The best 1 1/2 years... So far :)

"For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.

I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." 2 Timothy 4:6-7

I have a boat load of stories to share with y'all but president always says to save war stories till after the mission ;) so i'll tell y'all when I see you. Just kidding mom, there are no war stories. Just a basic run down of the week. We had 2 snow days so we walked around in the snow again. We made a snow man... Or snow missionary. We named her Hermana Nieve and put a Mormon.org card in her hand :) the elders walked by the second day and said she had been martyred. We put the Mormon.org card as her tomb stone. And a Milagro happened!! (that's miracle for you gringos). We have been praying and fasting and working our tails off all transfer for the branch. We really want them to be more involved in the missionary efforts and more moving forward than staying where they are and on Tuesday, president lee called us for the first time ever and asked us about our investigators and how he is going to have the branch pray for them. The church is true! I can testify to what grandpa said. Miracles happen everyday, we just have to look for them. 

I love you all! I am so sad to leave here and all of the amazing people I have met, but I am so excited to see my beautiful family:) I hope when I return you see a better daughter/sister/friend. I can honestly say this year and a half has changed me forever and I am more converted than ever. The biggest convert on my mission has been myself. see you all soon!

Love, Hermana decker

Hola

Hola Hola!!!

Sorry, this letter is going to be short! We had to move around our preparation day due to inclement weather that may or may not be coming. This week has been fairly slow anyways, but I'll fill you in as best I can.

Quick funny story. We were teaching this Spanish family and talking about the Book of Mormon. We mentioned Moroni and their little 7 year old boy comes in and says, "Did someone say macaroni?!". Haha.

We have a family that we are teaching and they have a baptismal date. Their names are Alejandro and Veronica. They have the cutest little boy named Alex. They didn't come to church and we have had a tough time finding them at home, but we saw them yesterday and they are still all ready to move forward and keep on learning. We are excited for them!

If we have done nothing else this transfer, we at least helped the Spanish work move forward here. Almost all of our investigators are Hispanic and we just love working with them! (They are usually a little more friendly than these white people ;) ). We have been going to Collinsville at least once a week to see the Spanish members down there and President Lee has called Brother Rodriguez (one of the Spanish semi active members) as a Gospel Doctrine teacher for the Hispanics. Some of the less active members have started to come back to. It is so great to see the progress there! Someday there will be a Spanish branch in Fort Payne Alabama :)

We had zone conference this week. Lots of inspired and great trainings. The best part of the whole thing though was that a Ukulele Choir came with members of all different congregations. Some played the guitar, some the banjo, some the Ukulele, and some just sang. It was mostly just a bunch of old folk :) BEST THING EVER! We just sang a bunch of Jesus songs and then they ate lunch with us and we got talk with them. 

Love you all so so so so so so much! Hope you all feel better!!!! Prayers and Love headed your way!

Love, Hermana Decker

If God is your copilot, swap seats

Dearest Family and Friends,

Let's start this email out with a story shall we? So, this week we were teaching some of our newer investigators the restoration. It's a Hispanic family that we found a while back, a mom and a dad, and their brother and sister in law were over. Being down in the south, I've gotten pretty used to the fact that most people know a lot about God and the stories in the Bible. We usually don't have to go into much detail about any of that. They were being pretty quiet so I threw out a classic question to get them thinking and some participation, "If you lived on the earth when Moses was a prophet, would you have wanted to follow him?". Silence. Then the dad looks at me and says, "I have a question," and I'm like, YES, we're finally getting somewhere! :) and he says, "Who is Moses?" Haha! I guess it probably isn't as funny to y'all as it was to us, but we laughed our little hearts out when we got to the car. I think it's one of those, "you have to be there" moments. I tried to explain some other prophets in the Bible, but they still just looked at me with a blank stare. We quickly just changed the question to Jesus. I guess they understood that. Oh these Catholics. They have their shrine of the Virgin Guadalupe in the corner of their rooms but they don't go to church and they don't know the Bible. Gotta love it. That's why we're here! To change that :)

Oh boy, this week has been crazy! It's been a bit of a rough one I guess you can say. We got snowed in, we got dropped, I got sick, but I have learned for all of this to trust in the Lord. Every day is a learning opportunity here on the mission.

We'll start with the snow. It snowed on Tuesday. No big deal right? I'm from Chicago area/Rexburg, Idaho. I can handle a bit of snow. The problem is Alabama can't ;) We looked out the window Tuesday morning and there was just a bit of snow, but then it started sticking to the ground and soon we recieved a text that we weren't allowed to drive our cars nor ride our bikes. So I guess that leaves walking! All of the roads were shut down in Alabama, which means that nobody could even give us a ride because if they got in an accident, their insurance wouldn't cover it. It was crazy! We walked down town to a coffee shop about 4 miles away and warmed up in there and then we headed out again and had to go home early because it was too dangerous. I felt like a real life pioneer walking out there in the snow! :) And with our determination to still do missionary work, we found a miracle! We met a couple of guys who had taken their trucks off their skateboards and were trying to snowboard and I told them not to kill themselves. Then we got talking and invited them to church. Guess who came to church yesterday? Snowboarder Josh! :) MILAGRO! He's going to get baptized and baptize all of his hipster coffee shop friends. We just have to actually teach him now ;)

Segundo! We got dropped this week by the Techlowec family. Saddest day ever! They texted us and told us they prayed as a family and have decided to return to their other church :'( I don't know what God they were praying to but... I was pretty upset about it when it happened, but this all goes along with the trusting God lesson I've learned. I know they're in his hands. He's got a plan for them and I just need to go along with his plan.

Then I got sick! I'm okay now. I think it's just the drastic changes in the temperatures that have been the problem. It was nothing more than a bad cold, but it's the first time I've been that sick on my mission! It's been such a blessing the Lord has given me to have been so healthy! But! We still went out and did work! Nothings going to stop me from finishing these last few weeks out strong! :) 

Mistakes, new experiences, challenges, they are all just learning opportunities. This week has been a great learning opportunity! Then our zone leader at zone training this week just topped it all off with an amazing training on that only you can hold yourself back. Elder Zwick came to our mission and trained the leaders. He told them, "Don't limit yourself by what you think is your capacity." We are so much more capable than what we allow ourselves to be. We have to trust in God. He said we have to tell ourselves, "I will allow the Lord to expand my capacity and he will." So I'm learning to stand aside and let the Lord be in charge. He's the jefe :) I've studied a lot about trust this week and ultimately it's just faith. Faith is "to have confidence in something or someone" (bible dictionary). I guess that's trust too. And I love this scripture in Psalms 37:3-5 : "Trust in the Lord and do good... Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in him and he shall bring it to pass." And every experience has brought me to realize I need to be patient :) I'm trying to hard to do it in my time and it has to be the Lords. "Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. For ye have need of PATIENCE, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise." (Hebrews 10:35-36). 

So it's been a rough week, but a great week! :) And I got to go to Huntsville on Thursday! We had an exchange with the Sister Training Leaders. It was definitely a blessing because I LOVE Huntsville and we got to see a lot of people I have wanted to see. The Spanish branch is just blowing up! They had 79 people at church last Sunday. It's so great to see the work moving forward so quickly there. A part of me wishes I could be there to be part of it, but I know the Lord needs me here in good ol' Fort Payne :)

We also have an amazing new family, and they're Hispanic! La familia Santos :) Their name just says it all! They should already be Mormon. They're "saints" of the latter days! 4 young children. We just have to get them to church!

Thanks for all of the prayers and Love sent this way. Love y'all!!!!!!!!!! mucho mucho mucho!

Love, Hermana Decker

Prayers should be "well done" not "rare"

Hola hola!!!

So our theme for this week is "Hakuna Matata" and that has definitely been a help with all of the craziness that has happened this week! Well maybe it's more of a lack of craziness. Last week we had 13 new investigators... almost all of them dropped us before we could even get in a good couple of lessons. What can you do? hakuna matata ;) Almost every single night except for Saturday night, ALL of our appointments and back up plans have fallen through. I was about to the point where I'm like, "What's the point of even planning if nothing we plan for happens?!". (You think I would be used to this by now being out so long...), Well it's not so much the plans falling through as the fact that we have very limited miles, it's freezing! and it gets dark at 5. Crazy bipolar Alabama weather! So we've been biking and walking in the freezing cold all week. Everytime we leave the apartment I just say, "You crazy mormons!" :) We are crazy. It's gotta be true if we're willing to sacrifice our night to walk around in the freezing cold trying to find somebody ;) But! all of this has been a great learning experience for me. We're building character. We have gotten so desperate that we literally have been talking to EVERYBODY. The whole awkwardness factor of walking up to random people on the street, in the store, at the gas station hasn't necessarily gone away, but I've just gotten to the point where I'm like, "Yup, this is going to be awkward, but who cares!" :) We just laugh our way through it. I don't even know how many people we have given pass along cards to this week or how many book of mormons we have handed out. 

I got to go to Georgia this week! We were over visiting someone from the branch with the most awesome Senior couple ever! (well kind of. They are from Huntsville on assignment here from the Stake President to strengthen our branch) and they took us over to the border. I have officially been to all 4 states our mission covers :)

Our BIFE came to church yesterday! woot woot! They seriously are a miracle! They seemed like they really like it. The youngest, Danny, thought that he was getting baptized on Sunday so he was afraid to come. Apparently he's afraid of water... So if any of y'all have any ideas on helping him overcome that, it would be appreciated. But! We are happy that they are talking about baptism. They really are preparing for the 9th :) I am just so happy for them! And Lee, the 12 year old, (my bff) he said while they were leaving, "I really like this." Bah! I just love 'em! They all have been reading!.. Except for the dad. But, we are working on him. He has really opened up since we first saw him so hopefully, with time, he'll see what a blessing it can be for him and his family.

Celia was baptized in Florence! She is so awesome. I tried to see if President would let me go but he said it was too far :( I'm really excited for her though. She is going to be such a strong member.

So, I had the greatest, what President Hanks calls "Emmaus experience" this week. If you don't know the story of the road to Emmaus, you can find it in Luke 24, but it basically is a moment when you look back and realize that the Lord was with you. I realized this week that my biggest "Emmaus Experience" hasn't actually happened on my mission, but before it. I realize now that the Lord really has been involved in every single detail of my life to get me right to this point where I am now. He has never abandoned me. He really is micromanaging every moment of our lives! I am so so so grateful that he has been pushing me in the right direction all my life even if sometimes I have been stubborn :) It's like what President Eyring said in last conference, "There is not one of us that He has not desired to save, and that He has not devised means to save." Wow! And I can see on my mission that miracles happen every day! Little "Emmaus experiences" every day. I can't even tell you how many times I have felt like I just "chose" to knock on a door, and then realizing afterwards it was a prompting. Our God is an awesome God!

You know what else? I've really come to realize that the mission is mostly for the missionaries. If anything, we will at least have 80,000 somewhat converts this year. All of them just happen to be members already ;) It's like Elder Bednar said, "The biggest convert on your mission oughta be you!". But that only comes by completely forgetting about yourself. Why else would the Lord send out a bunch of kids to do his work? It's so we can learn a thing or two on our way and hopefully bring some of that joy to others, whether before or after the mission. Like Elder Holland said, "Your mission is the MTC for your life."

Thanks for all the prayers and all of the love sent this way! I am definitely sending it back :)

Love you all!!!!

Con amor,

Hermana Decker

Living without God's spirit is like trying to dribble a football.

Hola hola!!

So I don't have a lot of time to email today. Thank you holidays. We are at an awesome members house, but preparation day ends like in 20 minutes so I'll be fast.

We had the best of both worlds this week with a recent convert going crazy on us and then finding a golden family! We'll start with the bad first. The recent convert here, Laura, was just recently baptized last Sunday and everything was great! She was so excited and told us that she knew this was Christ's true church. Well, one day later we went to see her to see how she was feeling on the baptism. When we went in I could tell that something was a bit off and we asked her how she felt and she said she felt good. Then we asked her how she was doing with the word of wisdom problems she was having before her baptism and she explained to us that she had fallen back. She was smoking and drinking coffee all over again. Bah! Then she proceeded to tell us that we are not a religion and that we don't know what we are talking about because we have never seen the gold plates and that she thinks we are greatly misguided and brainwashed... Pretty much anything that anybody can throw at us, she threw at us. It was probably one of the worst experiences on my mission thus far. This is the same lady who has read the Book of Mormon more times than most members. She has psychological problems, schizophrenia, so we think it must have been that split personality, because the person we saw, was not the person we knew before the baptism. We haven't been back to see her yet. We tried on Saturday but she didn't answer. We just continue to pray for her.

Enough of the bad news, now to the great news! We met the most wonderful family ever! :D They are the Techlowec family and consist of a mother and father and three of the greatest boys ever, ages 9, 10, and 12. The mom watched the Emma Smith movie on Netflix (thank you Netflix!) and decided to go onto mormon.org and asked for a missionary visit! Woot! Then we show up! We drove up to her house and before we could even knock, she opens the door and has a look on her face like, "Who are you people?". We told her who we were and she smiles and lets us in. Not the usual reaction we get when we say we are Mormons. Long story short. Her youngest son just got over cancer and she has seen the Lord help her family. We testified to her that this is exactly what her family needs now to grow closer to Christ. We left her and her 12 year old son a Book of Mormon and came back a couple of days later and she had read up to 1 Nephi 3 and her son had read up to 1 Nephi 7! We met the Dad, left him a Book of Mormon, taught the restoration to the whole family this time, and they all committed to a baptismal date on February 9th! The best part is that the 12 year old son, who I just absolutely adore, said the closing prayer and we told him to ask if the BofM was true and in his prayer he said, "I don't need to ask if the BofM is true because I already know it is." Bam! I just love kids. We are so so so so excited for this family and I have great hopes for them. BIFE... Best Investigator Family Ever. I have been praying for this family my whole mission. I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY! Please pray for them. This family could be such a great contribution to the branch.

We had interviews with president this week. He got a bit teary eyed when I was talking with him. We didn't talk very long because I will be talking with him and having another interview in a little over 4 weeks... crazy. I did find out I was put in this area due to circumstances with a previous missionary... I'm the "saving" missionary.

This area is a tough one, but we are praying hard, working hard, and going forth with faith and steadfastness in Christ. We know he'll make up for the rest.

Oh and I gave a talk on Sunday about the Articles of Faith. It went pretty well if I do say so myself. I can definitely see such a contrast in the types of talks I gave at the beginning of my mission and now. I'm just glad this one was in English.

We're finding more hispanics. Yay! The branch isn't so helpful in that area of the work but we hope to change that. We visited some hispanics in Collinsville this week who are members. None of them come anymore, but we hope to change that :)

Love you all!!

Hermana Decker

Wrinkled with burden? Come inside for a faith lift!

Haha! So we're back with the church signs :) Isn't that one awesome. I laughed for like a minute straight. Gotta love the south!

Well I am in Fort Payne, Alabama! We're pretty much out in the boonies. Seriously though, this is probably the most hick/redneck place I've ever been my whole mission. And I've been a lot of places! ;) But! I absolutely love it here!! I finally made it back to a branch!!... except for it's completely English. Well, not completely because there are a few members that are Hispanic, they just don't come to church. Which is pretty much the case for almost all of the members of the branch. Everybody is Less active. It apparently used to be a ward, but their numbers of attendance have decreased significantly so it's now just a little branch. I like to call a lot of the members out here "baby Mormons" because they are all so new in the gospel. A lot of them still hold on to their "southern Baptist" culture (which leads to some interesting lessons in church... some of it bordering on false doctrine. haha) but what can you do. If I ever pick up on the southern drawl, it's going to be here. I just love it all! I'm so excited to finish up strong here. It's going to be an interesting transfer, but an amazing one none the less! :) 

The branch is small and many of the members aren't very strong in their testimonies of the gospel, but we are planning on really focusing on the members this transfer. We need to strengthen the branch before any missionary work gets done. Most of the other areas I've been in, the ward/branch is really focusing on missionary work, but this area is hardly even talking about it. Hopefully we can change that. Getting a lot of the less active members will be on our list as well. The problem is that our area is huge and all of the members live super far out and we have little to no miles and we share the car with the Elders. Luckily a few of the sisters in the ward are sweet enough to take us out every once and a while. It's about a mile and a half to even get to an area with houses from our apartment! It makes for fun bike rides ;)

That all being said, this area has had 4 baptisms within this transfer and last! 3 of them are children of members :) But we did just have a baptism yesterday! Her name is Laura and she has quite a miraculous story. She found a Book of Mormon some years ago and read it a few times, then a few months ago got on Mormon.org and requested a bible so she could give it to her friend and the sisters delivered it and started teaching her! She is prepared. She has a few psychological issues, but the branch has been super sweet to her.

Hermana Torgersen is the sweetest thing ever. I don't think I have ever heard a negative/mean thing come out of her mouth. She is a youngin', only 19 :) She's a little more on the quiet side which I'm not really used to since most of my companions have been crazy! But she reminds me a lot of myself when I first got out... except for maybe a little more sweet ;) She's been out for 7 months. I'm so excited to work with her! She is a super hard worker and she just loves everyone!

We don't have a lot of investigators right now, but we are striving to change that. We had a really good week this week in teaching and finding new people. The night time appointments are a little rough since I don't know the area and she has only been here for 6 weeks and we don't have a lot of investigators to teach, but we're working on it :) We biked forever far away this week to get to a trailer park of Hispanic people! It was totally worth it ;) I have missed being around so many Hispanics. There aren't a lot here, but most of them haven't spoken to missionaries before since Spanish missionaries have just recently been put here. This Saturday we're hoping to head to Collinsville which apparently has a lot more Hispanics. I don't understand how they end up in this area or a lot of these areas down south, but I'm glad they do! :)

Our church flooded this week. Because of the crazy cold bipolar weather here this past week, a lot of the pipes froze and burst at peoples homes and obviously our church. We were at the church when it happened. It was pretty crazy. It looked like it was raining in the church.

Love you all! I send my prayers and love your way!

Love, Hermana Decker

Baptism pics

Alex at baptism :)

Olo!!

Hola hola!!!!

Guess what! :) I'm being transferred!!! Once again I am headed to one last new area. I'm super excited but at the same time, I will really miss the people here in Florence. It's so crazy how quickly you fall in love with the people that you serve. I've only been here for 6 weeks (well minus the 5 months about a year ago) but I've met a bunch of new people and I feel such love and hope for them. But! I am so grateful for an opportunity to meet more people and grow to love them just the same! We have been speculating, and we think I might be headed down to Lorna, one of the Spanish branches near Birmingham. I told President I would love to serve in a Spanish area again, so maybe he took that into consideration. Plus, I emailed Hermana Child today, who is serving down there as one of the Sister Training leaders, and she says that she thinks I'm moving there too because one of the Sisters there is being transferred. I really don't care where the Lord sends me, I know wherever it is I will love it! :) I already had a chance to serve in a branch anyways, so I would love to let some other sisters have the opportunity. (still, the selfish part of me wants to be moved down there ;) ).

The weather here is FREEZING. Literally. We had a cold front move in and today's high is 15 degrees. The wind chill should get us around negative 10. Awesome. I just feel bad for the poor elders who don't have a car. We are trying to take care of them the best we can by finding them rides, but there is only so much we can do. They're just little boys ;) They are awesome! Just sometimes need someone to take care of them ;)

I got some spectacular, awesome, amazing, tremendous, marvelous, and wonderful news :) We had a baptism on Friday!! Alex was baptized. I guess I haven't really talked about him very much, but it's mostly because we haven't really been teaching him specifically, but his sister. When I first got here he had a baptismal date, but freaked out last minute when we were planning his baptism and told us to leave him alone. We've seen him off and on because we visit his sister Claudia and he's been there when we were teaching her. On Thursday though, we were over at their house and he said that he wanted to be baptized (which he has been saying for a while) but we didn't want a repeat of last time, so we told him he has to be really serious this time.  On Thursday we told him, "Whenever you want to be baptized we will make it happen," and he said, "Well I'm off tomorrow". So, we made it happen :) It was great. Not a really good turnout at the service, but it was last minute. I'm really excited for him. I know if he wants to he will be a great help to his family in bringing them to baptism. His sister and her 9 year old daughter and his other 9 year old sister have baptismal dates for the end of this month. It would be amazing if he could baptize them. BAh! I just love this gospel so much. I love seeing the miracles that come from it :)

Anyways, that's about it from this side of the world ;) Life is good. Life is great. I love it! I hope all is well with each of you! Thank you so much for your prayers and love. I will be sending some your way!

Love, Hermana Decker

P.S. Here's the quote of the week from my lovely companion:

"Who wears the pants in this relationship?" -Me

"We both do! They're double sized." - Sister Klein

Faith!!

Hey!

You know what? Life is good :) I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!! Seriously though, this is the best thing ever! I want to share with you some awesome thing that I learned this week. So I have been studying a lot about Faith recently. It's going to be really hard to explain all that was going through my mind, but I will try ;) So I totally understand the Faith in Jesus Christ thing. I feel like I have pretty strong faith in Jesus Christ and in his atonement, but I have been thinking lately about faith and miracles and how faith leads to miracles. I understand the concept, it's just the doing it part that is hard for me to get. Like, the fact that I can have so much faith that God is going to help us get a baptism this weekend, but if it isn't in his plan, it isn't going to happen (experienced that firsthand :) ).Well then I'm thinking, we have to have faith that God COULD do it, the question is WILL he. Which brings me to Elder Bednar's talk when he talked about "Do you have faith NOT to be healed.." So then I'm just all confused because really, what's the point in having faith in something that is going to happen if it's not in God's plan anyways. BUT! Me being all confused about this for a couple of months, I was reading in Alma the other day and came across chapter 37 verse 40.

 "And it did work for them according to their faith in God; therefore, if they had faith to believe that God could cause that those spindles should point the way they should go, behold, it was done; therefore they had this miracle, and also many other miracles wrought by the power of God, day by day."

I don't know if this completely answers my question, but it brought some peace of mind for me :) What I got out of it was, they had faith in one little thing, that God COULD move that spindle. Just starting with that, nothing else, not even that it would point in the right direction, or that it would bring them to the promised land, or he would provide the way to get there. I'm sure they had faith in that, but it all started with that God could move that spindle. THAT was the miracle, and then more came EVERY DAY! So, I realized that I was making it more difficult than it needed to be. I need to focus in my own "spindles". The simple things, like reading the scriptures, obeying the rules, those bring miracles. God has promised that. The bigger miracles will follow. Anyways, I don't know if that makes any sense but it blew my mind! :)  

So, enough of that. Our week was amazing! We did much better this week than last and saw some great miracles. We have been joking all week that our investigator Celia (who's in Madison right now) was going to text us and say, "Hey, btw I want to be baptized!" It was mostly a joke, but we both kind of were hoping it would happen. Well on Saturday, guess what she texted us?! "I'm actually texting to tell you guys that I would like to be baptized :)" Best text ever! I think so!! Who knew a text would bring me so much joy. So Celia is getting baptized!!! On January 25th so that her aunt (who's a member) can fly in and see it. We are pretty happy missionaries :D Plus we had 6 investigators at church and 3 with a baptismal date. Things are good. Life is good.

Not much else is going on. We find out about transfers on Saturday, so I'll let you know how that goes next week. I hope you all have an amazing new year! I will be fast asleep in my little bed while y'all are partying :) Miss you! Love you!

Love, Hermana Decker

Temple Trip

Pics of Temple trip

Temple Trip!!

Pics!!

Our tree!

PICS!!

Our district

Christmas!

Well, I'll keep this letter short and sweet since I will be talking to y'all in a couple day!!! Life is good here :) No complaints... except  for maybe the weather. We have the most bipolar weather if I've ever seen it. I'm not going to complain that it is cold because I know we're not nearly as cold as Grandma and Grandpa. About two days ago we hit a record of the high 70's which was awesome, and then a storm came through the other night and we've dropped back down to high 30's. Que en el mundo! But whatever it's fine :) Except for the fluctuation is making me feel a bit under the weather.

We had our Mission Christmas party this week. It was SOOO fun! Our zone teamed up with the two Bessemer zones and we had dinner, a talent show, devotional, and a movie, Ephraim's rescue (Which is really good by the way, if you haven't seen it.) It was nice to kind of sit back and relax for a few hours. It was pretty much a whole day event because it takes about 2 and a half hours to drive down there and then it was 5-6 hours. It was great to see all of the missionaries there :) I was in two parts of the talent show, not because I have any talent, but I'm good at going along with things :) We did a district talent and then us and the Corinth sisters did a talent. They were just little skit things. I am so grateful for President and Sister Hanks and for all the hard work they put in to taking care of us. They're amazing.

President pulled me aside while we were down there to talk to me (that's always a bit nerve racking!). He told me why I am in Florence. Basically he said it was an emergency transfer, he wasn't planning on moving us, but because of something that went down (still not sure what) he had to transfer somebody in and he couldn't move anybody else because they were all locked in so he picked me. So I should still be in Corinth... except for not, because I know everything happens for a reason :) He said he trusts me so he put me here. Anyways, that's why I'm here! A part of me wishes I knew what happened, but honestly it doesn't really matter. Sister Klein says she doesn't know either so it must have had to do something with her previous companion. President also told me that he feels like I have earned the right to pick if I stay or go next transfer... Bah! I hate making decisions! But, I have been praying about it and I think I'm going to tell him that I would love to experience somewhere else (preferably with more Spanish people) but I will go wherever works best for him and the Lord.

I'll fill y'all in with everything else that is going on on Christmas! We can skype whenever, so I'm thinking probably in the afternoon sometime. What time is Brayden calling/skyping and maybe we can try to do it around the same time!

Mucho amor!!!!!!

Love, Hermana Decker

Pics of Christmas Party with President and Sister Hanks!

At the Christmas party!!!

Pics

I forgot to mention that we had a baptism yesterday as well!!!!!!!!! It is of an excommunicated member we have been teaching. She is Awesome!!! It was so amazing to see all of the support from her family and ward family. I've never seen so many people show up to a baptism.

Your daughter

From: Elamae Campbell 

Happy happy happy!

Hey y'all!

I am soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo excited for Christmas! I think I have been listening to Christmas music since June or something ;) We took our Christmas pictures and we have our little christmas tree and wreath. Members are already starting to get us some Christmas presents. Bah! I just love being a missionary at this time of year. I'm already so happy to just be a missionary, but add a bit of Christmas to it and it's like... too much happiness :D

This week has been great! There are so many good things happening here! We got to go to the temple on Thursday. I absolutely love the temple. I could just sit in there forever! I'm especially grateful for all of the temple workers who take the time out of their schedules to come to all 6 or so temple sessions that we do as missionaries. They drive long and far to come help us out. Sitting in the celestial room and just looking at all of the wonderful missionaries all around I couldn't help but tear up. All these Elders and Sisters are just awesome and each have given up so much to be here. I feel honored to be serving here with each of them. So many wonderful "kids" (because that's what we are) who would put aside everything for 18 months to 2 years to serve the Lord. It just has to be true!!! Bah! too much happiness and love :D I also got the chance to see Hermana Hazelgren and Hermana Barroso at the temple so that was an extra bonus! I have made some amazing friends out here.

Bethany got engaged! Woot! We called Joe last night because we wanted to go visit them and he was like, "yea, that's fine, but only for a bit because we are heading to Huntsville." Then we talked to him about how he needs to propose so that Bethany can get baptized and he was like, "yea sure." Typical boy response. Well we get there about 10 minutes later and within that time period he proposed! We're not quite sure if he did it before or after we called, but we're just excited for them and she is so happy :) So now we're planning a wedding. Sweet! Which it just so happens that Sister Klein was engaged before she came out so she has already done all the planning and knows what we need to get done. We decided she only got engaged to help Joe and Bethany ;)

We saw Celia a few times this week. She is just amazing. So prepared. She is like the sweetest little thing ever. We love her :) Everyone thinks that she is another sister missionary we are dragging along when she is with us because she already looks like a mormon. We told her that she just needs to be baptized so she can stop trying to explain to everyone that she isn't a member yet. Honestly, we just think that she is scared. It's a big step to make in life! She'll be baptized eventually. She's home right now in Madison with her mom so we are trying to send the sisters over there to visit her.

Our miracle, Pam, got a hold of some anti... blah! I hate hate. Why are people so hateful. She agreed to let us come over eventually so we can answer some questions... but we went over yesterday and didn't answer the door even though she was obviously there.

Our theme for this month is "Book of Mormon Month". Woot! I'm so excited :) We have already made a plan to flood the world with the Book of Mormon. We are just going to give everyone one. We gave one to the bug guy the other morning and then we gave one to the gas station lady. YES! We would be giving out more, but our supply is limited. So until the Zone Leaders give us some more, we're fresh out. Que en el mundo! Missionaries without copies of the Book of Mormon? Yea I know.

Sister Klein and I get along great! She is amazing. I love getting to learn something different from each of my companions. She is definitely a bold one, but she just loves the people we serve. We're still getting used to each others teachings styles and those little technical things that just need some practice to get used to. I can tell she is used to taking the lead, which is totally fine, until I want to talk ;) She's from Queen Creek actually! She says she doesn't know Grams or Gramps though. President told me he is going to have to let me know sometime why he felt impressed to send me back here to Florence, so I will let you know how that goes.

Everything is great here! I can't even express to you all how much happiness and love I feel being here. It's not anything that words can describe. You'll just have to experience it for yourselves! :) Go out and bring someone closer to Christ today. As you do that, you will feel closer to Christ. And be happy!! :)   

Love y'all mucho mucho!!!!!!

Love, Hermana Decker

BuEnO!

Buenos Nachos!

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

Pictures!

Thanksgiving with Sister Rhodes

Mr. Hendricks indian wall

Our apple turkeys :)