Hey family!
So Monday and Tuesday last week, I was pretty stressed out because we were leaving so many of our investigators that I had come to know and love.
This week was really different being in Waycross Georgia. The people here are extremely friendly and a lot of fun to be around! I love the ward and a lot of the missionaries that are here. In my area I'm serving near one missionary that came out at he same time I did and I got to know him a little bit in the mtc but not enough!
The elders here are super funny though it's hilarious! Our apartment in Jax was super small but now it's really big. We have an upstairs and basically have a mini version of a 2 story house at home! It's super awesome.
So first impressions were that it was really really hard to leave the people I've grown to love. I don't know if it was quite so hard to leave it was just super hard to leave not knowing if I'd ever see them again! But I was kind of nervous to come to waycross Georgia since the food gets more and more southern. So there is really just two families where I can't eat their food but other than that I realized that I can eat meats and stuff (just not like hamburger or beef because it smells and tastes gross and hot dogs) but I just prefer grains instead of meats and stuff. But every meal I've had I've eaten something new so I've really branched out. I don't like ground beef either, like in tacos. I'm still not good with Mexican food, and I don't know about oriental food yet. But to give you an idea of what I'm eating now I took a picture of our last meal at B dubs:
It was super good. I love the people here because even if they're not interested they are still super nice and will talk to you. I love my new companion, his name is elder fadely. On the conference call while elder Romero and Ivory and I were listening we heard my companion and elder Romero (my trainer) thought it said fadeweed. And elder Ivory instantly responded saying, "THAT IS NOT A NAME! CALL SOMEONE AND FIND OUT WHAT IT REALLY IS" it was super funny. The work is kind of slow just because elder fadely has only been out 6 months and this is is first time taking over an area and because all of our investigators dropped us. So we are doing a lot of finding. But the work is super fun and elder fadely and I are getting a long great! He is a lot of fun to be with and is a great worker!
Our district is really awesome but we only have one set of sisters with us which I thought was interesting :P just because before we had 3 sets of sister missionaries!
It was crazy! The past 3 days have been like 45 degrees which has felt so flipping cold because until then the weather has been a constant 80-85 degrees. So it got super cold out of no where! But the area just reminds me of a game I used to play with Conner Vince and Joo-an. It was super funny! It's super weird but I like it haha! It's really funny to see everyone out here, even the kids in high school all are dressed up in camo clothes and they all seem like motorcycle racers or hunters. It's like a redneck town haha! :D
It is a bit more hilly than Florida which I like even though I'm biking half of the time. Our area is huge but we are in a car share it's ridiculous! I'll send some more pictures of a bunch of our companionships that I said goodbye to since sometimes the mail doesn't go through for some reason if there are a bunch of pictures. And my address is, 823 Saint Mary's drive waycross Georgia 31501. If there is any way you could send some more music like Christmas songs or something, even Motab that is Christmas music or other fun songs that would be awesome too! For example like the song from oh brother where art thou, the oh sinners lets go down, song would be awesome! We listened to that a bit with some other elders that had it and it was awesome!
You should definitely look up a talk called, "conversion of a Catholic" it is such an awesome talk that talks about a Catholic boy and his conversion story to the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. When we got to our home in Georgia we listened to a witchcraft talk which was kind of freaky but extremely interesting and talks about what witchcraft really is and how it could be used. It's kind of crazy! But really intriguing. Also if you could send me a beanie that would be awesome too, we are allowed to wear them in the winter when it gets cold as a part of our dress apparel.
I'll send you a bunch of pictures in a minute, I'm just sending them in a different email.
My days have been a lot longer as of moving to Georgia just because I'm not used to the area and I don't know how to fill my time and it's hard. As soon as I got into a routine in Jacksonville the lord called me to another place in the mission and I now have work to do here. It's hard but I know there is someone that I need to reach and I need to do all I can to finish my work here for the lord. I feel like I already told you this, but my ponderize scripture is alma 60: 7-8 and it is when Moroni chews out pahoran for not helping out his brethren. But the message is that we need to not be idle in what we do. The adversary is at constant work and won't let down if he becomes fatigued and so we need to continuously stay busy and do what we can to further better ourselves. I'm not saying that we should never relax, but we just need to not become lackadaisical. I love you all and hope you all have an awesome week!
Ali you look awesome with your braces off! You must feel great! Go show off your smile to everyone you can! Even a smile to someone in the hallway can make someone's day!
Sam I'm so proud that you were able to just hop up to the announcements and get that to the school! You're so awesome! Keep up the hard work and you'll be super happy! And make as many friends as you can and have tons of fun!
Love
Elder salter
