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
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