Hello Again :D

Hey Everyone!!

This week we have been having some crazy weather!!! I know weather is what you talk about when you don't have anything else to talk about, but not this time. It's one thing to be raining outside and it's another to be walking and riding your bike in it. We had relatively nice weather at the beginning of the week. I could go running outside without a jacket but it was pretty humid. Then Wednesday morning it started to rain and it has rained every day since then!!! Wednesday it rained ALL day and we had the brilliant idea to ride our bikes. At least it wasn't cold outside but after about 5 minutes on the bike, it just started to come down and we were soaked. You have to put all of your stuff in your backpack in a ziplock bag so it doesn't get ruined, luckily we had done that in the morning. We were on our bikes all day and even soaking wet it was a successful day :) We saw a few of our past investigators we hadn't seen in a while... didn't get to teach them but at least we made contact :) We met this Haitian lady as we knocked on some doors. She was definitely our miracle for the week. She was so happy when we prayed for her and her family and said she had just moved here and was looking for a church to go to. She has 4 kids and they are great. They even came and prayed with us. One of them is 15 and he reminds me of Serph. He's got the laugh, picks on the younger siblings, loves his clothes. I haven't heard him scream like a girl yet though ;) She didn't end up showing up to church on Sunday, but she said she would be able to come next week, so we will see. Sunday it was nice and warm in the morning and then as we are knocking doors at and apartment complex, there's a crack of thunder and it starts to pour! I swear it dropped 20 degrees because it was freezing after that and we were not prepared. We were on our bikes again so we had to ride all the way back home to get some warm clothes. It was a waste of our precious proselyting time, but that's what you get when you're not prepared. That's kind of like our life in a way. Everything can be sunny and beautiful and out of nowhere a storm can hit. If we're not prepared we lose sight of what's important and have to backtrack to help ourselves.

We started teaching this lady from Venezuela. I love their accents!!! We just hear Mexican accents all of the time and they are not quite as pretty as people from like Venezuela or the Dominican Republic. They just have a sing song inflection to their voice and it is beautiful. I hope to one day learn it, but first I got to work on the learning spanish part ;) I was determined this week to have an all day of Spanish! It didn't quite work out as I had planned because we had district meeting and our district only knows english, but the rest of the day we did :D We were helping the sisters in Russelville which has like a mini Mexico so we got to talk to a lot of people there in spanish.

We went to this one trailor in the trailor park where Jose Luis lives and he had guitars on the wall. He let us play them and it was great! I miss having a guitar to play. It's amazing how music can really touch a persons heart. He wasn't really interested in what we had to say before I asked if we could play the guitars but after, he said he might come to church. Music is a beautiful thing, and we all know that I am certainly not the best guitar player around but it was nice to see it work on him :)

If I have learned anything from Sister Belford it is how to really love the people. She really has taught me that we don't always need to be in a hurry and so what if our plans don't work out as well as we wanted. Numbers aren't as important as the people we are working with. We went over to this members house in Russelville who only speaks spanish and lives by herself and her two little kids. We just talked with her and played basketball with her little kid and folded origami stuff because he loves it. Of course we need to remember our purpose and help others come unto Christ, but that can be done in many different ways. We left her a talk by president Uchtdorf and talked about it a bit, i think its called, "your happily ever after" and we were on our way. I think we fulfilled our purpose that day with that family even though it didn't count as one of our numbers we get to report to president.

I love the people out here in Alabama. Our ward is great and all of the members are so helpful. On Saturday we had to change our plans completely when our zone leaders told us it was mandatory to go to the adult session of our regional stake conference. Luckily the Russelville sisters were already going so we caught a ride with them over to Tupelo Mississippi. There we met with President Memory of the Mission presidency. I hadn't met him before but he talked to us about when peter is standing with Jesus on the sea of galilee I think and they are probably talking about their ministry together and the good times, and Peter is to concerned about the past and how he denied Christ that he isn't really paying attention. Finally Peter says something on the lines of "I said I would always stand by you and I was the one who denied you." Christ tells him, "I don't remember that"... We to often dwell on the things of the past after they have been done with and we have done all we can to fix it and we miss the present and the beauties of what is happening now and the good things in our life. Jesus doesn't remember it so neither should we. That was definitely something to dwell on as we start a new year.  I certainly know I have a lot to improve on but it's not going to help to look back and things I can't change.

I hope all is well with all of you. I hope ya'll know that I love you and I pray for you every day!! :) Sorry this letter is super long, so many things to say, so little time! Sorry if it's all over the place :b 

Love you all!!! Sending all my love from beautiful Alabama!!!

Hermana Decker