March 24th Letter

Hey there Family! 

You guys are probably all preparing for the upcoming wedding for Joey and Christine.  I'm sure it will prove to be a typical Lampoon-McElderry vacation for everyone.  I hope everything goes well though! 

I thought I would send a quick email telling you that I'm alive and well.  Some highlights from my week:

-We took our investigator Danielle to a mexican restaurant for her birthday.  She loved it and felt really special.  We were in a hurry because we were running late for an appointment when all was said and done so we quickly paid the ticket and got out of there.  It was super crazy and the workers were all super busy.  After our appointment we were heading home and we were discussing how cheap the meal ended up being.  We got home and started to plan and then decided that we didn't feel right about how cheap it was.  It was almost our curfew, but we drove back to the restaurant and talked to the host about the ticket.  It turns out that the waiter accidentally gave us the wrong ticket and we only paid HALF of what the full ticket was.  He was going to have to pay the rest out of his pay check.  We happily paid the rest of the ticket and the host told the waiter.  He said that the waiter immediately got happy.  They asked how we knew to come back and we told them that we didn't feel right about what we paid, so we decided to check to make sure it was correct.  As we were leaving they asked if we were Baptists (everyone is here is Baptist) and we happily told them "Nope! We're the Mormons!"

-We attended a Baptist "home church" where they meet in different people's homes instead of in a building.  It was interesting.  I felt like I was at a folk concert.  It was really fun and had really lively music! It felt good, but lacked the depth that the fullness of the gospel has.  Our investigator who invited us made a comment basically saying that she is investigating the church to see if she's missing something, and if not, then to help us see that we're missing something.  I have pondered that idea a lot since she said it.  I feel like she does a lot of wonderful things with her life.  She is very devoted to living the gospel as she knows it.  I feel like as members, we match that level of devotion and MORE! I feel like asking her to show me what more I could do to try to be more Christlike besides refine what I am currently doing!

-I feel really gross thinking back on this now.  A member took us out to eat at a hole in the wall place called "Cock of the Walk."  She drove us wayyyyy out in to the country to try the best fried catfish in all of Mississippi.  I had a whole deep fried catfish.  Fins, tail, everything.  I felt SOOO sick afterward.  So much fried food! Everyone assumes that I ate stuff like that for dinner every night growing up in Arkansas, but thankfully we didn't! I would probably have been very sickly because I'm not handling it well now.  

That's pretty much it! We're working with people and trying to address their concerns.  Some are easier to discern than others.  I love working with these people.  It's truly a blessing.  Some days I want to lovingly beat them over the head! But seeing the growth in them and in myself is worth it!

I love you guys! Have a great week!

Love,

Sister McElderry