Richton, MS- Week #51

Good Afternoon y'all!

This week has been a goodn'! We have had so many crazy experiences! This area is by far the most "southern and country" beyond anything I have ever experienced on my mission. Y'all are soo lucky because you are in a treat, I wrote all of my stories down and I will share as many as I can remember! I hope everybody had an awesome week! Mother's day is coming so fast! I cannot wait to skype my fam bam! I love them so, so much!!

Story #1 - Bertha is so daang ugly!!

This is my favorite story to tell, but in the moment it was the scariest thing EVER! Sister Saunders and I just got home after a long hard day of work, and the elders called us to do stewardship calls. I went first, and I went into our room to talk with them, and Sister Saunders closed the door to our room, but I wanted it opened, and when I went to open the door in walks..Bertha! Bertha is the BIGGEST and UGLIEST spider I have ever seen in my life! She looked like the big spider on Harry Potter!! I flipped out and started screaming and jumping on my bed! I have never had to deal with spiders on my mission yet! Apparently God had other plans in mind for me! Sister Saunders heard me screaming from the other room and she was fixin' to see what was going on! She came in the room and asked what is wrong? And in my sad scared voice I told her there was a huge spider right there! Haha poor thing was pretty scared, and she was fixin' to do all sorts of manuvering necessary to get on her bed! haha We just were so freaking scared. The insects in the south are definitely more poisonous and big and ugly little creatures! We called our mission leader to come kill it and he came and did just that for us! Unfortunately the story doesn't end there...She was PREGNANT! She was caring a million babies on her back and they all dispersed into our carpeted floors in our bedroom. We killed as many as we could find, and tried to vacumn our floors the best we could. Thankfully a branch member gave us some spray in case if we ever find anymore! It was insane! 

Story #2 - Worst Rejection!

This story happened when Sister Saunders and I went tracting. We decided to walk up to this house and we saw these two guys standing outside and we asked if we could share a message? They said we could! Come to find out these two guys were brothers, and they were both methodist but they were not opposed to hearing our message. We started with a prayer and things seemed to be going good until the Mom pulled up! The two guys started to act super weird and then the mom stormed into the house with her "cute" daughter. Well, the two guys we were talking to told us they had to go because their daughters were going to play in a softball game. We asked if we could schedule a time to come back and we did! It was totally fine until the daughter came running out and said" Hey y'all! My mom says you can't come back here anymore".  I have never been rejected by a little girl before! It was the saddest thing ever! She is not as cute as she seemed that is for sure! 

Story #3- Most country house in the south! 

We tracted into the craziest house! We walked up and the stairs were all sketchy and then we knocked on the door and this young guy walked up with holes in his shirt and a bottle of beer in his right hand! We explained to him that we were missionaries and we were there to share a message with them. He said yes! And then we went inside and all of the walls were plastered with Camo wallpaper!! And then we looked down at the ground and we saw endless FLIES  flying all around all over the floor! It was so weird! Honestly that is what I thought all of the houses would be like in the south! haha and the people had super strong accents! Haha I have come to love the southern slang. It is seriously the best! 

Story #4- Teaching excommunicated member of the church

Sister Saunders and Sister Nash tracted into a guy named Milton a couple weeks ago! He was open for the sisters to come over and teach him a message. They taught the restoration and he really enjoyed it! He told the sisters that he was excommunicated, but they didn't really believe him and so they wanted to check the records. In the meantime, I show up and Sister Saunders and I kept teaching him. When we met with him this last time we taught the POS and he loved it! We asked him how his reading was going and he was in Mosiah 18!! These girls met him two weeks ago and gave him a BOM!! Isn't that amazing?! And then he told us he wanted to come to church, and we were so pumped! Well, Sunday comes along and the 1st councilor in the branch presidency called us to let us know he came EARLY! That never happens either! Unfortunately we never got the chance to talk with him at church and he left after sacrament meeting. We were so sad! And then during the last hour of church President came up to us and told us we CANNOT go back and see him again! Aparrently why he was excommunicated was confidential, and we were not allowed to go back to see him. We were pretty bummed! We will keep y'all posted and see what happens. We even extended the commitment of baptism and he said yes! but wants to take things slow. Please pray for him! 

Sorry this is so long, but hopefully it was worth it! I love my mission and having this time to serve. I love y'all! Have a great week! 

Clothes donated to them from a sister in the ward. McKennah said "we're taking it wwaaayy back with these clothes from Sister B" They are planning on wearing them to their next district meeting 😂😂😂

Sister Saunders and McKennah