November 25, 2013

Hola friends and familia! (sorry I don't know the word friends in espanol!)

Sounds like some of you have heard by now from the funny old man in my ward that I am serving in Rochester Indiana. If you want to know where that is, find Gary on the map, and then go South and East a little bit... and find a ton of corn fields and there I am!!! I'm in the Northwestern most part of the mission (almost) and I am in the middle of no where... literally. We are serving in the Logansport Branch, the largest area in the whole mission. There are three of us companioniships covering the area. Logansport has 2 sets and Sister Barrett and I are all alone in Rochester. We are 30 minutes away from the other set of Elders and the church building. I have been to the church buidling 3 times since we got here last week, and let me tell you, that 30 minute drive and back is going to be the death of me. I'm not a fan of living so far away. My heart just goes out to the members of the branch here... they do so much. We have 1 Priesthood holder in the city. He is the HPGL, married to the RS President. There are about 2 other active people in the city... they are single sisters (literally they are sisters). The rest in this place are all LA. Maybe because there is poverty here and the price for gas just to get to and from church is too much. Our goal is to have a branch in Rochester by the time I leave this place!!! We got our work cut out for us, thats for sure!!!

My stewardship has been cut down a ton because they called 4 more Sister Training Leaders. I only have 4 companionships I am over. The cool thing is that once I go on exchanges with them I will have covered the whole mission. I will go up to the South Bend stake a few times and then I will have been in every stake in the mission!

One of the new Sister Training Leaders is Sister Mumford who was trained by the one and only... me! haha. And another one is my great grand-daughter, Sister Roundy. Trained by the sister who sister Guy trained after I left Lafayette. I was hoping to serve with her because we had Lafayette in common... but curve ball, I got Sister Barrett, whom I just LOVE! We did an exchange together on her first transfer, and she and I are very similar! She may be the funniest sister in the mission... yes, funnier than me! I just love her so much!!! We were pretty excited to serve together! And so far its been really fun. She thinks we are in Rochester for her, she loves cows and old people and everything else that you find in Rochester. I'm having a bit harder of a time loving it all the way she does. I just miss Carmel a lot. Going from big city (Indianapolis/Carmel) to tiny tiny teeny town has been quite the adjustment. The branch is hardworking, but so small. I've never seen anything like it.

I did have a really sweet experience at church yesterday though. I was being stubborn... only thinking about the differences. I prayed a ton for my heart to be softened and for charity for this area. During church it hit me... the branch might be WAY different than my other wards, but the church is the same. The Spirit that I felt during Sacrament, Sunday School, RS (and even in the Primary of 8 kids) was the same! Branch Council was great, the Branch President really cares about the people here and assignments were made and people were held accountable. The cool thing about the branch is EVERYONE (except I think 2 people) are converts to the church. That makes it interesting when we get to social aspects because these people were raised differently than I was, but they have strong testimonies. Its really cool. We just need to work on using their strong testimonies to help us find more people and reactivate the hundreds or so who aren't coming.

We got to the area with 1 investigator. She has a date of December 28th (which is one of my favorite days because it happens to be the birthday of two people I love very much!!!). Then on Sunday we went to a former investigators house and started to teach a couple again. They are really sweet and we are sure they will be members before you know it! I have a lot of big goals for this area. It will be great!!! Keep praying for me, I need it here!!!

I totally forgot to tell you about the cool experience I had. This week we had 4 zones come together in Kokomo to do clean up from the tornado that hit. I had a helping hands shirt and everything. We were on the news and we just cleaned up debris and broken trees and broken houses for hours. It was terribly sad but really rewarding. I was glad I got to help. It was a memory I will never forget, I will have to tell you more about it in person, its hard to write down everything I felt that day!!!