Christmas sweaters and transfer news

 (Elder Slade)

To the best friends and family a person could hope for!

This week was sweet! We had some ward Christmas parties we went to and we got to wear our Christmas sweaters!! 🎄 I had been lugging that sweater across my mission for the past year (I don't know why 🤦‍♂️) but I only get to wear it once or twice a year, so I got pretty excited! We also got some aloe-infused Christmas socks. It's pretty epic!

The Rick family has slowly started coming to church. First only Wally came, and then his mom came as well, and then his little sister McKenzie came for the first time this last week. It's amazing to see how the entire family is feeling the spirit drawing them closer to Christ one by one. And that's the way Christ did it, one by one.

Transfer news this week, and I'm getting transferred. For my last transfer I will be going to Shelley with Elder Auelua and Elder Fletcher. I only have 6 weeks left!! It's crazy!! I've loved every second of it! This last transfer I'm going to devote and consecrate to the savior and give it everything. Not one ounce of energy not given to Him!

Last thought: One of the talks in church asked an interesting question that I've been pondering. The question he asked: If the next gift you gave to your family would be your last, what gift would you give them? It made me think. What gift would I give? If you have any thoughts, let me know!

Love you all!

Pictures:

1. Wearing our Christmas Sweaters.

2. My mom sent me a 12 days of Christmas package, and today was day number 1! Thanks mom! You're the best!

3. We spent a night with Elder Romig, what a beast!

Christmas Christmas Christmas

 (Sister Putnam)

Hey, Everyone!!

Haha I forgot to write last week

Well, this week has been awesome! Kathy and Eric came to church last week and this week they brought the kids! It was a huge miracle because they've been inactive for the last few years!

Ben chose a Baptismal date for February!! We are super excited for him but really sad that we probably won't be there since transfers are coming up in a week :(

Denise texted us today saying she found an apartment! We are so happy because now she shouldn't be so busy and we will be able to meet with her!!

Please pray for Kathy and Eric to keep wanting to come to church, and for Ben to keep progressing, and for Denise to the able to meet with us, and pray for me too because I am sick!!

Love you all!!

Sister Alyssa Putnam

S11 E2: Elder Stanfill and a Skinned deer

 (Elder Cummings)

Howdy y'all!

Yes, today is my pday. This week we had the Area President tour the mission and so the whole mission's pday was moved to today. These last almost two weeks have been a blur, but I'll start with the skinned deer:

Here we are, it's already dark out, and we're knocking on this families' door that we've trying to get in contact with. No one ends up answering the door but we look over to our right and there is this man tying up a dead deer to a hanger that connects on the hitch of his truck. As we walk up, he's like "Hey Elders!" as he pulls out a knife and just starts slicing away. In the matter of about 5 minutes he has almost completely skinned it and we talk to him. He knows the missionaries, and is best friends with a member in our ward, and invited us to try some venison with him once he makes some this coming weekend. We asked him where he got it and he was like "about 15 minutes ago in my backyard". That's Mississippi for you. Best part is: his name is Dan. Picture included below.

We had to drive up to Jackson for the devotional with Elder Stanfill and there ended up being 14 missionaries in one apartment just sleeping on the ground. It was so awesome. Slept so bad, but it was awesome.

The best part was the devotional though. I wish I could convey the Spirit that was in the chapel as we listened to Elder Stanfill declare pure and powerful doctrine. The one thing that really hit me is "the more you become a disciple of Jesus Christ, the less it becomes about you" When we take ourselves out of the picture, our decisions become easier. The hardest decision is taking ourselves out of the picture. In the end, we just gotta let God prevail.

Elder Cummings

Christmastime is the best!

 (Elder Slade)

To the best friends and family a person could hope for!

Another great week! The first week of December has brought the excitement of Christmas and I am so excited! Christmas music has been playing, Christmas lights are up and spirits are high! Christmas time as a missionary is literally the best because everything fits with your purpose: service, love, the focus on Christ. It's awesome!! 🎅🎁😄

We have been using SO many miracles across the mission. The Lord has really blessed us. We have 100 less missionaries than we did last year, but we are seeing more success than we were then. It's nothing we are doing, it's all the Lord and the wonderful members working here. It's fitting to be a miracle filled Christmas.

This week we committed our friend Ezra to be baptized. He is praying about it this week, so please keep that in your prayers that he may have that desire. We love him so much, and have really seen him grow these past several weeks we've been teaching him.

Pictures"

1-2. We set some Christmas lights up for Christmas. They spell out 500! That is our goal for baptisms as a mission for this year and we are SO close! One or the pictures I'm with Elder Carillo, one I'm with Elder Quigley.

3. Saying goodbye to Elder Bird.

4. Elder Clark and I in Rigby.

5. Beautiful Sunset one evening.

S11 E1: Chum and Spoon take Mississippi (continued...)

 (Elder Cummings)

Howdy y'all!

Elder Weatherston and I officially made it to the greater Hattiesburg area Wednesday night. We had some great Thanksgiving feasts and got to work. This area has been kind of dead when it comes to missionary work so we're hoping get things rolling soon enough.

Quick highlight from the week:

We were making some calls to people in our records and set up a lesson with a nice lady named Patrice. She pulls up to the church building and is just all about Jesus it is so awesome. We get talking and turns out that she was baptized 22 years ago in this miraculous literally life saving event with the missionaries. We have a good long talk about her story and we talk about the temple and show her a picture of the rededicated Baton Rouge temple and she starts crying and telling us how she has always wanted to make it there. It was a very real and cool experience and Patrice is a legend. Enough said.

Anyway, I had a great week, a lot of work, a lot of help from the Lord.

Have a blessed week y'all

Elder Cummings

Thanksgiving!

 (Elder Slade)

To the best friends and family a person could hope for!

Let me tell you, being a missionary in Idaho on Thanksgiving is the way to go! We had like 3 dinners! I felt so bloated that evening! I promised I was only going to grab a little bit of food at each place, but then when I got there, it just looked too good, so I filled my plate. It was pretty great.

Miracles happened this weeks, of which I wont be able to mention all. But it is amazing to me about how when we are thankful, and truly recognize that all things that we have and are, are from God, then He blesses us even more. I've been so blessed my life, more than I deserve. God is good! He loves us and cares about us!

And now, it's officially Christmas time! The second Thanksgiving dinner ended, we were all about Christmas! 🎅 I am SO excited!!! As we jump into this Christmas season, ponder on what you can do to make this season special. What can you do to serve you family and friends and make it the most meaningful time of your life?

I love you all! I'm grateful for you. Hope you're doing well!

1. Elder Beal and I! His first and middle name are Auto and Mo.

2. Elder Strong and I! 💪He's pretty swol!

3.Elder Brown and I!

4. A snow man we made! He's a missionary snowman!

5. Elder Tasker and I! Funny story: in the middle of the afternoon he strd feeling sick, so we went to the church building, and while we were walking in, he just blacked out and collapsed! I thought he was a goner! He ended up recovering and working the entire night. What a beast!

Thanksgiving!

 (Sister Putnam)

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!!

This past week and a half has been crazy!!

After going to the gym on Tuesday, we accidentally left the gym without our keys, locking ourselves out of both the gym and our apartment.  I  hopped the fence to the pool area, where there was a door to the gym and discovered it was locked.  We finally had go enlist someone's help from outside. This guy let us in and we got our keys and thanked him and he said, "If you hadn't gone to the gym, this wouldn't have happened. Moral of the story: Don't work out." Thank you, random citizen!

We also met with Emily and taught her a part of hte plan of salvation.  Then we went and met with Ben and Kathie and taught Ben about the Restoration and invited him to church. Kathie asked us about when we decided to follow God and our personal conversion stories, so the 3 of us shared our experiences.

On Wednesday we had a service project that lasted the better part of the day, and this lady had ducks and chickens and I caught a duck. He was quacking so angrily when I caught him lol.  We also went to Katy and Addy's house and taught about the gospel of Jesus Christ.  During the middle of it, I felt impressed to ask a particular question to Katy instead of do what we originally planned, and - without going into too much detail - we ended up learning a lot more than we would have otherwise, and have more insight as to how to help them both! Follow the small spiritual impressions yall, they aren't really so small!

On Friday and Saturday we went to the Stake Musical to be ushers and we also got to see how talented everyone in our stake was.  It was awesome! Lol Saturday night we had district council and night district council everyone is tired and so funny things are like 10 times as funnyb

On Sunday Ben came to church, and so did Sara and she brought her boyfriend, Ace! Sara is a neighbor girl that Sister Hatton and I started talking to in the parking lot of our complex one day. Sister Rice and I got ice cream with her and we invited her to the primary program last week but she was out of town but wanted to come this week. She said she and Ace loved it and that they want to come again!! We had a departing dinner for Sister Caldwell with President and Sister Auna, and the Senior couples and then we had a lesson with Sister Johnson's friend Nick!

Monday morning Sister Caldwell was picked up by President and Sister Auna to go to the airport. We miss her ;)

Tuesday night we got pizza and went to Sara's apartment to do a paint and pizza night and we talked a lot with her about so many things!!! She's so cool! She is super willing to share things about herself and so we asked her about what she believes about where we go when we die.   We were amazed to find out that she believes nearly the same thing taught in the plan of salvation! She was excited to find that out too! We love Sara and are planning on doing a nails night next time we meet with her!!

Yesterday we had district council and a service project with Opa and a Burn the Bird Zumba workout to compensate for how much we are gonna eat today so that was fun.

Love you all!!

Sister Alyssa Putnam