out in the field ya'll!‏

GUESS WHAT YALL.

I'M IN LOUISIANA

Its pretty awesome. I'm so happy and excited to be here!

So leaving MTC was hard, I miss that district family.

True Happiness!

Mission shirts!

Flight was good and got to talk to Mom and Dad supes early in the morning at the airport! YAY

Meeting the mission president was fun! He's a super nice man and very inspired. He got me up to date on BSU :)

Then transfer meeting! woot woot! It was an exciting time! I met so many missionaries that I can't even count or remember their name. 

So drumroolllll... 

My companion is Sister Hunter from Gridley, Northern California and we are in the Covington area! The area's here are huuge. Covington is the richest parish in Louisiana. (Parish is a county, LA is the only state that adopted the Napoleon law so that's why everything is French and funky) I'm in the finger of Louisiana right next to Mississippi. So I'm in quite a wealthy area. It is very very beautiful, the homes are majestic and classic. I love it here and so far of where we have been my favorite spot is town called Abita Springs. Its cute and quaint! I feel like I've only gotten a small sliver of what Louisiana is really like because Sister Hunter says that most of the people here are implants, here for work and school. But of course there are some people that have always lived in Louisiana. I love it!

Sister Hunter is so great. She is very helpful and kind. She's also really fun and musically talented! We have a guitar and a ukulele so we enjoy jamming. She has been out for 14 months and we will probably stay together until she leaves March 31st. We work hard! We got over 16 lessons this week!

Our district is awesome! 4 Elders and us. My first night we had Ward Correlation and the Elders threw me a "Greenie" Party. They made green dyed cupcakes and had green balloons! They are fun and thoughtful. 

Greenie party with the district

Thanksgiving was such an adventure. We spent the entire day as a district so all 6 missionaries got invited to all these.

First we started the day of giving out right by doing service at the YMCA packaging meals to be delivered to the elderly.

Then it was on to endless eating. 

Three houses fam! THREE. 

11:00 - Nolan family. They are the most Louisiana-y I've been. They are an less active family but loves the missionaries. They feed us every Wednesday. But they had all the southern royalties out. Stuffing is called 'dressing' so there was all kinds of dressing, pork, beef, shrimp dressing. and dirty rice is huge here. Its actually quite good. It's rice with all the seasoning, turkey liver, gizzard, and insides in it, hence 'dirty' rice. Its good! They have a sweet house and kind people :) already full here

Thanksgiving at the Nolans, played lots of pool

Fried turkey at the Foots

1:30 - Foot family. A family from the ward that fed us a true southern turkey. FRIED! Here, before they cook the turkey, they inject it with a needle and inject Cajun seasoning and butter in it and then fry it for a couple hours. ITS SO GOOD. So much flavor! So stuffed.   (the elders had another family in between here. I thought they were going to die because they just killed themselves on overstuffingness)

5:30 - Cropper family. This is our ward mission leader so we didn't feel bad for not eating a ton (thankfully) But this was a nice end, relaxing and ended spiritually with some thoughts. But by the end of this dinner all the missionaries were in so. much. pain. It was Costa Vida burrito episode x2. Wow. 

But it was amazing!

First Sunday was incredible. But also a roller coaster.

1. We worked really hard all week and we got our investigator, Biviana, to church!!!! YAYY such blessings! It was a big deal. 

2. Sister Hunter and I got asked to sing the musical number the day before so we had been practicing that a few times and it is an absolutely beautiful version of "What Child is This?" It was still kind of rough but I prayed really really hard that it would bring the spirit and soften the hearts of the ward for us. So our time came and we sang it and it. was. amazing. It was the best we ever sang it and it was flawless. It was such a cool experience and we had so many people come up to us and thank us for the song. It totally brought the spirit and it was helpful for the ward to see the new sister in the ward. 

But our investigator went through all of church and she really enjoyed it! The members are so so so friendly to her and fellow shipped her so nicely. The ward is good but kind of off and on. Some members love missionaries but lots hate us. Past missionaries have been very disobedient and have completely lost the trust of the members. The bishop hates us and wont even deal with us. He has delegated everything to the Ward mission leader for everything. He talks to us through him. That's very frustrating and hard. Our mission president has asked for all the bishops to give new missionaries to the area a Priesthood blessing so that the bishops can know that the missionary is called of God and feel the witness. He has told the Ward mission leader to do all of that now. I even met him at the beginning of church and then he said welcome to the ward to me after church so I thought it was pretty friendly. I followed him and asked him to give me a blessing but he completely blew me off and wont deal with us. He said to go to the Ward Mission Leader for anything. Its quite discouraging and sad. Any advice? pleeeease.

But seriously other than that the mission field is amazing and my favorite! People are really so kind! I see all the holiday decorations and cant wait for Christmas and to spread the word of Christ's birth. Everyone here already loves Jesus so its just getting them to understand and come unto him. I'm excited for the new video to come out because it makes it so much more fun and easy to share the love Christ has for us. I LOVE THIS TIME OF YEAR. 

I lava ya'll so much and miss you more than words,  especially during this holiday season. 

Sister Sades