woman named Juanita's house.  She is NOT a member.  In fact, my companions hadn't taught her hardly anything at all.  I didn't know all of this.  We go inside and we're talking with her as she cooks lunch and we're laughing and joking and the whole time I think she's a member.  Then her neighbor comes over to eat lunch and my companions ask her if they can teach the neighbor lady.  I thought to myself "oh! How nice! A member referral!" and so we start teaching and I'm teaching the first lesson to the neighbor lady.  It went so well and Juanita was talking along with us about the prophets in the Bible and such.  We get to the end of the lesson and my companion asks Juanita if she knows anything about the Book of Mormon and she said "no, tell me about it!"  I realized in that moment that Juanita was an investigator! I felt so dumb for not catching it before.  If anything though, it just made me want to teach her more because she is that wonderful already! 

I got in my first bible bash.  It was the last house on the last day of our missionary week.  We just needed 5 more minutes of tracting to reach our weekly goal, so we decided to knock this door.  It had been a cold and wet hour of tracting with no success.  There was a football game on and no one had time to talk to us.  I was feeling discouraged and turned to my companions and said "I really don't know how much more of this I can handle." A man answered the door and we were talking to him about faith and such and found out the hard way that he is a preacher.  He started telling us that we're going to hell because we don't believe in Christ and a bunch of crap like that.  So of course I started arguing, which is never a good idea.  In the end we walked away as he continued to shout his sermon at us from the door.  It sucked, but I will grow from the experience.  Lesson learned: contention is ALWAYS of the devil and will not do any good.  Open minds and open hearts is the best policy.  I think 1 bible bash in 7 months is a good ratio though.

I do love the Clinton area though.  So many good people here.  My companions, Sister Willardson and Sister Birmingham, are really good, hard working people.  Willardson is really spacey and loving and Birmingham is really intense and hardworking.  They are complete opposites, so we strike a good balance with me in the middle.  I sometimes think I might kill Sister Birmingham because she is super stressed out all of the time, but I'm learning patience.  They are being pretty patient with me because I came in and started changing everything.  I started by cleaning out the apartment and have been working on making the whole process here more efficient.  They tell me that they want to meet dad because I attribute that part of my personality to him.  (Assertive, efficient, and always right)  Thanks dad!

Well, once again, this letter is long enough.  Hope everyone stays warm and enjoys the new year! 2014 is going to be a blessed year! (And I come home this year!)

Love,

Sister McElderry

January 13th letter

Dear Familia!

Hey there! We had a stressful week.  Our investigator, Mary Bailey, was supposed to get baptized on Saturday.  We spent a bunch of time trying to get it all together.  The day of the baptism, we tried calling her and her fellowshipper and friend Brother Lawson called her a bunch.  She never responded.  He drove over to her house in west Jackson to pick her up for the baptism and she's not home.  So he stopped and asked some guys on the street if they her family and where she was, and they pulled a gun on him and tried to rob him! What the heck! She never showed for the baptism and everyone was sitting there waiting.  You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink, right!?  Her sister-in-law is supposed to get baptized this Saturday, but we're not sure if that's going to happen anymore either.  Gah! Everything seemed to fall apart a little bit this week.  My companions focused a lot on not getting too stressed out.  We had a relatively good week other than that.  

Not sure what else to share.  I'm happy and safe.  I think we're going to give Jackson a break for a little while and let our nerves calm down a bit.  

We're still working on getting the members to work with us more, we just need to get some solid people that they can help us with.  We're trying though! 

Well, I have to go.  Hope you guys are all doing well.  

Love,

Sister McElderry

Happy New Year and Merry Christmas!

Happy New Year everyone!

I had a FANTASTIC Christmas week! We started the week by going caroling and "spreading Christmas cheer by singing loudly for all to hear."  Then Tuesday was our p-day.  Tuesday night was an awesome surprise! (this is a repeat for anyone who skyped me Christmas day)  President McDonough called all the missionaries in the area and told us that we had to meet in Madison, MS for a service project at 4:00 on Christmas Eve.  We show up at the church building and there are about 23 of us missionaries sitting in the chapel when a woman comes in and tells us that there is no service project, but her family wanted to hold a little thank-you gathering for us.  So we go in to the gym and it's been partitioned off so we can only go in a small part.  They put up baby pictures of all of us and we had to guess who was who and they had some little finger foods.  It was a fun surprise.  BUT THEN they opened up the partition and we saw that they set up a fancy dinner for us and served us food.  It was delicious! AND THEN they gathered us around a tv and played embarrassing videos and stories from our childhood submitted by our families.  There were some really embarrassing ones, I'm glad they couldnt get ahold of my family so there werent any of me! THEN TO OUR SURPRISE they opened the partition back up and revealed homemade dessert individually wrapped for us and labeled with our nicknames that our family calls us.  They had members in the area cook our favorite desserts for us! FINALLY we played Dirty Santa with presents provided by this family and beautifully wrapped for us.  They contained Mississippi memorabilia like college hoodies and back packs and such.  I was one of the last people and I opened a hat with ear flaps on it from Southern Miss.  I was super excited.  Then a guy came and took it from me! I was pretty peeved.  So I went and picked out another box.  I knelt down and sadly asked everyone to say a prayer for me that it would be because I really wanted that hat.  I opened the box and LOW AND BEHOLD I got another hat exactly like the other one! I triumphantly held it in the air as everyone cheered for me.  It was glorious.  The family was surprised because they didn't remember getting two of those hats.  That's a Christmas miracle if I've ever seen one! It really was a wonderful evening.  Nicer than I probably would have gotten at home (just kidding!).  But I really do appreciate all of the work the members put in to making this Christmas Eve special for us.  Hopefully they will post pictures on the blog from it soon?

Then the next day, I got to talk to the family! Probably the best 24 hours I've spent in the mission field yet! We were fed multiple times on Christmas day.  Apparently I ate chicken gizzard dressing.  I thought the meat tasted a little different, but I didnt know why.  

Then Christmas was over and it was back to work! We have two baptisms quickly approaching in January.  One is Mary, a sweet old black woman who lives in Jackson.  Her mentally disabled daughter wants to be baptized as well, so we're trying to figure out what to do with that.  We will do it if she would like, but we're figuring out everything right now.  We explained, of course, that she doesnt have to because she's already perfect in God's eyes, but I admire her desire to show her faith by being baptized.  Mary is kind of sad and quiet because she has a lot of health problems.  Her leg is swollen 3 times its natural size.  She said she fell off the back of a bus and after that it swelled up really big and the doctors cant figure out how to fix it.  She's in a lot of pain and really wants to be relieved of her pain.  We are also preparing to baptize Cleta (another woman out in Jackson).  She watches 11 of her grand kids every day and she told us she sometimes wants to run away, but if she does, those kids have no one to care for them.  Their parents are strung out on drugs and can barely care for themselves.  We felt bad for her so I offered for us to sing "Where Can I Turn for Peace" for her.  She liked the idea, so we started singing.  We barely made it through one verse when she got up from her chair and started chasing and threatening her grand kids with a ripped up leather belt because they were too loud.  The irony of the whole situation made me burst out laughing in the middle of the hymn.  She's funny.  The culture is so different.

Anyway, I love Clinton!  We're working on building the relationship between the missionaries and the members.  There are great members and great missionaries (although a little awkward sometimes) but the relationship between the two isnt there.  President said he put me here because I work well with members and wanted me to build that foundation, so I am! We taught 5 member families last night using an object lesson that Joey sent me a while back.  They loved it! 

Well, I realize that this email is ridiculously long.  I just had a lot to say this week.  Don't expect this every week.  I love and miss everyone back home! I'm coming up on my halfway mark here soon! *EXCITING*

Love,

Sister McElderry