March 28th, 2016

That really was a marathon week! I'm glad you made it and that spring break is here. Thanks so much for the awesome Easter Package it really brightened up my week :) There was some real good stuff that happened this week! None of the other Elders had ever been to a Catholic Church before and Natchez has one of the oldest in all of Mississippi that was built in like the 1840's or something real old like that. So anyway my companion and I were driving past and the doors were open so I had him pull over and I brought him in. There was only one guy in the whole church and he had just got up from praying when we walked in and he about passed out. That is our new homie Phillip. He came up and shook our hands and said that "he had never seen a latter-day saint walk through those doors" and that he had lived there all his life. It was a neat experience. He got to know us a little bit and first and talked to me a lot about BYU football and my companion about history and was just having a good time. Then 5 feet from the Catholic altar he started asking us about Joseph Smith and we were able to teach him about the Book of Mormon and about living prophets. We also talked a ton about Family History and what the Osmands taught about the Word of Wisdom haha It was awesome! About 2 hours later we moved the conversation out to the front steps were he introduced us to his friend the other mass director and was just so happy to have some new latter-day saint friends. He invited us to the special easter mass and 8 p.m. so we decided that would be a good experience. He also gave us some souvenir Holy Water. So we went to this Easter mass and it was pretty neat because through the hand of God we had met all 3 of the priests mass directors. We had met 2 that day and 1 we worked with on the Habitat house. They gave us all candles and lite this like 4 foot candle first and then passed the light of the world through the dark church. It was a pretty cool experience. Church was also a real good time. The Easter lesson went good and a few of the kids that are the wild ones were sick so that made things a little more mellow haha I have started the Doctrine and Covenants challenge were your last 138 days you read the D&C backwards a section every day. Today is section 136, so if anybody wants to join me feel free too. It's been a party and a half so far! I'm happy to be here! I sure love y'all! Things are good! I'm being real well taken care of! Love your mud!!

March 21st, 2016

Mercy, that is a crazy week! Yall are some troopers!! This week was a pretty wild one but not as wild as yours! We had a pretty good week with a lot of rain. We at us some food this week! We had 2 people take us out to really big seafood places on the same day and it was good. I had me some serious Catfish and it was real good, I love catfish. I gave oysters a second chance, but you can tell Shannon Albright that he can keep them. They make my insides angry every time. We also have just seen a lot of tender mercies with Heavenly Father preparing people for us to teach and helping a few members friends desire to come to Church. People really are placed in our path every day. I've been looking forward to coming to primary all week it was a good time, a lot of work but a good time. We have a very unique little ward, so right now we have like 60 ish people coming and like 25ish of them are primary kids and most of the rest are over 60. haha But with Heavenly Fathers help it works. So the new primary president's name is Sister Norris and she is our homie. We have FHE with her and her husband every Monday night. So the best way to describe her is she is a lot like mom. She loves to be organized and run things how they should be. And it was pretty cool cause on Sunday she told us that we are an answer to her prayers coming to teach and be the "bouncers". Class time went really well cause we had treats and colored and learned about prayer. Sharing time was like a war for 1 hour trying to keep everyone quiet and sitting in there seats. Me and Charles had it out more than a few times, and Evealyn a 6 year old in our class kept playing with her dress and jumping out of her seat. So I told her probably 20 times to pull her dress up and then she looked at me and gave me a pretty good lecture about how she needed to pull her dress down not up haha I'll have to choose my words more carefully next week. Our mission president also came and it was a good time. He's a good dude. I hope yall have a great week!! I sure love ya!! Thanks for all of your love and prayers! Happy Easter! Hurrah for Israel!! Love Mud

March 14th, 2016

Dear Dad, mom, and Jessa, I sure love you people! Thanks so much for the awesome package and for letting me know how your week was. That's so good to hear that dad is getting his hops back again shared some raspberry jam with my homie Brother Dollar, cause raspberry's can't grow in Mississippi cause it is too hot. And him and his wife loved it! They send their compliments to the chef. :) This week was long but pretty good. On Monday we had specialized training in Alexandria and I got to see a lot of the missionaries and have lunch with Elder and Sister Horner so that was a good time! For p day on tuesday we went golfing and I learned why I don't golf haha I was bad. But it was a lot of fun, we went with Bro. Norris and had a good time. Even though we all lost he took us to the malt shop and we had some good shakes. We also met a really cool guy on Tuesday that really wants to learn more his name is bill and he is a biologist for the Forest Service. It was really humbling to see how much the spirit has been working on him and preparing his heart. On Wednesday we got to go and keep helping build this house with the habitat for humanity, that is always a fun time! We work with a bunch of good ol boys and this week we finished most of the siding and worked a little inside. Thursday, friday, and saturday it rained a ton and sunday was awesome! It had just been a long week and church just mellowed me out and by the end of it I was feeling good. One of our recent converts gave a talk and she did awesome! I'm glad to be here! I'm also glad to be the new 4-7 year old primary teachers for awhile. We are going to have a good time. I hope you have an awesome week and that you know how awesome I think you are!! Keep on keepin on. Love your mud