Hey Ya’ll, the South has been AWESOME! Tell me about where you are at! This week has been great. One of our focuses as a mission is to have a “Golden Hour” each day where basically you focus on finding. That can mean finding in any way. Like door to door or with members getting referrals or walking around a Walmart
parking lot. (Sadly there aren’t any shopping centers or parking lots in our area because the Elders get most of that stuff cause they are on bikes.) Anyways we have had amazing “Golden” hours this past week that have helped us reach inspired goals. Not all days, but some days.
Last night there was a Stake Relief Society dinner, where they had four speakers who gave some of the funniest talks I ever heard. The South is so awesome. They talked a lot about how happiness is a choice. One of the sisters spoke about an age spot she had on her hand and how she chose that that age spot was just a huge freckle. By doing that she was able to choose happiness. It reminds me of what mom always says, “Choose your love, Love your choice” and that is so true. I applied that to being out here on a mission. Sometimes things are tough when nothing seems to be working out, but I like to remember that this is a choice and I love that choice.
One of our main investigators has some very bad health problems. We found out last week that both of her kidneys are failing her. (This is the lady who has the bunch of birds and calls us her “Little Angels”.) She has been to church twice and really wants to get baptized so as of this week we are working with the Bishop to see if she can get baptized without coming to church three times. It’s sad to see her so upset and in such rough circumstances, but she never lets go of her faith. She knows God is watching over and loving her.
We have been working with many less active members and some of the sisters have been able to make it to church. There are many sick people in our ward. The ward members are good about visiting them. We went by to one sister’s home to do service for her. She was very tired so we just called some of her doctors and set up appointments. After we were there for an hour she fell asleep mid-sentence and we slipped out after that. It was so cute and funny.
It has been very foggy and humid here. Just walking outside, you get your hair wet. Training calls are coming up this week. I am nervous that they will call me to train…we’ll see. We are getting many new sisters into our mission this transfer. HEY! I almost caught a frog! It was cool. Next time frog…Next time…AND the other exciting thing is our mission might be getting IPADS soon! That’d be way cool. If you get an IPAD for missionary work, you have to be SUPER accountable for all the goals you set because your Mission President or whoever can just look you up and see what you are doing.
Elder Foresyth and I are the only missionaries in our mission from Canada. We may be related through the Petersons! Hey do you know the population of Canada? Americans here seem to think it is uninhabited!
While tracting last week it was almost pitch black outside even though it was 7:00pm. We went to this single lady’s home who the Elders had referred us to see. When we knock on doors, we knock twice. Once for their salvation, twice for ours. After our second knock we hear someone coming to the door and ask, “Who is it?” We answer, “It’s the Sister Missionaries.” She says, “I was sleeping. I have a gun. I was ready to shoot.” hahaha We said, “All right, we’ll try back later.” and she shuts the door.
One of our investigators came to church last Sunday and brought her new born baby. She hasn’t been baptized because of some little things…but we are working towards it. Because of American Thanksgiving and Black Friday coming up I haven’t thought about Christmas at all. Thanks for all the news from home. Tell Sister Brown, I will keep my eyes open for her family. Thank you all for your support, emails and I love you. You know there is another Southern thing I thought of, “Have a Blessed Day.” Everyone here says it so I hope ya’ll have a Blessed Day. All and all I am happy out here and learning so very much each day. Keep up the good work. Much love from Sister Winkler P.S. Photo of our our Wonderful District once again.
SisterWinkler 