Hey

I got an email from Serph. It was so great to hear from him. His email made me cry (but don't tell him that ;) ) His testimony was so strengthened from EFY. He said his favorite part was the preach my gospel activity they did where they had to teach and investigator. He said it made him want to go on a mission right now :) got to love it!

Oh guess what! I got a package from Cassi! She said she met Brayden at the airport when we was heading out :) He didn't tell me that. She gave him a big hug apparently and then remembered he was a missionary. haha. And guess what! Shes pregnant! She's due for february so I might be home before she has it. Sure hope so.

Love you LOTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you for everything :D

Love, Tu Hija

Loving, living, and enjoying life :)

Hola Hola!!!

This week has been great! :) Transfers were this week and that means a lot of changes in areas and people. It really has made more of a sense of urgency in our zones which is fantastic! They still haven't called Sister Training Leaders in the Madison zone so we are now over 11 companionships of sisters. That is A LOT of sisters to try to help, but with lots of prayer and the Lord, all is possible :) Most of the sisters are brand new or have only been out a few months and are now training so they are all a bit frazzled at the moment. That's where we come in and I just hope and pray we can help them all. They really are all so amazing, they don't need any of our help. All of the new missionaries have been prepared for this time because they are excellent missionaries. They train me more than I feel I train them! The new spanish sisters have amazing spanish as well. Suffice it to say, we will probably be traveling all over north east Alabama this transfer, not spending too much time in our own area, going on exchanges. Woot!...

We had a baptism this last Saturday!!! Juanita Palomino. She is a daughter of a Less active, and has some kind of learning disability. She is great, and I am so glad I got to take part in this blessing from the Lord. Miracles happen all of the time. This baptism was pretty much dropped in our laps. We had a lesson with her this week with a member from the branch, Hermana Lopez (the branch presidents wife) and she is one of the most powerful woman I have ever met! Juanita's sister, Dionicia, was not to happy with the fact that her sister was getting baptized (long story), but Hermana Lopez bore the most heart felt testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel and the blessing it has been in her life. I was just so aww struck I didn't know what to say, thank goodness we had Hermana Lopez there. She is an inspiration to me on living my life worthy ALWAYS so my testimony can be that strong someday. She was definitely an answer to my prayers :) It's funny how the Lord answers our prayers that way.

Besides the baptism, which was WONDERFUL, our week was a little rough. Almost all of our investigators have not been answering the door and we are sure a couple of them have been antied :( it makes me sad that there are people out there who would spread lies like they do. I don't know why people hate us so much when all we spread is love and hope. The hard part is that our investigators will almost never just tell us straight to our face that they don't want to meet with us anymore. They just want to hide in their apartments and act like they aren't home. It is a happy day when someone just tells me straight out they aren't interested. Then I don't have to waste the lords time trying to get in contact with them. Satan works hard when things are going good (like a baptism). I've definitely seen that this week. But! I am not letting it get me down :) We just have to attack with a different tactic I guess.

I got on family search and found my Decker line. Turns out Elder Decker (in my district and branch) and I have the same great great great Grandpa. Zachary Bruyn Decker :) That makes us like 5th or 6th cousins right! He was actually named after Zachary. Cool stuff huh? It's a small world, mormon world is.

I've been studying a lot about "healing" this week. I know I've talked about this before with the church being like a hospital, but I have just found so many things in the scriptures that kind of helped me take off with it. Christ, being the ultimate physician, healed not only the physical wounds, but the spiritual wounds too. And that is why we need the Church. We need the healing that we can't get anywhere else. It's the same reason we go to the hospital when we get sick or injured. We know we need a doctors help and Christ is our spiritual doctor. I was reading about the gadianton robbers this morning and I was amazed how quickly they spread eventhough they started off so small. It's like a virus. If we don't stop a virus right away it will spread until we are "ripening for destruction". That's the same with sin. If we let one small sin pass and we don't stop it before it grows and "infests" our spirit, we will be ripening for distruction. We are sinners, which means we are all sick. We need the ultimate doctor to heal us. The great thing is, he will never fail us. We CAN and WILL be healed if we turn to him.

Anyways, just a little spiritual though there :) It sounds like the family has had tons of fun this summer! I'm so glad. Lots of good memories :) If you all could, please just pray that we find those people who are ready. Our brothers and sisters who are searching for us. Those who are "bleeding out" and need the healing only the savior can bring.

Love you all mucho!!! I am grateful for your prayers and support. I can feel it every day! Miss you all! I am praying for you as well.

Love, Hermana Masey Decker.

ALOHA!!

Querida familia y amigos!

So very jealous that you get to be in San Diego right now! But not jealous enough to leave ;) I'll take the Lords work over some sandy ol' beach any day! Although it would be nice... We may have to make a trip when I get back. Can you say Disney Land anyone ;) Just kidding!... but really. Also, thank you mucho for all of the pictures!!! I miss all of the kiddos :( They are getting so big! They are just too cute for their own good. Everyone's emails this week definitely raised my spirits.

So... Sweet home Alabama. We got transfers call this week. Guess who is not being transferred... This girl! That means yet another transfer in good ol' Huntsville. And I get to stay with my lovely companion Hermana Hazelgren. That makes us Celestial Companions since this will be our third transfer together. I've never been this long with somebody ever! But it's great, we get along amazingly! That sometimes causes a problem though because we tend to have too much fun when we should be being serious ;) Lifes to short to be too serious though. We should be the examples however, as we will still be Sister Training Leaders. I'm trying to work on my maturity a bit ;) It's hard to find a good balance of seriousness and fun. Sometimes I wonder what the Lord is thinking ;)

This week was a pretty great week. We went on two exchanges (like usual) and the sister are all pretty much brand new, but I love that I learn so much from each of them! There are so many new ones and they just keep coming! Once one of the Sisters goes home on Wednesday, I will officially be the 2nd oldest Spanish missionary... no pressure. And the one who is the oldest, doesn't know much Spanish. Actually, besides the sisters who came out with me (all 4 of us) there is only one older sister. It's weird being the oldest when I feel like I just got here and I swear these sisters coming out know so much more than I do! 

We have a baptism this week with Juanita! We are really excited for it and I hope it give a little more excitement to the Branch for missionary work. We also set two other dates this week. One with Julia, a 23 year old with 2 kids. She has been going through some rough times since her "esposo" just left her and she has no job and no family here. She is really quiet and timid, but the zone leaders made some food and we had dinner with her this week! I could tell she was so grateful. The Zone Leaders are so amazing, I am so grateful we have the opportunity to work with them. Even though they don't speak spanish they are so willing to help. The second girl is Sandra. She is 20 and has two kids and is married. Por fin! They are never married. She still needs to come to church, but we are trying all we can to get her to come :) Julia's date is 8/3 and Sandra's is 8/10. Fingers crossed... and lots of prayer and faith too :)

I gave a talk yesterday in sacrament meeting. 10 minutes of pure Spanish in front of a room full of native speakers and a couple missionaries. The great thing is, that I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be. Me, and the two elders, were assigned to talk on missionary work and I focused my talk on Miracles and Faith. I shared the story in Luke 5 about Simon Peter drawing up the net with so much fish it filled up more than just his boat after he listened to the council of Jesus. Then Christ says, "I will make you fishers of men". This story has so many applications to missionary work I will just let you read it and let you interpret it ;) It's so good!

Mom! I do know Elder LeBaron! He is only one of the greatest Elders out here! I have had the opportunity to work with him a couple of times. He was in my zone when I was in Florence and he is in the zone I cover in Madison as a district leader. He is an amazing missionary. He always has a smile on his face :)

The work is moving forward and I am so excited to be a part of it. The mission has definitely put me through the refiners fire and continues to. I try not to focus on all of my weaknesses but there are so many! That is why I am so grateful for the Atonement. I have realized that I cannot do this work without the Lord. It would be impossible and meaningless, but with him "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me" :)

Love y'all! Les Amo! Miss ya'll! Les extrano!

Love, Hermana Masey Decker

fotos!

Sunset

Birthday card from sister hazelgren

and more birthday stuff :)

Amor!!!

Hola hola!!!

It has been another glorious weeks here in Huntsville Alabama. Pretty much every day is like a roller coaster with so many things going on! We have had some pretty epic storms here, no tornadoes (thank goodness!!) but some of the most amazing lightning storms I have ever seen. It's amazing how something that scares so many people can be so beautiful at the same time. I guess it's all in how you look at it, which greatly applies to our missionary service as well.

A couple of things from this week. We had zone training this Tuesday... Elder Munns (our zone leader) was in the hospital for surgery on his elbow, so that left Hermana Hazelgren and I along with Elder Emmanuel in charge. It didn't go as great as we had hoped. I felt like we chastised the zone more than we showed our love for them. I had to make up for it and gush about them at the end before we ended. Our other Zone training in the Madison zone went significantly better. I likened our missionary work to a hospital (since we had been in there for a few days visiting with Elder Munns) and how we are the doctors and nurses. We would expect the best from those doctors or nurses for our own injuries as well as our suffering loved ones so we should be those kinds of missionaries to the people here in Alabama. There are some people who are "bleeding out" and we need to find those people and end their suffering before we try to help those with a little scratch. 

Proselyting work wise, this week was a bit rough. We had a day where pretty much nobody was home, which is always the hard days. It always makes me stop to think "Are we missing something?". We stopped to pray many times to help us get direction, but it was just one of those days I guess. We found out about some depressing news about our miracle family I've mentioned previously. We had the other sisters go and visit them while we were on exchanges, trying to keep daily contact, and the mother told them that we have to stop coming by. Turns out that the "esposo" (which 99% of the time is not their husband but Boy friend) doesn't like us coming over and beats her and her daughters frequently over it... It is a very sad situation and there really is nothing we can do about it but pray for them. She told the sisters that she is trying to get away and that she loves what we have been teaching and loves church and hopes to be able to return some day, but not for now. It's definitely an eye opener to how awful the world really can be sometimes. I really hope that at least those kids find the gospel soon. They loved church last week and Sophia (the 10 year old) asked straight out what she could do to be baptized.

On a lighter note, we went to see one of our investigators on Saturday, who will hopefully be getting baptized this Saturday!, and a 15 year old black kid walked up to us and asked if we had any pamphlets or anything. We ended up talking for a while and he has had a pretty rough life. He used to live up in Chicago area and has been in some rough crowds, been shot at a couple times, been stabbed in the knee, and is not trying to fix his life up. We called up the Elders who are over his area (in english) and talked to him right there and he agreed to go to church the next day. He went and it turns out he loved it!!!... Well not the first two hours :) But he says he wants to join our church!!... but not get baptized because he has been baptized, but we can work with that! :)

Muchisimas Gracias for the Birthday package!!! It was amazing and so perfectly timed. And the flowers just brighten up our apartment :D I have got to lay off the candy though! Next month I will have 6 months left (don't want to think about that) but we have deemed it (or all the sisters have deemed it) 6 months to skinny!!! But that wont start till next month so I guess I can finish of the sweets you sent ;) It was a great day. We went to the Taco bus for dinner "El Cazador" and I got a DELICIOUS burrito. The Zone Leaders bought me some presents (more candy) and Hermana Hazelgren made me an AWESOME card and bought me Diet Dr Pepper. haha. The other spanish sisters made me cookies. Then we had interviews with president Hanks and he shared some wise council. He is really a great guy. Really funny and easy to get a long with. Here is a couple of scriptures he has shared with us:

(3 Nephi 5:13) "Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life."

And our "unofficial mission logo" (because we're not allowed to have one) (2 Nephi 31:20): "…Press forward with a Steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men."

Thank you so much for all of the love, prayers and support. Sounds like it has been pretty rough up there Brayden! Keep up the good work!! (p.s. love how you said "comparted our testimonies" haha, you have definitely been speaking lots of Spanish!)

Blessings and Love,

Hermana Masey Decker

Buenos Dias :)

Hola Hola :D

Well all is well in good ol' Huntsville Alabama. It pretty much rained every day this week. Thank goodness for the blessing of a car and extra miles! And when I say every day... I mean EVERY day. It did make it a little cooler which was nice. 

We had the opportunity to meet our new mission president this week! He is pretty amazing. President Hanks used to be a big guy over the marriot hotel service so his business skills are pretty much one of the best. And he brings in such energy and wisdom into the mission! I am excited to get to work with him. We had a "meet the president" activity on Tuesday where he talked to us, and he's a pretty funny guy. He's definitely not President Holzapfel, but he knows that and it's definitely not a bad thing. We miss President Holzapfel, but we're excited for President Hanks :D Than we had Mission Leadership Council on Friday and got to meet with him and his wife again. His wife is so cute and so worried about doing a great job :) We know they are going to do great things.

Sorry for last weeks letter. I was discouraged last week, but I figured out why I was having such a tough time. My experience with discouragement and having a bad attitude has really helped me to help some of the sisters. I think I went through it just for that. It goes with the whole having empathy more than sympathy thing. A lot of our zone is just really discouraged lately and so we have been working on helping them increase their faith and patience :) The Lord always has a reason for the things that we go through, whether they be difficult or not.

And there are so many reasons to be happy!! Just look around us! There are so many blessings the Lord has given us! I had the opportunity to go to a baptism on Saturday of a 9 year old girl that some of the missionaries found and taught. A NINE year old girl! It is definitely true that the youth will lead them :) And her testimony is so strong! She will now be able to live her life with the gospel and the holy ghost  to lead and guide her in the struggles that she is sure to face. What a blessing! What a miracle :) 

We have one baptismal date for next Saturday of a daughter in the branch! Her name is Juanita. I think I wrote about her last week. Then we were tracting the other day in a trailor park that we just found and we stopped to talk to this cute family that was walking home and we talked a bit about walking and how we do a lot of it and as soon as I get "Somos representantes de Jesucristo..." out of my mouth, the mother says, come on with us to our house :) The whole family of 5 (Jaime, Martina, Cathy 12, Sofia 10, and Christofer 8) came to church on Sunday!!! Needless to say the branch was pretty excited. We have a Noche de Hogar (FHE) tonight at the branch presidents house with them :D We have high hopes for them.

Happy late Independence day P.S. We had fireworks going off left and right here on Thursday night. We went to a members house and had some Argentinan food for dinner. Not exactly Burgers and Hot Dogs, but it was delicious!!! And greatly appreciated.

Tomorrow we have zone training and our beloved zone leader, Elder Munns had to go into surgery on Thursday for cellulitis in his elbow. We have spent a couple of the last few days in the hospital with him and Elder Emmanuel to plan our zone training. Elder Emmanuel, bless his sweet little heart, is from Africa and has difficulty still speaking some English, so that leaves Sister Hazelgren and I to do most of the training since Elder Munns will still be in the hospital.... Just praying to the heavens above that the Lord will give me something to say to this zone that will get them excited for the work. And what is there not to be excited about?! Doctrine and Covenants 88:73 says that "I will hasten my work in its time"... It's time! The work is being hastened and I am so excited and blessed to be a part of it :)

Miss you all! Love you all!!! Tengan una bonita semana con mucho amor y bendiciones!

Love, Hermana Masey Decker

Picturas!

1. Sister Training Leaders and President and Sister Holzapfel

2. On an exchange at Po Boys! Ate me some 'gator!

3. My wonderful companion saving me from a wasp that managed it's way into our apartment

4. I made actual food that wasn't cereal and was more than one color! :)

5. My wonderful companion

I love mi Familia! :)

Buenas Tardes :)

Thank you so much for all of the pictures mom :) They definitely brought some light to this week. The kids are getting so dang big! It's crazy! It's good to see that everyone is in good working order :) And Brayden, you look so tan in your pictures! I guess that happens when you are walking outside in the Mexico heat though. 

Not going to lie, this week has been pretty rough. I'm not quite sure what it is but I have just felt weighed down this week. And what makes it more frustrating is the fact that I know it's all based on my attitude but I'm not doing anything to change it or don't quite know how to. Our investigators are just falling through our fingers and I can't think of how to help them. We have no baptismal dates set and when we think we find someone they just come right out and say that they aren't interested in becoming Mormon. Which is bitter sweet, because I would rather someone come right out and tell me they aren't interested than having us come back time after time without keeping commitments. But sometimes I just want to shake them and say "Why aren't you getting this?!" "Can't you feel it?!" :) That darn agency is just frustrating sometimes.

I love being a sister training leader! I love working with the sisters and I love their examples to me and the love that I feel for them. They all have great testimonies and I love being able to help them become better. I love my companion! She is the best and almost always has a fun loving attitude. We have some good times. We play "pt cruiser bruiser" and "slug bug" in the car all of the time and I'm pretty sure I'm forming a bruise from all of the times she has hit me :) Exchanges are a blessing. It is a fresh of breath air when I can go on an exchange with a sister who has been out here a long time. I like not being in charge all of the time and have to be the one with the good attitude about everything...(which I should have all the time anyway), but! being the one getting everyone excited for everything, get's a bit tiring sometimes. I did an experiment this week and pretty much, if I don't initiate things in our companionship, they won't get done. Even just little things like getting out of the car. I feel like I'm not living up to everybody's expectations including my own. I just want to be the best missionary I can be and help save people. It's frustrating to have so many weaknesses!

None the less! I am complaining and only thinking about myself! And I'm sure none of you want to hear that ;) I have been praying and praying that I can just forget myself and get to work! Which has been helping. I don't know what I would do without my beloved brother Jesus :) We do have the greatest old white man that we found and are helping to teach. We call him Grandpa Bob (Bob is really his name) and he is the coolest old man you will ever meet (besides my real Grandpa of course ;) ) We had a lesson with the Elders in the English ward he is in and he pretty much said he'll be baptized as soon as he gets to church! He has been asking and asking what he needs to do to be baptized. He just has to give up his smoking, coffee and tea and he's pretty much ready to go! :) And he's working on that. So, big hopes for crazy Bob.

As for our Branch, I think we may start to see baptisms soon. We fasted and prayed yesterday to help us know how many baptisms we should set as our goal for this transfer and came up with three. That very day (yesterday) one of the members came with her daughter and President Lopez said we should get her in the water :) She has some kind of Autism or something and is about 30 years old, but he says he thinks her mind is at least at the age of accountability so we are going to work with her. 

We have a new mission president! I was so so SO sad to have President and Sister Holzapfel leave. I love them so much and they definitely have made a big impact on not only our mission, but my life as well. I may have shed a few tears ;) But we are SO excited to have president Hanks here! We get to meet him on Wednesday!

Just keeping the faith, thinking of y'all, and loving Heavenly Father and Jesus and this amazing work! I miss each and everyone of you and my prayers are always with you! Los Queremos!

Love, Hermana Masey Decker