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