Feliz Año Nuevo!!!!... almost

Buenos Dias!!!

It has been a great week here in Alabama :) First things first. Muchas Gracias for the Christmas present!!! I finally got it on Friday and I nearly cried it was so amazing. Thank you so much for all of your wonderful testimonies. I feel so blessed to have so many people who love me out there :) and it gets me excited for the work to help all others to have the same happiness that I have. And it was great to talk to my beautiful family on Tuesday!!!! and to top it all off JOSE LUIS GOT BAPTIZED!!!! It was a great week :) I have seen a tremendous change in Jose Luis" countenance as we have continued to work with him and I have never seen him as happy as he was after his baptism. I am excited for his membership in the church. He is going to be a great member.

Anywho, Christmas was great. I ate a lot! too much! We had a sleep over in the living room on Christms eve and on Christmas and watched our churched approved christmas movies like Mr. Krugers Christmas and Joy to the World. The members here in Huntsville were so nice and welcoming so all and all, it was a good Christmas. It was hard to get back into the groove of working afterwards, especially because it was FREEZING on Wednesday. It was snowing... and we had to go and tract. It's all well though :) We were hardly outside once we got a ride from a member. Oh! and we have been riding our bikes a lot here and I have had 6 flats so far... I'm pretty sure that's a new record for a week. The elders were a great help though in attempting to fix them all... even if they exploded a few of the tubes ;) Needless to say it has been an interesting week. I found out this morning I am going to be staying in Florence this next tranfer with Hermana Belford!!! I am excited to be working there with the amazing ward and my awesome companion. That means I still won't be working with many spanish people but we are searching them out :) I did get the opportunity to go to the spanish branch here in Huntsville. It was a great experience. I loved it, even if I didn't understand everything that was going on... ;)

By the way, to answer mom's question about playing the piano here, I don't really get the opportunity to do it in my Florence ward, but they definitely needed it in the branch and in other wards and branches. They wanted me to play but.. I really am out of practice... and I was sad because I couldn't help. So Serph and Colby! Learn to play the Hymns!!! You definitely get the opportunity to use your musical talents here on a mission. I don't even sing but Siste r Belford and I sang at Jose Luis' baptism... Sister Belford was Idaho Idol so she has a BEAUTIFUL voice. It was a bit intimidating but I loved the opportunity to sing.. even if it isn't that amazing ;)  

I taught a few spanish lessons here in Huntsville :D one lady said I don't have an american accent but more of like a russian accent. I don't know where that came from but hey! at least I dont sound like an american. I taught a lesson all by myself in spanish! Well it was a less active and he did most of the talking. I just shook my head every once and a while and said "Si" when appropriate. But he was greatful that we came over and he said he loves the missioneras :)

Los Amo Mucho!!!! I miss you all and hope all is going well at home. I'm praying for each of you every day :)

Con Amor -Hermana Decker

P.s. Here's a spanish joke for ya'll

Que hace el pez en el mar???

NADA!!!

And I found a great scripture I relly liked. Moroni 9:6 :) It's because I am working on my dilligence.

Hola!

Buenas Tardes!!! So I don't have much to say today since I will be talking to you tomorrow :D But heads up, I got a surprise call from the assistants on Saturday and they put me on an exchange for the rest of the transfer, so until January 3rd so I am now in Huntsville. I was pretty sad about it at first because I don't get to spend Christmas at "home" with the Florence Ward and my sisters in the Apartment... But after a few tears shed in personal study I decided to study Humility and I just kept reminding myself that the mission is not about me. I am happy to do whatever president asks me to do. I am now with Sister Gehrig who is a German Temple square sister and she is great! She is an english speaker though, but we live with spanish sisters so we will be going on little exchanges so I can get spanish experience as well. I get to go to the Spanish branch on Sunday!!! That's pretty exciting. 

Other good news! JOSE LUIS IS GETTING BAPTIZED!!!!!!!! He had his interview and everything and his date is this friday! President gave me permission to drive back to Florence to go to the Baptism so I am super excited I get to be there because at first I wasn't sure if he would let me.

Hmmm... not much else left to say, since i get to talk to you tomorrow!!!! I should be skyping ya'll tomorrow around noonish here so... 10ish there. Can't wait to see ya'll!!! Hopefully that time is okay for yall :) hopefully I remember my password for skype...

Love ya'll mucho!!!!! 

Christmas

We have three homes to go to for Christmas day and we are partying with the Martinez family on Christmas eve. I'm still not positive how the call works but I am hoping I can skype home. I just have to find someone with a computer and camera and we will do it at their house. Then you can meet my amazing companion as well :) Can't wait!!

Sorry!

Sorry forgot. I gave a talk on sunday too! That was quite an adventure. I used my farewell talk... haha. I changed it up a bit though but it was pretty much the same. We have not time to write talks!

Love you mucho!

Pictures!!!

Picture

Mas fotos

Hola Hola

Buenas Tardes!!!

Hello Hello!! Can I just tell ya'll how grateful I am for this time of year! Christmas really does bring out a great spirit in the air. People are more likely to let us into their home this Holiday season and most people, at least down here in the south, love that we talk about the birth of Christ. There are nativity scenes everywhere! It is great!! Can't take the Jesus out of the South... if only they all knew the whole story of Jesus!! But I guess that's why we are here right? :)

I feel like my heart has grown tremendously here on this mission. I have never felt so much love for people I hardly know in my whole life. And I love the people I already love 10 times more. I am so grateful for Jesus Christ and his love. I pray every night that I can learn to love people as much as he does and I know since I am living a better life his love can more effectively touch my heart so I can show it to others. If I can just let others feel how much love I feel from the Lord then that's good enough for me.

Today has been an amazing week even with the tragedy. It is so sad that there are people that wicked in the world. I can't even imagine what those families are going through... It is a horrible thing but I am so grateful mom for the stories of Heroism that you sent me. Made me cry just sitting here reading them. I wish people would pay attention to the good in the world instead of all of the bad. We can take comfort in the fact that God has a plan for us and that death is not the end and judgement will come to the wicked. 

We had the opportunity to go to the Temple this Thursday. I love the temple and learn something new every time I'm there. I had the opportunity to reflect on where I was and who I am becoming. I still have a long way to go but I have seen the effects of the Gospel and the Atonement in my life already.

Tuesday we went tracting and it was FREEZING! My feet where to numb to even walk so Sister Belford told me I was waddling like a penguin. Hopefully I can get boots today so my feet don't fall off. Just a small sacrifice for the Lord I guess :) Keep moving forward. On Wednesday we had District meeting and on the way there I hit a curb and popped the tire... I didn't feel so bad since Sister Albright had popped a tire there a few months ago as well. Some nice man came and helped us put on the spare. Guess he felt bad for a bunch of girls in skirts trying to figure it out.  We've been teaching a lot more spanish people which is great! I love all of them, they are all so loving. Jose Luis, one of our investigators from our one spanish family, finally picked his baptismal date!!!! :D It's the 28th of this month so we hope he pulls through with it. He really is a great guy he just wants to know for sure before he throws himself into anything. Sister Albright left this week. It was actually pretty sad. She is now home in Maryland. We were all sad to see her go but know she is off to more great things :) She is an amazing missionary and I learned a lot from her.

Well that's pretty much it for the week. I'm loving every moment out here even in the hard times. Sometimes your so tired you don't even want to talk, but the Lord provides a way :) Love you all!!! Miss you all!!!! I will see you soon!

Con Amor, Hermana Decker

La Semana Loca

Buenas Tardes!!!!

Wow this week has been a crazy one!! We have pretty much been all over the mission within this past week. We were in Tupelo Mississippi this Tuesday for a Zone Training, and then we were in Birmingham area on Thursday night and Huntsville on Friday and Russelville on Saturday, so we weren't in our own area in good ol' Florence very much at all.

First to answer a few questions and mention things I forgot to mention last week. We still live with the same two girls we lived with last transfer, Sister Albright and Sister Leifson. Sister Leifson came to Alabama the same time I did and Sister Albright is leaving for home this Thursday :( We're all quite sad. She is an AMAZING missionary and we have become good friends so I am sad to see her go. But hopefully we can keep in touch. We also have a visa waiter living with us. She is from Micronesia and is supposed to be heading for Australia as soon as her Visa comes. She is great and is learning English which is fun because we get to help her a lot. The weather here has been amazing up till today. It has been way warm, but today a storm decided to hit. We have been riding our bikes still a lot, which is always good fun. Especially when it decided to rain on Tuesday on our way home. At least it wasn't cold. 

Anywho! My companion and I are doing this thing that one of the 70 gave a talk on, I dont know when. But it's about sanctifying yourself. It's all about if you want to see miracles happening you have to become the best person you can be. Even if that means giving up something that is not necessarily bad, but it's not the best thing to be thinking about or doing on the mission. This really is the Lords time and we have to give our all to it. It's not really a sacrifice otherwise. So I made a list of some things that I need to work on and things I could improve on and I have already seen that I am getting better. It's supposed to be like a 40 day fast of somethings like thinking about worldly music for example and you can see the difference after those 40 days. But by then you probably won't want those things anyways. One of mine was to stop being so sarcastic. I keep telling my companion that mom calls it Scarcasm and so when ever I say something sarcastic, punch me or something. Anyways, just thought I'd share.

I got to learn how to make homemade tortillas this week!! :D Octaviana (our spanish fam here in Florence) taught me how... I am not very good at it, even though there is not really anything to it. It's the putting it on the burner that I always mess up on because they like put there hand on the burner as they are laying it down and I am afraid of it. I love the Mexican food. I wish we taught more Spanish people, just because I love the food so much ;)

We are teaching this awesome Christmas lesson to families in the ward so they have been inviting us over more for dinner, It's great, but I am pretty sure I've put on a few pounds. I'm probably gonna have to buy some new skirts here soon ;) With all this southern food and Mexican food, it's bound to happen.

We ran into a lady this week named Joyce as we were tracting and she let us in right away. When I told her why we were there she just started to pour out all of her life story and how she was having a difficult week this week. Her siblings have recently died this year and she mentioned how hard it was especially this Christmas season. When I told her that we knew that Jesus Christ had sent us here to bless her and bring her peace she broke down crying. When we say that we have been sent there by Christ, they can feel it and they know it. This has happened more than once for us. I love it because when we say that, it reminds me that we really are here on the Lords errand. 

We had our ward Christmas party this Wednesday which was great. Lots and lots of delicious southern food. Gotta love it. Our Spanish Family came which was good. I wish they would just get baptized already! they already act like members.

I mentioned we have been traveling alot. Thursday night we went to Birmingham for Sister Epina (the Micronesian) to teach some people who speak Pompeian. Sister Belford and I were just along for the ride since we live with the Russelville sisters and we needed to be there in Birmingham for the Christmas Luncheon at the Mission home for Friday anyways. The Christmas Luncheon was great too by the way. Sister Holzapfel is the sweetest and an amazing cook. Then we stopped by Huntsville on our way back for Sister Epina to teach more people. Saturday we went to Russelville which is the area that the sisters who live with us are in charge of. But that area is like little Mexico. I have no Idea why they don't have us there. There are TONS of Mexicans there and all these Tiendas at every corner. So I got to speak in a lot of spanish. The President wants us to work in that area too so that the spanish members and inactives don't think that they are forgotten.

Which reminds me... We are getting 3 spanish sisters in February and 8 it march... That is more spanish sisters than there are here right now!!! I didn't know this but actually the few of us that are here are the first spanish sisters in Alabama ever!! The very first one just left a couple weeks ago. So since there are so many spanish sisters are coming, guess who get's to train them... yep that would be every spanish sister here. That means that I will for positively be training by March. It's a bit intimidating because I do not feel ready and my spanish is certainly not ready so I guess I better learn fast. But it is so exciting all of the new sisters who are coming!!! we have tons and tons of 19 year old girls coming here soon. And we only know as far as March. I'm pretty sure I will be training for the rest of my mission.

Well that was pretty much my week. I have been sick the past few days so I have been out of it especially with all the drugs in my system ;) But I just got to keep working. I'd rather be out and about doing the work of the Lord than sitting at home :) 

I love you all!!! Les Quiero Muchisimo!!! Miss ya'll and see you soon :D

Con amor, Hermana Decker

P.S. Sister Albright loves that CD you sent mom of the Piano Guys. She insists that she interpretive dance to it every time it comes on and we listened to it a lot this week since we were in the car so much.

P.S.S. Gracias for the photos!!! Brayden you look like such a stud! I like the hair cut. The sisters here said you already look like a missionary. And Serph, You look so Handsome in your Dance pictures. You always look classy.

And here's a spanish joke for yall

What did one spanish Jaguar say to the other?

Jaguar (hag-war) you :D

Letter to Mama

Hola Mama :)

I just wanted to thank you and pops for all that you have taught me. You raised me to stand strong in what I believe and I would not be here without you. Any bumps in the road were my own fault and they had nothing to do with you or dad. I know that I gave you both a little heart ache in the past and I am sorry for that. I hope to never do that again and I don't plan on it ;) 

If I could ask for anything this Christmas it wouldn't be any of the things I usually ask for. I don't need anything from Santa, but I would love to see your sisters come back to the Church. I see people every day who have fallen away and I can't help but to think that they are somebody's aunt as well, and a missionary somewhere is praying that some other missionaries or some other ward members will reach out to them. I hope that Jenny comes to see the blessings the Gospel has for her. The only thing I can think to help her at this point is to keep loving her. 

Really though, I don't have anything to ask for :) just lots of pictures and ya'lls prayers will make me happy this Christmas. Love you mucho mucho!!!!

Love, Masey

Que Pasa Calebaza

Buenas Tardes!!!

What an eventful week it has been here in Florence Alabama. The days just shoot by here it's crazy! I can't believe It's already Monday again. Well working with Hermana Belford has been great. I love how each companion can teach you something new and how to be a better missionary. Hermana Belford and I are always enjoying each and every moment. I think it's good to have a bit of laughter while we are walking from door to door and we definitely do that. I love finding the joy in each and every moment and I'm learning to have a good attitude about everything. It makes the work that much better.

I haven't been writing in my journal this week so it's hard to remember what happened this week but I will try my best to remember the important things. We have been doing a lot more of knocking doors this week, which may not be the most effective form of missionary work, but at least 1 out of every 10 doors let's us in. The blessing the homes thing really does work however. It certainly brings the spirit into the home and the people can feel it. The trick is to get in the door. I didn't like knocking doors before, but it has become a lot easier and more meaningful when I go into it with Faith that what I say is important and that it can change the life of that person who has their own trials and tribulations. Were not just going around trying to get people into our church. Were bringing the good news. That Jesus Christ lives! That the same church he organized on the earth is on the earth once again and he has once again reached out to his children to help them return to him. Its the plan of Happiness, and who doesn't want happiness in this life!? I just wish people would see that when they see two girls standing on their front door, but all they see are the mormon missionaries coming to baptize them. 

We got to have a family night with our Mexicano family on Tuesday. It was so much fun. We did a Jeopardy game for the third lesson and I brought some Texas sheet cake and Octaviana (the mom) made us some Mexican food which I can't remember what it's called. It was delicious and they made me eat about 6 servings. My companion thinks it's funny to tell them that I want more... and you can't say no to the spanish people. So I'm pretty sure I'm going to come back 5 sizes bigger. The daughter, Dulce, has really started to open up to us. She's 18 and really shy. But I feel we are getting to a better place and becoming friends. The son Jose Luis had his baptismal interview on Saturday!!! :D .... but he's not ready. The Elder who interviewed him said that he's more ready then some of the people he interviews, but Jose Luis wants to know for sure and have a strong testimony of the Libro de Mormon and of the profetas and he doesn't right now. The thing is, I think he does he just doesn't think he does. But I'm sure his baptism will come soon enough :)

Spanish this week has been better. We got to go to our neighboring area on Wednesday of Russelville to teach the Hispanos there and they were so nice. We plan on going there more because the president told us that our job in this area is to visit the spanish members and inactives to make sure they don't feel like we've forgotten them. We also went to a bunch of the Spanish inactives in our ward yesterday. They all pretty much compose of the Limon family and we finally met the mom of these 11 children yesterday. She is such an old sweet lady. I am in love with the Hispanic food that they feed us!!! And they never fail to feed us. If they know were coming over, they will have food. I'm probably a little to much in love with it, so it's a good thing we have been riding our bikes everywhere... Well Hermana Belford's tire popped the other day so we had to walk all the rest of the way on Saturday. That was quite the adventure. We also got to go to Birmingham this week with the Zone leaders. They pick two sisters every council and they picked Sister Leifson and I since were new so we could get a feel for their meetings and give some input... I just want to say that I am so glad there is not any sister zone leaders because that is too much to handle! OH!!! We know that there are two 19 year old sisters heading here in February :D yay!!! The scary thing is that that means I may be trianing earlier than I want to... hopefully not.

I am loving being here in Alabama. I can't think of anywhere else I would rather be at this moment in my life. The Christmas season is great because the hearts of the people are so much more open to the message of Christ and I love it!! 

Les Extrano y Les Amo!!!! 

Con Amor, Hermana Decker :)

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