Exosure to the "son" prevents burning

Sweet home.... Mississippi?

Well we aren't in Alabama anymore. I would be lying if I said that I don't miss Alabama. It's not like it's super different here, but I think I just miss Huntsville more than anything. The people are a bit more friendly in Mississippi. That's what we heard anyways. I guess it could be true but I just moved from a big city to a little town so, usually people are more friendly in the smaller towns :) It's pretty here. It actually reminds me of some of the small towns I've been on exchanges in like Athens and Cullman, so it's not really anything new. The ward is great! We just got a new ward mission leader (woot! We actually have one now) and he seems pretty on top of things. He just retired from the army so he's pretty hard core. I'm excited to work with him. The Bishop is about as southern as you can get :) I love it. Our area is HUGE. Luckily they called Elders to work in part of it, Savannah Tennessee, So we have six missionaries covering our whole area. Not too bad.

There are actually quite a bit spanish people here. I was pretty excited about that. The problem is finding them. They are all hidden within all of the Black and White people. Another problem is that most of them are already part of a church. No bueno. We only have 2 people in the ward that speak spanish as well... So there goes our whole ward retention for our investigators. One of the ones who speaks Spanish (another retired army guy) straight up told us he would be happy to help but he doesn't do illegals. He will deport them if he finds them... Problem is almost all of our investigators are illegal! Bah! It makes me sad :( I understand that yes they should be legal, but if I have learned anything from this mission is to have compassion on them. They have some of the toughtest lives I have ever heard and they are going through all of this to make their lives better for their families. Of course there are those who are over hear partying it up and looking for hand outs, but the majority of the ones I have met are hard working, family oriented people... I'll step off my soap box now. My point is, we don't have much ward support in the spanish area. That's where the spirit kicks in :) I know most of the ward are great people, so if they can just love our spanish investigators, I hope they can feel it.

So we have spent the past few days walking around, trying to figure out the area :) It's been fun. We have met some really great people. The best part is that almost none of the spanish people have talked to missionaries before because we are the first spanish missionaries in the area. It's a cute little town Corinth is. We have quickly learned that it's "Cawrinth" that's how you say it ;) We are living with he english sisters which is fun. One of them was one of the sisters I was Sister Training Leader for, so we are already pretty tight. Sister Wells and the other is Sister Saville. Hermana Barroso is my companion and I am telling you. The Lord just keeps giving me prepared trainees. I have basically nothing to teach her. The same thing happened with Hermana Child. They are just amazing. All these new sisters are training me! The only thing she struggles with, and I have no idea why, is having confidence in her spanish ability. She speaks better than I did when I was out 6 months. She went to the Mexico MTC. She is a little aprehensive about teaching too, but those little things can be easily overcome. She's amazing. OH! and we share one bathroom and a car. Fun huh?!

So that's about our week in a nutshell. I might have shed a few tears when I left Hermana Hazelgren, but I will get to see her in a couple weeks because we have a general authority coming, Elder Kopishke, and we are meeting in Huntsville. Woot! Sister Leifson got transferred out of Sister Training Leader as well and is serving in Tuscaloosa in the YSA branch. They just opened up that for missionaries. I'm a bit jealous ;) It was nice to see all my friends at transfers. When we see eachother, it's like we haven't even been apart. It's kind of weird to have all this time to one specific area now. I'm so used to planning around exchanges, I feel like we can actually accomplish things in our own area! I'm pretty excited.

Cool story. So we were tracting yesterday since one of our appointmens fell through and I saw a "dish 500" (spanish tv) which usually means a spanish person lives there, but I have learned that's not always true. Anyways, I was like, "let's just go knock it." So we did and turns out it is spanish people from Guatemala, and not only that, THEY'RE MEMBERS! They used to live in Utah and were baptized there and loved the branch there. Long story short, they moved to north carolina, the branch president there wouldn't help them financially because they're illegal (which I still don't understand why that matters) and so they decided to stop going and then they moved here. Its a mom and her children. The boy whose now like in his twenties just got married. This mission has really just testified to me that the Lord really is just Micromanaging every detail of our lives. We thought we were lost before we found that house, but the Lord knew exactly where we were :) So I'm excited for them. If we can just get some solid spanish families to help us start the spanish group, we will be ok. Prayer and fasting really helps!

Love you all!!! I miss you tons and tons! Give all the kiddies a good smooch on the cheek and hug for me. Especially Colby and Serph ;) Que dios les bendiga!

Con Amor, Hermana Masey Decker