Fried Food in God's Country. Ooooh yeah (week 10)

Hey Y'all!

So it's rather a problem here, trying to keep those hick terms out of our missionary vocabulary. The spirit tends to fly out of the room when you testify "And Y'all, I know that Joseph Smith was a Prophet." Oklahoma. **siiigh* it's a problem. How I love thee though!

So ever since Sister Cottle left, not going to lie, I've been rather scared that the work here in Sulphur was going to slow down because, well let's face is, she was a complete power-house. BUT, Heavenly Father really showed me that we CAN do hard things, with or without Sister Cottle. It was last week on Thursday and we were in Wynnewood (one of our towns) and we were teaching a lesson with an investigator, Emorej (He's a black 22 year old guy. One of the most respectful southerners I've ever met). It went rather swimmingly. At the end we asked if he knew of anyone who might need a message from us. He got really excited "Oh ma Sisters! I totally forgot! I've got a friend who's mom is really struggling." He told us the directions to her house and we were driving off when he comes running out of the house with his phone in his hand, waving his arms. He was out of breath, but he told us that his friend had called him and was coming over right then and that we should stay and talk to her. One of the best parts of this experience was seeing that huge goofy grin on his face as he kept repeating "Man, our Heavenly Father really does know what He's doing. He's in charge! Imagine that." Ebony then came driving up and we ended up teaching her a bit and set a return appointment. She then told us how to get to her moms. We went over there, (she lives in a mobile home) and ended up sharing a small message with her. We told her that she is important and that her Heavenly Father loves her. She was crying. She'd just barely gotten home from the hospital. She was cutting herself and had heavily OD. The Spirit was really strong and my eyes began to get pretty wet. It's just incredible the power of the Spirit, how it's able to testify to not only the people that you teach but to you yourself as well. I felt the power of his love for this woman, Kim, in front of us. I know he feels the exact same way about every one of his children. I know He loves me.

We had a lesson with Steve on Wednesday night about the Word of Wisdom. It was rather rough. He owns a coffee business in which he himself makes the coffee, having to taste check it, and then take it to office buildings. He's also chewed since he was, oh, 12? We made a bad call on the member that we took over. She tends to be quite the Okie-talker and I hate to say it, but a tad out spoken at times. Throughout all of it, I know that he felt attacked. Sister Johnson and I tried to reign it all back in, but the Spirit was certainly not present. He was a pretty good sport about it all, but we knew he didn't really understand the reasoning behind the Word of Wisdom. We were running late on Saturday night, but we decided to stop by and apologize to him about it. We were all laughing and joking within a minute and he said that everything was all good. We asked if we could come by on Tuesday to just re-teach it. He said that would be just fine. We were feeling pretty good about it all, buuuuut he didn't come to church yesterday. :/ Darn it. We're only praying that something happened and it didn't have anything to do with that. 

So 'twas last night and we went over to the Tinney's (members) house for dinner with the Elders. They had friiiied everything. Well sure they set a little bowl of salad in the middle of the table, but even they admitted that it was just for show, to make themselves feel better about what they were REALLY going to eat. The meal:

1. Fried Wild Turkey

2. Fried Pickles

3. Fried WILD mushrooms

4. Fried cheese sticks.

5. Diet Coke alll 'round

In answer to everyone's question after reading that list, yes. I did feel horrible that night. But ooooh was it worth it.

I love you all so much! Thank you for the support and love that I can feel coming from you all everyday. I'm praying for you, and have complete faith that we are all in the Lord's hands. 

Have a great week and keep the faith!

Sister Call