Well let me start off with a couple awesome stories. Primero! So about a year ago this time in good ol' Florence I had to go on a 10 day exchange to Huntsville. While I was there, my dear companion Hermana Belford went out with a member and he gave her a $50 gift card to Cracker Barrel! When I got back she said, "I got $50 to Cracker Barrel! We have to go!". But we couldn't find that dang card anywhere! We looked everywhere! in the apartment, in the car, at investigators houses. We were so desperate for some free food we even prayed our little hearts out to find that card. Lo and behold, we never found it. We figured our faith was enough to find it, but the Lord must not have wanted us to find it and perhaps it went to some poor soul on the streets. Well on Wednesday we were doing Companionship study and I discovered that in my desk the drawer comes out and there is a little compartment there with a bunch of "treasures" left by other missionaries. We found a bunch of junk, some love letters to an Elder ;) and... the card! Crazy! So we took the elders out and a couple of our investigators to Cracker Barrel for dinner :) What I learned from that? The Lord answers in his own time and in his own way, but he ALWAYS answers. The power of prayer is real.
Segundo! Once upon a time, about a year ago again, Hermana Belford and I met this Polynesian lady in the library and of course Sister Belford was like, "Ahh! the one Polynesian in Alabama! I must talk with her." So she did and she was super sweet and we tried to see her a million times, but she got super sick and so we never got to go over :( Well this Friday, we got a text asking for Sister Belford and seeing how she was doing. We didn't know who it was so we asked and it turned out being this lady! Her name is Pam. We told her that Sister Belford had gone home but I had a new companion and we would love to come and meet with her. She let us come over and we taught the restoration and she has a baptismal date for January 4th. UN MILAGRO.
Both of these stories are just so awesome to me. I have been studying about miracles and faith all this week and I guess the Lord decided to give me a little taste of my own small miracles. We have an awesome God! Which reminds me. One of our amazing members gave a talk yesterday and she shared this scripture, Doctrine and Covenants 64:33 "Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great." I love that scripture because lately I have been thinking, I am doing good, but I want to do what's best and this just reminded me, that the small things really do make the difference.
Other stuff that has gone on this week. We got Christmas decorations! ok so there isn't a lot, but we have a 3 foot Christmas tree that we decorated so beautifully and a wreath on the door. Yay Christmas! I'm so excited! And wasn't that Christmas Devotional amazing! I went on an exchange with one of the sister training leaders in Tupelo. We were standing in line at walmart waiting to check out (we were getting flowers for a member who has been struggling) and we met a guy named Cole and I started talking with him about the Arby fries he was buying. One thing led to another and we found out he has a cute little one year old and some of his best friends he grew up with are members. Sweet! We gave him our information and he said he would love to have the missionaries by. Hopefully the Tupelo sisters can do something with that. Really, you can talk to anyone and lead it into the gospel. I mean, Arby's fries? Some lady at Cracker Barrel heard us talking about the church and she asked us what we were talking about and we told her we were missionaries and she told us "Y'all are Angels". :) Nothing like simple phrase like that to make your night. Oh! and we bought ugly Christmas sweaters! Pictures coming soon.
Our investigators are doing great! We have one, her name is Bethany, who is a girlfriend to a less active who is just coming back to church. She is ready and willing to be baptized, with one small problem... they need to get married. She wants to, it just seems he's not so keen on the idea. Maybe he just wants it to be a surprise, I don't know, but whatever the case, they need to get on that because we have her baptismal date for the first week of January.
We have another investigator who I just love. Her name is Celia and she's a student at UNA. It's kind of great to be teaching people around our same age, because we can understand each other a lot better. She has come to church countless times, and she loves it. Her aunt is a member and came to visit her a few months ago and she came to church with her. She is frustrated because she really wants to know, but she doesn't feel like she is getting an answer. She's going home to Madison this week for Christmas, so we are going to try to get the Madison sisters to visit with her.
We finally saw my dear Mexican family :) Octaviana and Jose Luis. They are going through a lot right now. Dulce (the 19 year old daughter) ran off and got into trouble and she moved out of the house/trailer and Octaviana is just heart broken about it. Jose Luis kind of got offensive when we came over and I was like, "Why are you not coming to church!" He says they are going through a lot and trying to work through it all. We are hopefully going to get them to start coming again and get Jose Luis to the temple. His only problem... He still doesn't know if Joseph Smith was a prophet. Bah! He knows he just doesn't know he knows.
Anyways, sounds like things are good at home! Love y'all lots and lots and I'm always praying for you! Thank you for your prayers! Abrazos!
Love, Hermana Decker
P.S. Mom, here's an idea for Christmas: http://www.lds.org/new-era/2005/12/idea-list-the-12-reading-days-of-christmas
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