Transfers!

Hola Hola!!!!

So guess who's getting transfered again? Yep, that would be me. Sad
day! I just love this cute little town of Corinth :( You think that
eventually you would get used to being moved around so much, but you
really don't. Anyways, it stinks but at the same time I am excited for
the change and for the opportunity to serve more of Gods children
somewhere else! Guess who doesn't have to train though? :) Woot! No,
I'm just kidding. I love training a lot. I was kind of surprised
actually that I'm not training considering the length of time I have
left... (We wont go into that). Not saying like, I SHOULD be training,
that's just usually how they send people out. Yo no se. I'm excited to
find out Wednesday though. I will miss my dear dear companion Sister
Barroso. We decided we are getting seperated because we like each
other too much. If we pretended we hated each other we would be for
sure staying together!

This week has been somewhat uneventful besides transfer calls. Nobody
came to church this Sunday :( Rey said he would have come but for some
reason he was in Alabama. Jesus... well, I'm not quite sure what to
say about him. He's being weird. He won't meet with us because he says
it's too cold outside (which is mostly true) and he won't meet us in
his apartment with a member because he says he doesn't want to bother
his roommates. He won't meet us at a local establishment either
because we will talk about church... well duh! I think he's a little
embarrased. I still love his little mexican guts, but we aren't going
to move forward if he won't meet with us! He's still the funny old
Jesus when we talk with him, so I'm just uber confused.

Shay on the other hand is doing fantastic! I love her to pieces! She
is so amazing and I just love teaching her because she just gets it!
Sister Barroso testified to her yesterday in the name of Jesus Christ,
and Shay was like, "That felt good." We asked her what she thought
that was and she was like, "The spirit." She is progressing towards
baptism, we are just working with her on the Word of Wisdom. Patience
is essential when it comes to that. She really needs prayers.

We also have another baptismal date for the 14th of December. Her name
is Vexti and we met her a couple of weeks ago but just haven't been
able to catch her at home. One night we had about 20 minutes left so
we decided to try her again and she was there! We taught the first
lesson and she accepted it really well! She asked some really good
questions and she seems really open. I hope all goes well with her in
the future.

I mentioned last week that we found out one of our investigators,
Juanita, is a member from way back when. She is so loving! Her family
is basically living like a mormon family they just go to the Catholic
church. We found out this week that she loves the Book of Mormon
though. She used to read it when she was little and she said it made
all of her problems go away :) So we've decided to really focus on
that with her family so that they can build that strong testimony of
the Libro de Mormon and then we can help them get to church.

Other things from this week: We helped the Huntings clean out what
they call "The Dooms day room". Taught our good ol' old folks :) I
love old people. Freezed. Apparently one of our days here was colder
than Idaho. Oh! I also recieved my "Do not get trunky" letter. It's
not really called that we just call it that because that is basically
what it says. Every missionary gets one before the beginning of their
last two transfers.

Life is good! I'm excited for Thanksgiving eventhough I have no idea
what I will be doing. (Here's to hoping I get transferred to another
spanish branch!) I am so grateful for this work. Words cannot even
describe how grateful I am for this mission and for the people that I
have met and for their examples and love. I am grateful for this
gospel! For the hope and joy it brings. I am eternally grateful for
the atonement of Jesus Christ. I wouldn't be where I am with out it.
And of course I am grateful for my wonderful and beautiful family!

Mucho amor!!!

Love, Hermana Decker

If ugly was a religion, you'd be shoutin right now

Hola Hola!!!

The subject of this email is courtesy of Sister Rogers :) She is an
older black lady in our ward and always says the most hysterical
things. She is so great. All of these members and their sacrifices and
devotion is so inspiring to me. Hopefully one day I can be just as
faithful and wise and crazy as some of these members are. I have so
much floating around in my brain in what I want to tell y'all I don't
even know where to start!

Well we had many many meetings this week. We were down in Tupelo
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Friday for zone conference and Saturday
and Sunday for Stake conference meetings. To say that we have been
spiritually fed would be an understatement. There are so many great
things happening in the Lord's vineyard! And can I just say I will
probably never complain about long car trips again. With being Sister
Training leader and traveling all over Alabama, and now being on the
outskirts of the mission and having to go to a gazillion meetings, I
would say I have had my fair share of car trips. Anywho, There were so
many great things we learned these past few days with trainings on
baptism, the holy ghost, strengthening the ward, the atonement, and
tenacity (president loves him some tenacity.) President and Sister
Hanks are amazing and we are so blessed to have them in our mission.

Due to the fact that we had stake conference this Sunday all the way
down in Tupelo, we didn't have any investigators at church this
Sunday. This is the first week since I've been here that we haven't
had anyone at church. We truly have been blessed! And it has nothing
to do with us, but always the Lord. We do however have one of our
investigators getting baptized! Shay has officially committed to a
date! We saw her this week and she was all, "I'm ready." She just gets
it and I love it. She's going around telling everyone that she is
getting baptized :) She still needs to come to church one more time
and she will be out of week this coming saturday due to Thanksgiving,
but we set a date for the 7th of December and she is ready to prepare
for that.

Rey and Jesus.... I don't even know what to say about them. I just
love them and I am always so happy when we get to talk to them but
they will not commit! They're a bit frustrating to say the least! We
saw Rey last night and I seriously wanted to cry. I just wish that all
these people could understand what a blessing all of this could be in
their lives! It just makes so much sense and not only does it have
sense, it's all about hope! Hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a
better you. But, president shared a quote this week that I thought
applied well, "A man convinced against his will, is of the same
opinion still." Just read the book. The Book of Mormon. It changes
lives. Nuff said. Agency is frustrating. But I love it! OH! and one of
our members who took us down to Tupelo on Saturday, Sister Cartwright,
said something that I really liked. "God wants us to choose him."
Doesn't that just sum up why we have agency?? I thought it did :)

Our meeting on Saturday night was all about "Hastening the work of
Salvation" and it was the adult session. One of the speakers talked
about having our homes be the way we do missionary work by being an
example and teaching the children early on to be missionaries. I
realized that Mom and Dad, y'all did a pretty darn good job at that. I
didn't realize that we had been doing all of these things on a regular
basis and what a blessing it was until I got here and realized that
not every family does it! FHE, scripture study every night, daily
family prayers, etc... I love y'all. And I'm so grateful.

Other goodness that happened this week and things I learned. One of
the spanish people were teaching is a member! She was baptized when
she was 9. She's so cute, she said she would always tell her parents
they needed to go after they stopped going, but to no avail. Just a
testimony builder to me that the Lord is aware of his Children! I love
all of these beautiful missionaries, they help build my testimony. If
you are ever put in jail, fake crazy because apparently the regular
cells are cold, but if you're crazy they will give you a straight
jacket and put you in a warm room ;) Being a missionary is awesome!

Came across a scripture this week and sent it to president,

Alma 2:30 And it came to pass that Alma, being a man of God, being
exercised with much faith, cried, saying: O Lord, have mercy and spare
my life, that I may be an instrument in thy hands to save and preserve
this people.

That being said, it would be great if my “missionary life” could be
spared, “that I may be an instrument in [the Lords] hands to save and
preserve” these wonderful southerners ;) extension??... No I'm just
playing! I wouldn't do that to you mom! Plus, I'm quite positive they
don't let anyone extend anymore.

Mom and dad, the floors look amazing! I miss y'all and love y'all!
Thank you for the prayers, keep sending them! Grams and Gramps, I hope
you are enjoying Russia!!! Brayden, I have a letter for you but it
got sent back because I didn't put enough stamps on it... I'll send it
again! And tell Eli, I miss his non-filtered voice ;)

Love, Hermana Decker

"She don't got the sense God gives a stupid goose!"

Hola Hola!!!!

The longer I am out here on the mission, the more and more I have come
to understand the infinite love that God has for each of us and each
of his children. And let me tell ya, it has been extremely humbling as
well. I didn't realize how prideful and self centered I was until I
had to take a step back and really rely on the Lord. (I'm sure y'all
are thinking, well yea Masey, we all knew it ;) ) And it's not even a
"Wow, I'm better than everyone" kind of pride, but a "Why am I NOT as
good as others." kind of pride. But the longer I'm out here, I've come
to realize that I really do need to rely on the Lord, and so does each
of us. I was reading a talk by Elder Soares from this last conference,
"Be Meek and Lowly in Heart," and he talks about taking up our cross
each daily. We take it one day at a time. We pray for our "daily
bread" to make it through the day and if we didn't to so hot one day,
we tell ourselves we will do better tomorrow. That's what the gospel
is all about, and that's what missionary work is all about. For
instance, our numbers were not quite up to par this week ;) But we
fulfilled our purpose. We take a look at our numbers and say, "Well,
how can we do better next week." I just LOVE this Gospel and the
Atonement! That's what we are trying to get all of our investigators
to figure out! There is so much hope to all of this!

Well, Jesus didn't come to church this week... We aren't quite sure
what's up. We saw him Saturday night and he said he was coming, but he
didn't. We called him yesterday and all seemed well. We are going to
see him tonight so hopefully we can figure out what's going on. Rey
didn't come either. He didn't have an excuse, he was just being lazy.
He knows it too :) We went to see him and taught him some good stories
about faith and he prayed with us!!!!!!!! Like, for reals this time.
No just reading what we wrote. After much persuasion and tears (nah
just kidding) he finally prayed. He's all embarrased about it, but
he'll get over it. And he's all like, "Well this decision is going to
change my whole life" and we were like, "Well duh!". So he's starting
to get it.

You know what's the worst! When your investigator gets arrested. Yep.
It happened. Shay, our beloved lovely Shay was driving under the
influence. Which by the way, we had just taught her the Word of
Wisdom! She was a bit intoxicated. But! She took the word of wisdom
like a champ! Especially considering she has to give up pretty much
everything on that list besides illegal substances. She was all
gung-ho about it and we made some awesome plans. She was like,
"Alright, cofee and tea first!" She's amazing. We know it's mega hard
to give up all of those things so we are being patient. She is trying
really hard. And hey, we have been praying super hard that she will be
able to do it! and she decided to take the 2 weeks in jail because she
doesn't want to pay the fee... which means none of that for 2 weeks. I
don't know if it's an answer to our prayers, but I do know the Lord
works in mysterious ways :D BTW, why do we not have more soul in our
church?! I am all over that! Shay's girls sang us a song, "Take me to
the King," and Hermana Barroso and I are all for getting some more
Black music in the church ;)

We did have one investigator at church on Sunday. Denise with the 3
crazy little boys!! I didn't have to translate this week, which was
nice because I actually got to sit in on a sacrament meeting, but I
got to entertain 3 little lovely children :) She seemed to like it,
but they couldn't stay for all of the 3 hours because the boys
wouldn't go to class and she didn't want to bring them to sunday
school. Poco a poco!

We did a lot of service this week. We raked the leaves of a less
active, made cookies, and had the opportunity to help down in Tupelo
for "The Week of the Family." Can I just say that Hermana Barroso is a
boss at service. I feel like she was sent to the mission now to help
move the mission in more of a service oriented direction. She always
wants to help somebody. The less active we have been serving has
finally opened up and wants us to come teach her. Before, she was
closed off to any of that. We also met some great people while we were
down in Tupelo. It was a lot of fun! What a great opportunity to show
people that we are normal people and love our family and love to
serve. We got to wear normal clothes too! We worked at the bean toss
the whole time and it was a lot of fun. I just wanted to take all
those cute little kids with me! Apparently the Tupelo missionaries are
teaching a lot of families from it.

Our ward mission leader moved :( It's definitely a bummer because he
was amazing. Better than any I have had thus far. I just wanted to
share a little bit of something he shared with us missionaries at our
correlation meeting on Sunday. He talked about statistics from the
church that said that missionaries have to knock 1000 doors to get 1
baptism. But, when a member invites someone over to their home to take
the first discussion someone will be baptized 1 out of 7 times. That
is a drastic difference if you ask me. It all goes along with the
whole obedience thing. Naaman had to bathe himself 7 times to be
cleansed. Not 6, not 8, but 7. The prophet has recieved revelation for
this day, and his call for all of us is to work together in this work
of salvation as members and missionaries. When we are obedient, we
will see miracles.

Oh and if y'all get the chance. Check out the mormon message "Fork in
the Road" by Elder Holland. I feel like he explains the spirit a lot
more adequately than I can ;)

Les Quiero muchisimo!!! I miss y'all too! Brayden, you're a boss! Keep
up the good work! Mom and Dad, get some sleep!!! Grandma and Grandpa,
I'm so excited for y'all! The new little baby cousin is adorable! I
want to hold him! Congrats Matt Woll family!

Love, Hermana Decker

Happiness!!

HOLA!!!!

Life is splendid in good ol' Mississippi! I love being a missionary :)
There are really so many great people down here. This week has been
fantastic! I am grateful for the little things that just make me smile
every day. Here's about the run down of the week: volleyball and
frisbee, lots of biking, awkward district meetings, wonderful
investigators, cat poop on my companion :) , horses, lost name tags, a
kiss from a little 3 year old (not aloud by the way!), trailers!,
mexican restaurants, dancing latinos, and cheesecake. I love that we
can just laugh and smile about everything.

We went to Tupelo on Monday for our zone activity. We got to wax our
cars, eat pizza, and play. That was nice to just relax with everyone
for a while. Soreness followed, but that's all good. Not to mention,
missionaries waxing cars is more like a government job where about 4
people do it and everyone else watches :) But hey, we're not getting
payed. On Tuesday we had the opportunity to go help a member's
non-member friend on her ranch! Now I am officially southern. We
mostly just helped with the horses which I wasn't to excited about
since horses scare me ;) But! by the end, I warmed up to them! Messy
job it is! They lady is fantastic, she should already be a member, her
husband just doesn't like the whole mormon "cult" idea. Afterwards we
went to the members house in Iuka to get all cleaned up so we could go
visit some members out there and I forgot my shoes... I only had to
wear my tennis shoes for a little bit before we found some that could
actually fit me. Curse my giant feet! It's all good though, I just
looked like a pentacostal for a few hours.

We had District meeting on Wednesday and the District Leader asked
Sister Barroso and I if we would give a training on baptismal
invitations since we had the most last week. (We are starting to count
them to illicit more invitations to baptism so we can actually get
some!). Well, I've done my fair share of training in meetings, so I
tried to let Sister Barroso take over for most of it, but I had the
grand idea to liken it to asking people on dates. (Dating and
missionary work should just stay far apart in the first place). But I
thought it was something everyone could relate too. Suffice it to say,
I said something dumb and now the elders won't let me live it down.
It's a blessing to be able to just laugh things off. Oh and I played
the piano beautifully (horribly) because nobody in our district can so
that was something to laugh off too! So there you have it boys, learn
ya some hymns before you get out on the mission!

We are still teaching Jesus. I just love that man! He has such good
intents and he just wants to be better. He came to church again! This
will be the 6th or 7th time, so we know at least he likes church
enough to keep coming. We had a lesson this week and set a baptismal
date finally! He is set for November 23rd. He still says he is not
quite sure if it is something that he wants or is ready for, but we
just keep encouraging him to read and pray everday. It's frustrating
because I think he has recieved an answer, he just hasn't realized it.
He has a hard time recognizing the spirit, which I can completely
understand, it's even hard for me! but, he loves all that we have
taught him... I am just praying my heart out that we can figure out
how to help this man. Our future branch president!

Rey, his son, has started to move backwards a bit. He hasn't come to
church these past couple weeks. He is going through some hard times
right now with a divorce, hardly any work to make a living off of,
friends moving, etc.. But he sees how this gospel could be a blessing
for him and he keeps telling us that he hopes we don't feel like we
are wasting our time teaching him, he just is moving slower. He wants
this though, I can see it in him. For his son, and for his mom and
siblings back in Mexico. Sometimes I wish I could just put what I know
into our investigators brains! But I guess that's what this gospel is
all about, finding out for yourself.

We haven't been able to see Shay this week... She moved this week so
we went over to help her a bit, but we haven't been able to sit down
with her. Everytime we try to teach the Word of Wisdom, something
comes up. Which is frustrating because that's about the only thing
that would be holding her back from baptism. The adversary is a bum.
Also we are working with Denise and her 3 lovely little terrors of
boys. I just love them! Cruise, her littlest, is the one who planted
one on me this week. What can you do when it comes out of the blue?
Nah he just got my cheek, but they're the cutest. I just want to take
them all home with me! Teaching Denise is merely impossible though
with them running around!

We had 4 families of investigators come to our Halloween party at the
church on Wednesday! That was a blessing. Now we just have to convince
them to come to church! I love activities though, because they give
our investigators a chance to come to church in a non-threatening
atmosphere and they can see that the members are just normal people.
They all loved it, so hopefully that's at least a foot in the door.

Yesterday Rey made us dinner :) He had us over and he's all, "Y'all
going to come in?" and we were like, "We can't! Why do you think we
teach you outside all the time?!" He said he was going to have one of
his lady friends over, but she didn't end up coming. So we ended up
eating outside and he invited his dad, Jesus, over, so we had a good
time with some good ol' Mexican food. Apparently Jesus used to teach
dancing so he showed us some of his moves. These are the moments I am
grateful for :)

On Halloween it rained like nobodies business. We went to this place
where we have "potential investigators" who don't know they are yet ;)
We stop by and eat there sometimes. It's called "The Barn" (at least
that's what we call it). So it was a good evening... Besides the fact
I lost my tag. But! I found it again. Prayer works!

I know this area will take off soon. I can see it in the members and
in the missionaries here, it may just be after we all leave. Starting
the Spanish is difficult because they really don't have a foundation
to go off of. We're just praying we can get a rock solid investigator
to start it all!

I love you all! Thanks for the pictures. I can't believe how grown up
all the kids look! Y'all are getting so big :') Mucho amor! Love,
Hermana Decker