"7 days without prayer makes one weak"

Buenas!!!!!!!!!!

So, I just got through reading Brayden's email and pretty much counted my blessings that I am here in Alabama. I can't imagine having to do missionary work the way you are bud. No cell phone? We practically do missionary work from our cell phones. Not gonna lie, it took me a minute to realize that China was actually a part of Mexico. I thought you had legit been sent to China. Mini freak out, but it's all good :)

So this week has been interesting. Can I just say that I absolutely love this branch. Words cannot even express how much I love it. I am going to cry my eyes out when I get transferred. We got to spend some of this week with the members. We had FHE with a single mom and her kids. She must have really enjoyed it because she invited us back for tonight... but we cant go :( We are helping the zone leaders with on of their investigators. Then we had a little get together after church on Sunday at Presidents house. It was great :)

President has been calling us trying to figure out what to do with all of the missionaries since we are getting about 30 plus more this coming week for transfers and he doesn't know the missionaries as well as he would like to. He called and asked me who could be sister training leader since apparently some of us are going to be released this transfer. He basically told me over the phone that as of now, he thinks he is going to send me to a new area to open it for Spanish sisters, and I will be training. He said he wants to put someone there he can trust... I'm not quite sure how I feel about that yet. I love being sister training leader, but it does come with a lot of responsibility. For instance, I have to drive someone down to Birmingham on Wednesday because she is being sent home... no fun at all. But on the other hand, I love the sisters and I learn so much from each and every one of them. I'm not going to get worked up about it though, because I have been changed to new things very last minute so I know how it goes. We shall see what happens next week :) Then he had us go through and rate all of the spanish sisters on their ability to speak spanish, so this transfer should be an intense one. So sad though. I really don't want to leave this branch.

We had zone conference this week! It was so nice to just get to sit there and not have to train on anything and just be edified by president. He is pretty amazing. Our assistants are as well. We are so blessed on this mission :) There was so much information loaded in that my brain felt like it was going to explode. He is really cracking the whip on us finding people. We have some great ideas this week, which I am super excited to do. We are going to have a free lemonade stand and just talk to people when they come up and we are doing a chalk drawing of the plan of salvation sometime this week too. It shall be fun. I will take pictures! 

We are having some issues with our investigators. None of them are coming to church and our numbers seem to just be going down hill. It's crazy because the other sisters in Huntsville are kicking missionary work in the butt. They had 3 investigators at church yesterday and have tons of new investigators. We just told them they could take our job :) They both are newer in this area and haven't been out too long, so maybe that's the trick. Maybe it will be good if I get transferred to get some new missionary blood in me. Some of these sisters make me feel so inadequate. They are amazing and they could do the job so much better than I can. 

Sounds like life is good at home! I bet things are exciting with school starting and everything. I can't believe summer is already over! Thank you for all of the prayers, letters, love, and support. It is appreciated. Love you all MUCHO!!!!

Love, Hermana Masey Decker

If you don't have the bread of life, Your toast!!!

Hola!

Did you know that there is only 128 days left till Christmas... Yep I'm counting. :) So I decided the subjects of my emails will now be some of the fun church signs we see down here :) I've started to collect them. Some of them are pretty clever! Life has been great here in good ol' Huntsville! I am just extremely grateful to have the opportunity to work here in the Spanish Branch. It really is a blessing considering there are only 3 spanish branches in all of Alabama and I, out of hundreds of missionaries, get to serve here :) Que bendicion! The branch is so great. I have never seen a set of stronger members than in the Spanish branches. They have a lot going against them and yet they still stick it out because they know the truth. LOVE THEM! I am hoping and praying that I don't get transferred from this area! The members are just to great :)

Well... Let's see what happened this week. We went on three exchanges. It's our last three exchange week for the transfer. Woot! I love the sisters, but moving around that much just wears you out! And I'm already exhausted as it is! :) We went to Athens, Madison, and Guntersville this week. All are beautiful places! Guntersville is probably my favorite though since it's right next to the lake. All the sister are AMAZING! I swear, I don't know why they have me as Sister Training Leader, these sisters could kick me out of the baptismal font ;) Of course there is the occasional correction that needs to be given. Which by the way... I stink at. But! I am getting better! I loved Brayden's article he sent last week on Leadership. That definitely helped me a lot. I guess I just have this notion in my head that if I correct the sisters, I'll be the bad guy. Which may be true for some of them. Some of them pretty much beg me to tell them what they can do better. Those are always the easier ones to work with :) Most of the time we hardly ever need to correct anyone, but I usually make Hermana Hazelgren do it when they do come up. I'm a pansy :) Oh well, Christ makes weak things stronger.

We met an amazing investigator this week. Her name is Juanita and we met her outside her apartment last week and we stopped by last monday to talk to her a bit. She is pretty intelligent which is always a relief. She recognizes the spirit so easily it is amazing. In our first couple of minutes together she recognized us as representatives of Christ and really opened up. We came by with a member later that week, Hermana Lopez (presidents wife) and turns out that they have a mutual friend! And their daughters know eachother. Small world. It's amazing how the Lord is really micromanaging every aspect of his work :) Anyways, we had a great lesson, she accepted a baptismal date AND... she didn't come to church and we can't get a hold of her... Sad day. We are not quite sure what happened, but we are determined to keep stopping by until she opens the door.

OH! Ariel got baptized last week! The lady we found at Steak and Shake. I didn't get to go because I was on exchanges, but Hermana Hazelgren got to go. They said when she got in the font, she started going down into the water before anything was said. Haha. She is amazing. I am so grateful I have been able to see this miracle take place and her life change. I expect great things from this one :)

We had a less than great week this week... For some reason we just had a hard week teaching people. Our numbers were pathetic. It was good though because I have been praying for more dilligence and this week has made me take a step back and really discern where we can improve. Sometimes it takes us being kicked to the bottom to realize we got some work to do :) But this week will be better! It's a bit discouraging though... it makes you feel like a failure as a missionary. I have a lot of work to do that's for sure. You can't let yourself get discouraged though, or your performance gets worse. So I'm trying to look towards the positive. It's hard trying to be the example sometimes. I guess that's where Christ comes in though. We can't do any of this without him anyways.

Happy anniversary mom and dad! I hope you do something fun and get away from the kids for a while. (And going to Costco is not a date!!) Do something nice :) Tell all of the kids I love them. Give 'em big hugs and kisses from me :) Sure do miss them. And good work on the missionary work! I'm so proud :') Keep up the good work! I'll be praying for you!

Thanks everyone for the Love and support and prayers!!! Love you all mucho!

Love, Hermana Masey

1 year down!

Aloha! :)

It has been another busy week this week! You just can't get away from it out here ;) But it is great, it has really taught me the importance of hard work. I never realized that I wasted so much time when I was home until I got out here and we are always on the go. We went on 3 exchanges this week. Even though Hermana Hazelgren and I have been together for almost 3 transfers now, it probably only adds up to about 2 considering how many exchanges we go on. This week we have 3 exchanges again. We are trying to get all of the sisters in before the end of the transfer and there are a couple we want to go on a couple of exchanges with so we are always on the road :)

Our first exchange this week was in an which is here in Huntsville so we didn't have to travel too far. These sisters are so great and so loving, but they need a lot of direction even though one of the sisters has been out as long as I have. The sister I was with pretty much handed me the GPS and said "all of our investigators and less actives are on this, what should we do?". So we went and did :) As we were riding our bikes back from one of the less actives we were visiting, I had a strong impression that we needed to stop and knock some of these doors... and I tell all of the sisters I love tracting... but I'm not particularly fond of it ;) so after fighting it for a little bit, the words of President Monson came into my mind, "NEVER ignore a prompting". So we stopped, locked our bikes, and we walked down the street. Funny thing is, we passed every door we could have been knocking and ended up finding a women outside washing her dog. I know the Lord guided us to that woman. We prayed with her and she broke down crying. Her life is basically in ruins right now. So many bad things are happening in her life and she has just been praying for a sign from God to let her know that it will all work out. And then we showed up :) We left her with a Book of Mormon, testified of how it would change her life, and she said she would definitely read it. Like I said last week. The Lord is preparing people. He knows who is suffering and sometimes we are the instruments in his hands to help heal these people.

Our other exchanges were great as well. Our miracle woman we found last week, Ariel, continues to amaze. The English sisters said in the first lesson with her, one of the first things she asked was, "So I've been praying about it and I think I want to be baptized... What do I need to do?" :D They taught the first and second lesson in the first visit and she has a baptismal date for this Saturday. Did I mention that she bought a quad?? Yes, a quad. And she has been reading "True to the Faith" and wants to do family history so she can do baptisms for the dead. She's Amazing, simply amazing!! 

So the Spanish work is moving forward slowly, but at least the English work is bolting ahead! :) We are just trying so hard to figure out what we can do to help out here. Our branch is great! We actually had a baptism of an 8 year old whose mom has a very inspiring story for her baptism 3 years ago. She pretty much put us in charge of the baptism so we made programs and everything. It went great! He looked so good in his little white suit :) I absolutely love this branch. They are all such strong members and most of them have close to nothing. Yet they are faithfully at church every Sunday when they could be working. I LOVE the children as well. We always have so much fun with them. I wish we could just teach children all day, but I guess I'll save that for after the mission. I have noticed there is great power in the children though. One of the best ways to someones heart is by loving their children.

The work continues. The adversary keeps working and so we continue to work :) I wish these latinos would keep some commitments though ;)

Love you all!!! Miss you tons!

Love, Hermana Masey Decker

Fotos!

My watch finally gave out on me :( I was a bit upset. 1 whole year though! pretty impressive

We thought this was pretty funny. You have to say it in a spanish accent though. FUD!!!

Juanitas baptism!!!

Just a couple of sunsets in the trailor park we were in... Y'all know how I love the sky here ;)

Busy Busy Busy

Hola everybody!! :)

Greetings from good ol' Alabama! Have I ever mentioned how beautiful Alabama skies are? Really though, Alabama and Idaho definitely have my favorite skies. Thank you mucho for the package familia :D It was a surprise and definitely appreciated. You should have just seen my face light up when I saw all of those CD's. (Which by the way, I didn't get the Disney one). Hermana Hazelgren is seriously so excited for that CD she's shaking. She LOVES Disney. And the candy was great too! Although I am definitely not going to eat it all. It's good for sharing with the Hermanas :)

Well this week has been yet another fantastic week. Despite the fact that almost every single one of our investigators have been antied or have dropped us, we are still happy! :) We went to Steak and Shake for Sister Hazelgren's Birthday. Good old greasy food :) And as we were checking out I started talking to the lady at the cash register. Turns out she had a friend who was a member of the church and recently was going to buy a Book of Mormon but she figured she could get it somewhere for free. And then we just happened to be there eating out at her restaurant! So we gave her a Book of Mormon and left her with a mormon.org card and left her with our number and took hers then told her where the church was. A few hours later we got a text from her saying she has really been studying the mormon religion!!! We invited her to church (the english ward of course) and guess who was at church this Sunday. Ariel!! (that's her name p.s.) We went early just to make sure she got there and was taken care of and then we let the English sisters take care of her. They said that as she was leaving she said, "I'll be back next week!" and they have an appointment with her on Wednesday. Miracles are out there, opportunities to find everywhere, and God does answer prayers :) We are just instruments in the grand hands of our Lord.

Other than that, our week has been super busy. We had Mission Leadership Council in Birmingham on Wednesday, so we were there most of the day. (by the way, my trainee Sister Child is a Sister Training Leader :') It was so good to see her) President Hanks has dubbed this month of August "Finding Month". Good stuff. I think it will really help the mission focus on finding those who are prepared and finding investigators in general. President really hit on just being yourself. We don't need to try to be anyone but our best self. If you like basketball, talk about basketball! But you can always link it back into the gospel. We call it "spiritual pivoting". It works great! Then we had Zone trainings on Friday. We didn't have much time to plan for them, but that's basically what we did most of Thursday. Both of them went great in both Madison and Huntsville zone. We had some great skits in the Huntsville zone training :) It was a lot of fun... and edifying and spiritual as well!

We also had two exchanges this week. One in Cullman Alabama and the other in Fayetteville Tennessee! The sisters in both those areas are AMAZING. These new sisters never cease to amaze me. I just love all of them! Fayetteville is so amazingly beautiful. It's a lot more country than our big city of Huntsville, but I just loved it there. We rode our bikes down those streets and I was just soaking it all up. Part of their area is Hazel Green (not my companions name) and that is just equally as beautiful.

We went to a members house this week. She is a southern lady who is learning spanish and can understand almost all of it. She asked to be put in the Spanish branch and so she is in it now :) She played her autoharp for us and it was SO beautiful. I could have just sat there for hours. As I was sitting there listening to her play I felt the spirit so strongly. Music is really one of the best ways to touch someones heart and soul. It made me realize how much I love music, so I am definitely coming back and working on my musical abilities :) I've been praciticing my hymns on the piano whenever I get a chance and they are coming along, but I have a lot to improve.

Sorry, that was a lot of information, but that was my week in a nutshell! It was busy busy busy, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I have learned, and continue to learn, that happiness is a choice ance since I've noticed that, I have never been happier. I have felt the spirit so much stronger these past few weeks and I am starting to recognize it a lot easier. I am so grateful for this mission and I cannot imagine being anywhere else right now. It is so true though, as soon as you figure out what you're really doing out here, they are about to send you home! On Wednesday I will officially be out for a year! Loco!

Love you all so much! Thank you for all of the love and prayers! Miss you!

Love, Hermana Masey Decker