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 :)

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