January and yes, I am building rockets

So it is. Not much time to write today, but it's a muggy day because it poured all night. Yep :) Thunderstorms in January.

Updates first--K's 10 year old daughter is being baptized on Saturday! It'll be a pretty good service.

We did a lot of service this week again....building....yep, you guessed it, rockets. Here I was last monday, in our little house, holding body tubes and CA in my hand and sort of laughing hysterically. I called president so he could okay the project, and he just laughed. If there was anyone who could ask that question, it'd be me.

uh....we biked all this week, so that was fun. On Saturday I managed to get a flat on the redline, and all of the members on our side of the river either didn't have any way to take the bikes or were out of town. So that was awkward. The elders had to come and rescue us. Which was even more awkward. Also, the redline has 29 inch tires, which are awesome but not standard, so walmart only has one brand of 29s. Meaning I got it but didn't have time to change the flat until after plannign that night. So at 10 at night I'm busy with the tire off the rim, angrily shaking the old tube, when I realize that the valve from the new tube...can't fit through the hole in my rim. 10:25 at night, no amount of persuasion, prayers, anger, or scissors could make that valve fit. So I frustratedly just left the bike unassembled on the floor until this morning, when I put it back together to bring it over to natchez to get the RIGHT tube from the bike shop. That was my grumpyface for the week.

We spoke in church yesterday (as we had been asked the night before), taught the sunbeams again, and did music time for Primary. I'm not playing every week anymore, but because our Bishop's wife is still taking care of a 3 week old, we're back to singing time for a little bit. Also, the sunbeams teacher's husband is in the hospital.

Nothing else particularly interesting happened this week. We biked a lot and saw people and taught and so on and so forth--y'know, missionary work.

OH! I don't know if I told you this story. We were tracting 2 weeks ago on a mondaynight. We had been invited to a relief society thing that night but really felt like we needed to work. Well, we were on this street and I felt SUPER impressed to go to this one particular door. I put it off because there was a guy talking on his phone outside and that's just *scary*. But the house I decided to go to no one answered, so I decided I'd better follow the spirit. Since the guy was still on the phone I just sort of asked him "is there anyone inside we could talk to?" And he went inside and a woman came out. I was going completely by the Spirit at this point and don't remember most of the conversation, aside from saying "we really don't know why we're here". But I do remember testifying of the importance of families. And about God's love for individuals. She agreed to let us meet with her over lunch last Wednesday. The whole encounter has been entirely Spirit-led, and on Tuesday night we were going to an appointment and decided to text her to verify we were okay to have lunch. She texted us back and said we were, and so we met the next day. All of us, including her and her husband, sort of expected her to bail. And yet here we were, talking about the atonement and how a family centered on  the teachings of Jesus Christ cannot fail. It was a REALLY spiritual experience, and I shared Alma 32:22, which is the "if ye have DESIRE to believe, let that desire work in you..." after I finished reading it, she literally said "that was perfect." She then asked for a copy of what we were reading and to bookmark that particular verse. We set up another appointment and as we were driving away the strongest impression came to me that I KNEW HER. I knew her from before. It sounds hokey, but my spirit recognized hers and THAT'S why I was prompted to knock on her door. If she there was only one person I needed to come to Vidalia for, it was her.I don't know where this will go, but even if she doesn't accept our message, our role as missionaries is to invite everyone to come unto Christ. Even if we don't get to the baptism portion, by helping others have faith in Him more than they had before, we are fufilling our purpose.

So that was my miracle for the week.

Love you!

Sis Steele

Cold, Cold, Cold, In Louisiana January 6, 2014

Pretty good week here in Louisiana/Mississippi! Cold....very cold...it's currently 25 degrees out but feels like 15. I have not been this cold since Logan, and even then it's a very different cold. We go walking in the morning to wake up and normally do about a mile, and I got outside and thought "this isn't that bad!" and five seconds later the cold sort of got bone deep and I was rethinking my previous statement.

As for the week, it was really good! We're out of things to do for pday so we went to the mall and I got a coat that actually fits (that was my Christmas present) and then had a wistful time looking at clothes that would look great with pants. Then we played Egyptian rat screw and until our hands were sore.

Lockdown was Tuesday, and it was also Elder V's birthday, so I made pulled pork and a cake as a surprise for district meeting. We helped one of the Elders' investigators move out, as she's moving to New York, and then saw some of the less active members in the ward, and came home and did a puzzle. We're not done yet, and there were less insults than normal when we do puzzles, but it was fun. It's a 1000 piece puzzle...of a field of tulips.

We challenged the Elders to teach 15 lessons this week (we're supposed to get 20 a week, but that is a goal I have only achieved twice), and they accepted. We were going to do the same, and when last night came for call ins, a miracle had happened. We had taught 22 lessons and the Elders had taught 20!! It was literally the highest numbers this district has ever had, and it's the answer to life AND is divisible by 3. That was really cool.

As for food, I think I had a pbj samich for dinner on New Years. Possibly a breakfast burrito with Tony's. Yeah...you're eating more Cajun food than we are, though last night was awesome. I've developed a passion for spicy food since I came out, and there's this AWESOME hot sauce that uses ghost pepper. Man, that stuff packs some heat. Super good in salsa, though. Also, I've started using habanero peppers instead of bell peppers. I guess it comes with the territory! We did have red beans and rice last Sunday, which was really good. It's getting to be crawfish season though, so that'll come in bunches.

New Years day was just another work day. We tracted, and tracted, and tracted some more, and saw a member and a less-active member. Holidays aren't exactly different than any other day here, and people have stopped signing up for dinners for some reason, so we just work!

Umm....I can't think of much else. I have been working on a study report for the mission issued by president wall on repentance, forgiveness and mercy. There's two sides with 20 scriptures each, and he wrote on the paper that "a paragraph or so for each question [two questions per scripture--doctrine and application] is appropriate." He's writing a book called "Missionary Insights into the Book of Mormon" and I think he wants to incorporate some of our answers into his book. Well, I joke that I'm going to have to just publish my own book because my answers are DEFINITELY not a paragraph long. But you should expect that from me :) It's going to be a novella by the time I'm through.

Aside from that, nothing too special this week!

Love,

Sister Steele