Gretna

Hello Everybodee!

I have to admit, my new area, even though it's not all that far from some of my other areas, is really different. The culture is much more like I'm really in the South than before. Gretna is a very small town, and I can walk to almost everywhere in it pretty easily. Of course, our area's a lot bigger than just Gretna. And apparently, because Gretna is so small and only has a few police officers, they have a pretty bad drug problem. And the stereotype of "the other side of the tracks" is a reality here. But no worries, we have lots of people looking out for us. And there's only a branch here. My first time in a branch. There's about 40 people that come on Sundays and they're almost all old. They laugh about that themselves. They're almost all 50 and above. Absolutely no youth, so they don't have to worry about callings like YM/YW leaders. And only a small primary. Needless to say, it's very reverent during the passing of the sacrament. But the members are awesome. And they have a lot of time to do missionary work with us! I still get fed all the time and they already have an exchange schedule going to go visiting with us. They are a crack up. And the Elders that we took over for actually left us with some really good investigators who are close to baptism, and the house didn't smell near as bad as the last one. Of course, the first thing I had to do was clean and rearrange everything’ I still just don't understand Elders' sense of organization.

My companion’s name is Sister (Heather) Bell. She's from southern California and is really into the performing arts. She's a great missionary already. I probably learn more from my companions than they do from me. I just fill her in on the little things like the how of keeping paperwork, and things like that. Oh, we actually live in our own little house that we have all to ourselves, so no people that live above us that yell at their kids or smoke so you can smell it through the vents.

I've been studying a lot about faith recently, and I just don't know if I can ever really have the faith like the people in the scriptures. But I've been trying. And there really are a lot of little miracles that happen every day if you just recognize them. For instance, we had tried to meet this investigator, but had never been able to find her home. Then later on we decide to go tracting on this certain street, and at the last minute decided just to walk there instead of driving, and on the way back, we were passing this parking lot, and someone calls out to us. It was the investigator that we had tried to find earlier. She just happened to be in that parking lot and happened to see us and think to herself that we looked like missionaries and thought she'd stop us to see if we were the new ones the Elders told her were coming. It's just amazing to me, how Heavenly Father really does know every little thing and can make things work out exactly how they should be if we just trust Him. And it was funny, because we had completely forgotten about it being Super Bowl Sunday that night; no wonder no one answered their doors.... but we were at the right place at the right time to meet this investigator. Cool, huh?

Well, I'll try to take some pictures for you so I can send them next week. Love you all!

~Melissa