It's fixin' to be Winter it seems!

October 20, 2008

So I think I jinxed us here in Tennessee last week when I talked about the amazing weather, because since then it has gotten significantly cooler. But it's still really pretty, and it's pretty nice in the daytime. And as for allergies, they really only lasted that one weekend, when I wrote about them. Just in case any one wondered...
Anyway, missionary work is awesome in this here Tennessee. Our district leader, Elder Rothlisberger from New Mexico, is going home tomorrow, who we've become pretty close to; he's a fantastic missionary. So that's kindof sad; but the work goes on!
Speaking of the work, some updates:
Erin has turned weird on us. We're not sure what is going on with her. She and joe were going to come to the ward Halloween party on Sat. night (trunk-or-treat/"Fall into Missionary Work"--we were a central part, got to answer questions from the primary kids about being missionaries, it was really fun and very productive!), but Joe got really sick the day before and they took him to the hospital that day. But it's like she got antied or her marriage is better and so she's done with us after getting a good spiritual high, or Joe told her not to talk with us much anymore, or something. We're going to go over tonight to hopefully straighten things out. She needs the gospel so bad! Aaa!
We had an awesome experience sat. though--we had met this girl, Jaki (Ja-KEY), who is 17, on fri. She was outside her house, across the street from Erin, actually. We talked to her for a second and asked if we could come back the next day to teach her and any of her family. She said sure, so we went sat. at noon-ish, not expecting anything great to come of it, but the Lord sure showed us! She ended up not being there, but her mom was, and her grandma, Sylvia. And it turns out Sylvia (black woman, in her early 60's, probably) used to live in the other ward area and used to be taught with her son, by Elders. So she was very familiar with Joseph Smith and the BOM, etc. but she had just moved cuz her house had burned down or something. So we ended up teaching her (re-capping, really) a first, gave her another BOM, and she totally wants to come to church (in a couple weeks, when she has work off) and stop smoking and get back into the BOM. It was amazing. These descriptions of these experiences do no justice to how it really is, but she has the most amazing attitude and outlook. She is so golden! She was even like, I want to just spend an hour today, just reading the BOM. We were like, okay, you do that! (didn't really say that, of course) And she said, "I'm going to go humble myself and pray to the Lord to quit smoking." She is awesome, and we are so excited to teach her more tomorrow.
This week we also had a great correlation meeting (first one since i've been here) with our Ward Mission Leader, and he is now able to focus more on the work, and it was so great. And the members here are so amazing and so supportive and want to be really involved. We are so blessed to have great members here in the Blackman Ward.
The Church is true and the Book of Mormon is amazing, and it truly does bring us closer to Christ!!
I love you all, thank you for your prayers!
Love, Sister Gurr