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