Transfers!

Buenas Tardes!!!!

Well Alabama is certainly wearing off on me. I think I've pretty much got the "Yes ma'am" and "Yes sir" down. Some members in the ward from out west were making fun of me because I kept saying "Ya'll" but hey I said ya'll before Alabama so... I ended up just changing to saying "ustedes" because they both speak spanish. Pretty much everyday up to Thanksgiving has been warm. Then all of a sudden it gets freezing cold and now it's back to somewhat warm again. The weather here is just about as bipolar as everywhere else I've lived. Alabama and Auburn game was this week. Pretty much a pretty big game down here. If Alabama is playing, your lucky to get anybody to let you into there house. But hey if they win, then everyone is very friendly ;)

So this week has been pretty much amazing. One of our investigators dropped us. That's fine though because she was a little bit scary. She didn't like the fact that our religion talks so much about love and happiness... alright girlfriend were outta here. Our ward mission leader, Brother Egee, and one of the bishopric met with us this tuesday to discuss the fact that not enough of the members are helping us and feeding us. I just thought this was how it was here so I had no complains. They said the ward members need the blessings so they should start to have us over more. Yay for free food! We never have time to make anything real special for meals so it's nice when we get some good home cooking. Still nothing has beat moms home cookin' :D 

Wednesday was transfers. That means I had to say goodbye to my trainer Sister Intriago as she heads back to Temple square. She goes home in about three months back to Ecuador. She was sad to leave but she was also excited to head back to work the Christmas time in Temple Square. We thought for sure my new companion was going to be Hermana Sherwin who came on exchanges here a couple weeks ago, but we were happily surprised to see that it would be Hermana Belford. She is great! I have already learned so much from her and she is pretty much Hilarious. She's a Poly from Idaho Falls, but not one of the Lazy ones ;) I have really enjoyed working with her so far and I am really looking forward to this transfer. She's been out for 15 months and has been working in this one area before here for 10 months! She was sad to go but the Lord knows best I guess. The place she worked before was Birmingham so she has been pretty much in the city for most of her mission and we live out in the country up here. She was in a spanish branch before as well so her spanish is great... We just hardly speak spanish here so she might not get much more practice. The President did tell us however that we should be working with all of the spanish members and inactives in our area and in the Russelville area to make sure they know they have not been forgotten. I think the Lord put us here in Florence to set the foundation for a branch some day. I sure do hope so. And to work with our ONE spanish family. We love them so much! They are so great!! and they love to help me with my spanish, even if it consists of laughing at me every once and a while for how horrible I sound ;) Jose Luis just had his interview with the Presidente and he gave the go ahead so now it's just getting this Hermano to pick a date. Which he will not do! Mexicans just love to take there time with everything.

My brain is probably about to explode because I have so much information to retain. Since Sister Intriago left I'm pretty much in charge of knowing who we need to see and where we need to go. All of this without a car.... There is know way I would be able to be in charge of all this without the help of the Lord. Since Sister Belford has been here we have been tracting hard core! It's been great! but super tiring. For the past few days most of what we have done is knock on doors and bless houses. We have pretty much gone a little to much over our miles limit on our car so we have been biking EVERYWHERE. And our area is not small or flat by any means. For Thanksgiving we biked 5 miles to our first dinner on the most hilly road I've ever seen. I pretty much wanted to die. Sister Belford has been biking since her last area so she has calves of steel and I'm like dying trying to make it up the next hill. But hey, we got to work off all those extra calories on our way back. We first ate at Sister Rhodes. An older lady in our ward who lives our by her self. She is so sweet. We call her mama Rhodes. Then we got to go eat at the Bishops house and they only make healthy food so everything was very filling and still delicious... besides the healthy pie. When I want pie, I want it to be nice and sugary.

The other day we knocked on this one door and said our usual, "The Lord has sent us here to leave his blessing and peace on you and your house." He gave us a look and said, I'll be right back and closed the door. I turned to sister belford and said, "You think he is coming back." Luckily he did like 3 minutes later and came out to talk to us. Long story short, he is in a very dark part of his life. He's about late 20's early 30's and he just started balling when we started talking to him. He said things have gotten so rough, he has almost considered taking his own life. He knew though that we had been sent there to help him and he repeated that over and over again while we talked to him. It's amazing what just telling someone that God hasn't forgotten them and he loves them, can do for a person. The gospel blesses lives :)

So anywho, this week has been an eventful week. From teaching a man with a lumberjack shirt and a hole in his head, to people waiting in there car outside there apartment till we are not in view anymore, doors slammed in our faces, a house filled with at least 50 cats, a black kid who kept saying "That's straight" after everything we said, the Egee's feeding us almost every day, a man who refused to put his shirt on, every primary kid inviting us over to Christmas day, knocking on a door of a Jehova's witness, and pretty much doing none of that in spanish. 

The Field is white and ready to Harvest :D I'm loving every minute of being out here and I only hope that I can continue to learn and grow in every way possible. It has already gone by so fast, I don't want to waste a minute of it. I hope all is well at home and I am so grateful for all of your prayers! God Bless! See you soon! Les Amo Mucho!!!

Love, Hermana Decker

P.S. Muchas Gracias for the package with my backpack, CD's, New sweater, and of course the Pumpkin Bread :)

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

Buenos Dias!

Hola!!

Como Estan? Spreading the gospel here each and every day! It's great! We have practically no more miles on our car for the month because... well I don't know, our area is too big I guess, so we have been riding our bikes a lot. I absolutely love it, but my companion on the other hand, is not to happy about it. At one point this week I was in front of her and we were going up this hill, before I knew it I was at the next stop light and my companion was no where in sight... woops. She's a little bit slower on the bicycle, but she did show up about 3 minutes later. The rule is as long as were in sight of each other on bikes, there is no need for being in sound of each other. So whenever she get's mad at me for going to fast, I just say, "Well you could see me right?" I better have some ripped calves by the time I get home since I run every morning and bike everywhere now.

This week has been an interesting week. That's one thing I've got to say, the mission is hardly ever dull. We taught a lady this week the Restoration and while talking with some of the members later about it, we discovered that the lady is a member... you would think she would tell us something like that. She has been going to another church though, so I guess it was a good reminder. She was spanish (Woot a spanish speaker!) and she told my companion that I was very strong for trying to learn Spanish. It's funny how they never direct those comments to me. They think I won't understand I guess. While riding our bikes Sister Intriago told me to go talk to this scary black girl walking down the street. I rode by and said hi to which she just gave me a blank stare and so I'm thinking, okay nice talking to you. But Sister Intriago is a great missionary and keeps talking to her. We ended up getting an appointment with her at McDonalds and we have taught her 2 lessons so far. She's a little bit scary. She's not a Devil worshiper but she thinks God has some different motive besides love and has no desire to find the "happiness" of our message, she just wants the truth. She keeps reading the Book of Mormon so we keep teaching her, but we may end up dropping her tonight if she has some crazy questions again. Our spanish speaking family is finally pulling through with something. The son Jose Luis has his baptism interview with the Mission President this Friday! Yay! Due to different circumstances we can't make a set date with him yet, but hopefully it will be soon. We had District meeting on Wednesday this week. Our District is great, I love them all. Our district leader, Elder Jensen made us a Cheesecake for afterwards and it was somewhat... gross, but we ate it anyway and told him it was delicious ;) I found out that one of the rules is that the Sisters aren't allowed to cook or bake anything for the Elders. I guess it just goes with that saying, the quickest way to a mans heart is through his stomach, so they don't want the Elders falling in love with us ;) 

I'm getting better at just speaking spanish even if I know it isn't correct. I teach more of the lessons now, but sometimes they just stare at me and then look at my companion for translation on what I am trying to say :) Oh well, It's helping me learn right. Sometimes I know I say things terribly wrong because they just laugh at me, but it's no big deal. Oh! We help teach the English class right? Every wednesday, and this Wednesday one of the regular guys who shows up didn't. Later during the night we receive a text and tells us that he is in love with my companion and cannot come because he knows it is wrong (especially since he's married). What! It was actually kind of funny at first, but we had to be serious with him. We just explained why we are here and that he needs to work things out with his wife. He can come next week because my companion is leaving me :( Yup, I am receiving a new trainer this Wednesday as Sister Intriago heads back to temple square. I get to stay in Florence and my new trainer will be coming here, so it's a little bit intimidating because I have to know the area and who to go see and what not, but I am sure I can figure it out... 

Last Friday we received a referral from Salt Lake. Some Sisters from Temple square have been talking to this guy Will who is a student, first semester, here at Florence. We made an appointment with him on Saturday and he is so ready to accept the Gospel! He is great! He is just a big nerdy kid from Tuscaloosa Alabama and got interested in the Church when he came to School. After we taught him the first lesson he said, "I don't know about ya'll but the whole time you were teaching that lesson, I just wanted to cry." He felt the spirit so strong, and he accepted the baptismal date for December 15th and I am pretty sure this one will actually pull through. He came to Stake Conference all the way in Tupelo Mississippi for crying out loud! He's ready. I'm excited for him.

Thanksgiving should be interesting. I am not looking forward to tract that day, but we do have one dinner set up for 1 o'clock. Hopefully more members invite us over so we don't have to interrupt other peoples dinners. But hey, were bringing people salvation right? ;) 

The missionaries here are amazing. I got to go with Sister Albright one day this week to help with her area and we get along great. She's a little bit like me in that sometimes we are a bit to sarcastic for our own good and Sister Intriago has a hard time understanding that I am just kidding when I say things to Sister Albright, or anyone for that matter. So I am definitely learning to be a bit more careful about what I say to people. The ward here is Amazing as well. We have some great families, I just love them all. Words cannot describe how much I have learned already being here nor how much love you can have for someone you hardly even know until you experience it yourself.

So much to tell you all! I just wish I could take you all with me so ya'll could see the miracles and craziness that goes on her in Florence Alabama. 

Les Quiero Mucho! And Happy Thanksgiving!

Love, Hermana Decker

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

My Thanksgiving gratitude

I am planning to send some pictures next week. Wanted to send them today, but didn't have an area where I could put in my card in the computer I chose. Love you So much!!! Thanks for Everything. Give everyone a big hug for me!

Oh and could you add for what I'm grateful for. Family, Jesus, Mom's cooking :), The Gospel

A week of changes

Hola!!!

How is everyone doing this lovely day! Well I don't know how it is

there, but it is raining cats and dogs here. I lost my planner this

week so I don't have a record of everything we did this week, but, I

will try my best to remember.

We had zone conference this tuesday in Tupelo Mississippi (I think i

wrote Tennessee last time). It was pretty amazing. President Holzapfel

is so powerful its crazy. So crazy news here in the Alabama Birmingham

mission. Our numbers next year of missionaries in the field has

doubled! and not just doubled, we will have 112 Elders, 22 seniors,

and 138 sister missionaries... yes 138 sister missionaries!!! It is

definitely a revolutionary time to be a missionary. That means those

of us who just got here may have to train two sisters just to keep up

with the influx of sisters. Crazy huh!! Mission conferences are gonna

be crazy! We were reminded that if we think there is not enough work

to do here in Alabama, then we are wrong because the Lord is sending

twice as many as now.

President also talked about the "mormon moment". This was before the

election but he said that we should take advantage of the people who

are in the news like Romney, and Jamari Parker, and people like that

and talk about them with people. D&C 88:73 says "I will hasten my work

in its time" and we certainly believe now is the time and so we need

to raise our sights!! Our goal for this month in our zone is 24

baptisms. That's about 1 per missionary for our zone, so we definitely

need to pick it up. He also said that even if Romney doesn't win, the

Mormon moment is not over.

So our amazing miracle lady, may turn out to be not so much of a

miracle... We are just so confused. She was supposed to come to a

relief society activity and said she was sick and then she didn't come

to church. We went to see her at her house and brought her cookies but

her sister in law answered and said they were sleeping and had been in

Mississippi all weekend. Then she promptly shut the door before we

were done with the conversation. Something is just fishy about the

whole thing. Hopefully we can figure something out.

So we are not supposed to talk about politics but, I will say that we

are certainly praying for our country and our president harder than

ever now ;) On election day nobody told us who won so we went to bed

without knowing, thinking the mission President would send us a text.

But in the morning there was nothing. So sister Leifson and I ran to

Mcdonalds just down the street to look at the newspaper and that's

when we found out. It was definitely a shock.

We had Exchanges this week. That was certainly an adventure. I went to

Albertsville Guntersville area with Hermana Oman. She is super sweet

and great and is leaving at our next transfer meeting which is

November 21, so she has been here a long time. We were supposed to

teach in spanish but we didn't teach any in spanish. We didn't do many

teaching at all in fact. We stayed in houses way to long and were

mostly with members. Thus, I have resolved to never get lazy and

finish my mission strong.

The spanish is pretty frustrating. It's even more frustrating that we

hardly teach anyone in spanish at all. But yesterday we had a lot of

refferrals for spanish people... I still have a lot to learn. I feel

like I havent progressed very much since I got here, but I have

resolved to just continue forward in faith knowing the lord sent me

here to this area for a reason and there is no reason I should not be

progressing in spanish as long as I am doing what I am supposed to.

I am certainly learning humility out here. Plus everything else that I

am lacking in my life :) This week has been rough but I am trying to

not let it discourage me. Hard things make you stronger right. That's

why it's so important to get out here on the mission. I know I would

not be the person I want to become without this experience.

I love yall and I hope that everything is well.

Love Hermana Decker!

Miracles!

Buenos Dias Familia y Amigos!!

Let me start off with a quote that President Holzapfel got in his mission president seminar in Florida:

Elder Holland, "Surely there is no more powerful missionary message we can send to the world than the example of a loving and happy Latter-day Saint life. The manner and bearing, the smile and kindness of a faithful member of the Church brings a warmth and an outreach which no missionary tract or videotape can convert. People do not join the Church because of what they know—but what they feel and what they see and want spiritually."

Bah! I am so excited to her the news of Brayden's mission call!!! That is so exciting!!! Mexico Monterrey East!! Yay Spanish! He'll probably know spanish before I can speak it well. That's kind of scary too! I know the Lord will watch over him though.

The days just keep racing past here in sweet home Alabama. I am starting to get the hang of all of this missionary stuff. I'm getting better at talking to everybody and anybody. I am not as timid to knock on a door or hesitant to go up to a house. I am reminded of what President Monson has said, "Whom the Lord calls, he qualifies." I try to remember that as we go about each day. We had Zone training on Friday in Tupelo Tennessee which was an absolutely beautiful drive. There we learned this amazing door approach which only 7 missions are using but each one of them have seen a significant increase in their baptisms and return appointments. It's not necessarily new approach, we find examples of it in Alma 10:11 and D&C 75:18-19, but it is a newly applied approach. What happens is we go knock on the door and tell the people our names and tell them we are representatives of Jesus Christ and he has sent us her to your family to leave a blessing on your home and your family. We then ask if we can go inside and leave the blessing with them, kneel, and as Elders, they actually get to bless the home and family, us as sisters ask for a blessing on their home and family. We then get up ask how they felt and leave with a commitment and return appointment for another day. That way we leave them when the spirit is the strongest. We of course ask them for referrals as we do with everyone and then leave... It's a pretty bold approach, but people have seen that we have been getting about 60% of return appointments on those doors knocked and that is a significant increase. Me and my companion have only done it once so far,but the spirit was so strong as we knelt down and my companion asked for a blessing on the house and family. I know the man felt it too, and even though he said he was not interested in our message, he thanked us for the blessing that we left and I really hope it touched his heart so some day, he will be ready to listen. I like the boldness of the approach and the spirit it brings.

We have been working with a lot of the inactives to try and get them to come back to church. They are usually more stubborn than the investigators are. A lot of them make a lot of promises and then don't keep them. If you aren't gonna come to church than just tell us!! Instead of lie and say you will. But it's still great to see them all. One of the guys we are working with is a druggy who keeps lying to the bishop so he can get money from the church. The bishop knows that he is lying but we are trying so hard to help their family because his two daughters do come to church almost every week. Really, the gospel blesses families, the mission has only solidified that for me because I see the difference each and every day.

People feed us way to much down here! I am going to be ginormous by the time I get back. And we have to eat everything they give us, which stinks because the thing about southern food is, It's either amazingly delicious... or disgusting. But we smile and eat it all anyways. On Halloween one of the members had us come over for some potato soup. Reminded me of home since we always have soup on Halloween. It was delicious. We also found a Muslim boy on Halloween during the day. He kindly listened to our beliefs and we told him ours and we got a return appointment so we'll see where that goes. The thing with Muslims though, is if they want to be baptized they need to have an interview with the mission president because if they go home to their own country after being baptized Christian... They could be killed.

One of our investigators is so great. She is such a sweet woman and always makes me laugh when we go over there. She still has her problems with the Word of Wisdom. We thought of dropping her because she is not keeping commitments but the spirit just keeps telling us to stick with her. We know Satan is working really hard on her. Hopefully we can get some leeway with her. Our spanish family we are teaching... the one spanish family we are teaching... Is seriously amazing. The mom, Octaviana, is so ready for baptism she just can't be baptized till her boyfriend gets divorced to his wife in Mexico and then they get married. She has such a strong testimony though and she told us yesterday she is willing to do whatever it takes to get baptized... we'll see what that means later. Her son is great too. He is 22 and knows he needs to get baptized but is waiting till he knows for a surety that the BOM is true. He doesn't feel like he has recieved an answer yet. He has some issues from his past he needs to clear up as well, but we are hoping his baptism will be sometime this month.

So the other day we were leaving the Library and I smiled at a woman as we walk past her and she says, "Are you LDS!" When I responded yes she gave me a big hug and proceeded to tell us that she went to Salt Lake 3 years ago and to temple square. The sisters there gave her a tour and she said she was balling and just knew everything was true and said about the Temple, "one day I'm going to enter in those doors." Ever since then she has been reading the Book of Mormon and gets online to listen to Doctrines and Covenants, and pretty much has been studying the gospel for 3 years. She has just been afraid to go to church by herself and so when she saw us she said she would come to church if we were there, and she did! Her husband was not supportive before and so he scared previous missionaries away, but now he says she can do what she needs to do. Hopefully we can soften his heart too. Oh Miracles! The Gospel is so true!!

We also get the creepy men who try and hit on us. One tried to as we were at the library the other day. At first we thought he might be interested in the church... we soon realized that was not the case. Sister Albright made it very clear that we could not date and were doing this for 18 months so if he's not interested in Jesus, he needs to leave. He waited till we left the library outside to talk to us again, but I told him we had an appointment and had to leave. It was funny at first but then it got a little creepy after that.

My trainer Hermana Intriago had to go take an English Exam in Birmingham for entrance into BYU. (By the way, she is leaving me half way through my training to go back to temple square :( so I get a new trainer at the end of this month). Anywho, we went down to Birmingham and went on Exchanges friday night. I was with Hermana Belford and most all but a couple of our investigators were in spanish. I hope someday I get transferred there. They have a lot of Missionaries in that area and a good amount of them are Spanish. Hermana Belford's companion came her expecting to do english and the MIssion President handed her a spanish name plaque and said, your teaching spanish. crazy! WE did a lot of bike riding there too, which was super amazingly hard. Who knew Alabama was so hilly!

Don't have much time but yesterday I got attacked by a dog. It didn't bite me but took a few snaps at me and bashed his mouth into my leg before the owner came out to stop it. This was not a tiny dog and I was trying to be the hero because my companion is deathly afraid of dogs... learned my lesson.

Well gotta go, but I love you all and miss yall so so much!! But I am so happy to be here in Alabama as well! This is a great work and it just keeps getting greater! 

Love, Hermana Decker