Tuesday, October 19, 2010

October 18

Hello, there will be no letter writing this week. I am off to another somewhere else on wednesday. Transfer calls where this morning and I am leaving Mississippi. I think I will be going to Dyrsburg Tennessee (northern Tennessee) with Sister Kirkpatrick but I am not 100% sure. I will have to let you know next week where I am. I was totally not expecting to be transfered but oh well. I am kind of glad. This area is wearing on my nerves. I need a change. But that means I have to start packing. It is stressful because there is so little room and you end up having to leave things and squish and squeeze to get everything in. I will be glad when winter is over and I can send all my winter things clothes and extra blankets home and I will have more room. There is not that long of winters here so it will only be like a few months from now.
I was totally planning on staying and being here for Halloween and Thanksgiving because they are both next transfer and then Christmas the next one. Well I guess it is all right. I am off to another adventure and Sister Kirkpatrick is really cool. I think I am going there because her companion is moving and me and I think that is all for the sisters. Sister Miller and I called all the sisters and I think that is it. So I pretty much know where I am going. So that is nice. Grocery shopping will be easy today. It is good because I hit my limit of stupid people (mostly closed minded-slam-the-door-in-your-face-baptists). There are probably some in Dyrsburg too but oh well.
Ha I was talking to Sister Miller this morning and she told me that President Drewes can't read me/figure me out. And it is driving him crazy. I don't tell him my feelings. Shocking I know. I mean. I don't talk about my feelings to like anyone. And I barely know him. Anyway. I think it is pretty funny. I can see in interviews how hard he tried to tell what I am thinking. But he just can't. It is very entertaining. He tries so hard to get things out of me. But you know how stubborn I can be if I don't want to. He asked me last time if I would rather him not pry but I told him that it doesn't really matter because if I don't want to say anything I won't. Ha.
The church's are so weird down here. They refuse to practice Halloween because of how it can be construed as "demonic". How silly. A lady asked us what the church thought about it and I told her that I think that is silly. You can make anything demonic and that as long as halloween is done the right innocent way dressing up like princesses is demonic. And the more that you oppose it and the more you make it seem demonic that more it will be portrayed that way. The ward here is having a drunk or treat on the wednesday before and a ward dance on the saturday. While all the other church's are having "fall festivals" or "fall carnivals" so silly.
Anyway, the weather is still weird. Getting up into the 90's during the day and 50's at night.
So I just found out that there is a super duper poisonous spider that is in the south. A banana spider and we have seen 3 of them this summer. We heard that they we harmless. Apparently not. Ugh. They are huge and yellow and probably the size of a tennis ball. Gross. Here is a picture. Gross I know.

And then I enclosed a picture of the district this last transfer. The picture last week was of the Elders in my last district and then is sisters.
Then last but not least. Sister Pabst and the awesome skirt her mom sent her that she made. That is like three sizes too big. She wears it anyway. Lets just say I make fun of her a little.
LOVE FROM THE SOUTH
SISTER BROADHEAD

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

October 11

Hello everyone. Here are some pictures. One is of me and my current companion Sister Pabst and I and the other is the Elders from last transfer being stupid. It was pretty funny though.
Lets see. This week was nice weather until the weekend where it spiked up to the 90's. IN OCTOBER. What the crap!? Weird. At three yesterday the car said that it was 99 degrees. UGH! Hopefully it will go a little bit lower than that soon. The south is so weird! On Monday we had dinner with Sister Oravis, she is very interesting but a good cook. She gave both Sister Pabst and I new skirts. Last time we where there her dogs (she has huge, really furry dogs) that basically made huge holes in her skirt. So she felt bad and bought us new ones. Mine is black. I always wear black skirts when I am there. I don't mean to but it just seems to happen. A lady in the ward gave me two black skirts and they are too big for me but still fit mostly and they are super comfortable so I wear them a lot even though I really don't like black that much. So now I own 6 black skirts. Oh well. They are all different. So that is nice. The one she gave me will be nice in the winter. It is super long and will hide lots of layers underneath. She is a really good cook too. Even if she is a little weird and WILL NOT COME TO CHURCH OR GIVE UP HER COFFEE AND WINE!!! We had an lady/girl? Anyway she lives in Memphis. She is like 26 and went on a mission to Russia. Anyway we met her at the General Relief Society Broadcast. She really wanted to come out with us so she came down friday. No one was home because of the fall break so it was a long day. She came tracting with us and we got a few new things to try from her. It was fun. Well this has been a long week. We helped the Hoopers move away, that was sad. And I am pretty sure Gina is dodging us. Oh well. It wasn't too bad of a week. No one few us because of general conference and the calender was not passed around so that was sad but sometimes people would feed us when we went to their houses. Sometimes investigators or member. That's cool. Transfers are next week. I doubt I will be going. I bet I will stay for another 3 months but you just never know. After this next transfer I will be half way done with my mission. Cool.
LOVE FROM THE SOUTH
SISTER BROADHEAD

September 27

All right lets see for this week. We are teaching this new lady named Gina. We tracted into her and have taught her a few times. She is pretty promising. She is married and has two cute children. She said she won't be rushed but I think she is curious. She goes to a non-denominational church here in Southaven so she is not focused on what she was raised in but she is afraid of corruption. Anyway. We are working on it and she said we could come back some time this week. So that is good.
As usual it is a lot of meeting with less active people. Working on that and the weather this week was divine. We had zone conference on Friday here in Southaven. That was good and the Relief Society broadcast was just awesome. If any of you relief society friends did not see it. It was great. We went up to Memphis for it.
Oh on Saturday we tracted into this lady. Her husband is cousins of some active members here that they like a lot. I think she was trying to save us. Yeah she was kind of rude as we tried to explain all the things that she just could not understand. I just laugh about it because she would tell us to show her where it is in the scriptures and then we would. And then she would tell us to read it in context and read all the verses around it to get the whole picture. And I told her I had and just stopped talking about that subject because... sigh. She was still nice eventually after she told us we were deceived and Joseph Smith was an evil corrupt man. I laughed at that one. Yes I have read MANY more things on him then she has. Then she fed me lunch. Ha weird baptists.Good times.
Oh my gosh. Gospel principles was a nightmare on Sunday. There was this less active guy and almost everyone else was recent converts. The topic was eternal families. He had a lot of questions. All of them concerning DEEP doctrine that you just should not bring up in a gospel principles class. I spent the whole time stressed out trying to do damage control as the topics got more and more weird. No there will never come a time when God runs out of spirits to send down and so a baby is born without a soul. He is God! Really?!? Polygamy, how we can potentially become gods, when babies receive there souls before they are born.... etc. And the teacher has only been a member about 5 years. Poor guy. It was awful. Oh gosh.Good times. Luckily it did not cause too much damage. That all from me for now.
LOVE FROM THE SOUTH
SISTER BROADHEAD

September 20

Holy crap. I either have 1 year left from today or 10 1/2 months. Sister Missionaries since we go home at 18 months instead of 2 years our 18 month mark is in the middle of a transfer. So we can either come home the first one or the last one. So Either the beginning-ish of next August I will come home or the 20th of September. Probably September so I have One year left TODAY! I will have a new mission president by then (for my last transfer or two) so I really don't know. The one I have now, President Drewes, would probably keep me. He is pretty cool. But intimidating. He was a three star general in the Air Force. Hard core. But he is kind of like Christ. He does everything in a loving way so it's not too bad. We don't have super strict rules either. Which is nice. Still missionary but not as bad as it could be.
Let's see. This week has been not bad. We got fed pretty much every night which is nice. We did not catch most of our "progressing" investigators which kind of sucks. But of well. We will work on it this week. We did meet a few more people tracting that said we could come back. Yay. Oh my gosh it is still in the late 90's here. Crazy. It is the middle of September and it is not cooling off hardly at all. It is so weird. It is better then August but still. This is crazy!
The new Elder here is annoying. But in a sincere way so it is a little hard to make fun of him... but not much. The only people I can make fun of are my companion, poor Sister Pabst and the Elder's so I take advantage of it. Elder Rubio does make it too easy sometimes. But he sometimes does not get it so that makes it entertaining. He doesn't get that I am making fun of him so I just look at Summers and he and I just laugh. Good times. Oh I remembered something. Ha ha Rubio told me that they were getting ready one day and blasting Sister Fry's music and they had someone call the cops and complain. I would too whether it was loud of not. Her music is awful. You cannot understand the full extent of the awfulness until you hear it yourself. Sister Fry is a lady in the ward who writes her own music. The Elder's have a copy of her church music Cd. It is so painful to listen to but it gets stuck in your head and you find yourself singing it ALL THE TIME. The pure awesomeness of it is that it NEVER rhymes. Ever. How is that even possible? It is so bad. And she uses the same repetitive melody for like half of them. Ugh!!!! Anyway, the cop looks into their apartment and starts asking them questions and they have to explain that they are missionaries (they have a big map and pictures on the walls and pins with little names on them in the map like they are planning something). Suspicious looking. Ha good times. I thought that was pretty funny.
There was a pretty good moment when we went back to this lady's house that we tracted into like 2 months ago. Well no one answered the door. So we were just talking about what we should do next when a guy came out the back door and saw us standing there. We had been there about 5 minutes. We just thought no one was home. I was like, "wow, this is awkward. I am sorry we are creepers." He was like oh no big deal. It was the lady's husband and he has family that has joined the church. He said we could come back so score. They are "really busy" apparently though so ugh! Just set an appointment will you!!!
LOVE FROM THE SOUTH
SISTER BROADHEAD

September 13

Well this week has not been very eventful. A lot of going to people's houses and having them... surprise not home. We have been doing a lot of tracting in the new oh so wonderful not deathly hot weather. Which is nice. We had an appointment with John the Calvinist that was... great. He is annoying. Their view of religion is kind of depressing. He will find out some day how wrong he is.
This has just been a long week. I don't know. What else... the new elder is weird. Very odd and he never had to go the MTC. Never got to experience the good and the bad. He had a few classes. Like once a day for about an hour and a half for a week. Then right into the field. I am pretty glad I did not do that. I was terrified enough after studying and preparing for three weeks and adjusting to missionary life. He got to jump right in. Weird.
Well.......................I'm still here. Love you all and miss you.
Oh I forgot. The Elder's tried to get us back by having a member, the Stone's, make burned waffles (as well as other food) and said he heard those were our favorite. Yeah sure. Well as missionaries we are supposed to eat everything we are given. Well I knew what was going on and yeah I did not eat the waffles. I would not give them the pleasure. Sister Pabst probably would have. Gross. Nice try Elder's but I was on to you.
LOVE FROM THE SOUTH
SISTER BROADHEAD

September 7 Letter

Happy Labor Day yesterday y'all! I am e-mailing this week on Tuesday because yesterday everywhere was closed to e-mail so I get to do it today instead. It is alright though because we do not have any meetings this week because it is transfer week. Everyone that does have transfers goes to the meeting but since neither Sister Pabst or I are getting transferred we don't go. So this would be a very long week if not for e-mailing this morning. Elder Robinson is getting transferred to Little Rock. He is not an AP. Elder Summers is staying and getting a greenie so that will be fun. Elder Andersen is getting a companion because his companion died (went home) but we do not know who the new one will be yet. Probably a ZL and Summers will be DL or Andersen will get a DL and our ZL will be in another part of the Zone. We will find out tomorrow I guess.
So we had a good Sunday. K... so we concocted a plan to get the Soto's (a less-active family) who lives up in Whitehaven (just south of Memphis, pretty much in Memphis, but in our area) to church. Every week we see them and they say they will and then... nothing... nothing... annoying... anyway. So we decided to do something about it. We decided to show up at there house and bring them breakfast. How can you say no to that. So we had some pancake mix and eggs so we thought pancakes and eggs. But then we were like. Waffles would be so much better. So we asked if we could borrow the Elder's waffle maker. Elder Robinson said no.. just because he is annoying. Anyway they let us but we went to their apartment after dinner and they did not have time to come with us so they just gave us the key. Well you know me we had to do something. I am not THAT mean so we just took off the door to their oven (which is actually really easy, you just pull it right off, so it is a easy fix too) well we hid it in their bathtub. It was pretty good. They are chill Elder's or I would not have done it. Anyway we made waffles the night before and went to their house. Well we did tell them a few days before that we had a surprise for them Sunday morning at eight but I don't think they really thought we would do it. So SURPRISE. So Brother and Sister Soto came to church. We watched them in our rear view mirror the whole way. And one of their daughters. The other kids were out of town but it was a start. Sister Soto was like oh that was so nice. And brother Soto was like. Don't encourage them or they will come back next week. I looked at him and said, "We would". The Lambs came to church too so it was a good Sunday.
Yeah we are getting two new sisters this transfer so I thought President might change his mind and switch us but he is putting the new permanent sister with Sister Miller in Millington, TN and switching her new greenie. Who has been out only one transfer and she is taking the temple square sister and they are opening Momel, AR. Crazy. I have been out 6 months and I would be freaking out to do that. Good thing it is not me. Oh sister Pabst is so sweet. Sunday night she was like. I have an idea. I have a surprise for us to do tomorrow. I was like alright... what is it? She was like I am not going to tell you. I was like is it something you would like... or something I would like. You will see. Uh So at six-thirty we got us (that is not unusual) but I am not a morning person. I can barely walk right. We walked all across the apartment complex. Which is huge to the swing set to swing as the sun came up. Anyone else would enjoy that. I would as well if it was at a normal time of day. Not at six-thirty. I am awake at six-thirty but not liking it. She is so happy in the mornings. It annoys me. Love her though.
The weather this week has been sooooooo nice. Like 85 degrees. No humidity. Heavenly. Tracting was not painful. Still eeee. But not painful. I am glad I am going to be staying in Southaven. I do like it here. That's all for this week.
LOVE FROM THE SOUTH
SISTER BROADHEAD