FAMILY!!!
My goodness thank you for all your emails. Its so hard to wait till P-day to hear from any of you but its great to know you are all doing well and being taken care of. This week has been humbling to say the least and I have met so many people, it blows my mind hearing there life stories and the situations they are in. I will tell you all about them in a bit, but can you please send me church music? Like good church music - Through the years, I'll walk with him, on a CD. My companion has a few CDs but after 10mins in the car I want to listen to my church music again. And this week has helped me really appreciate my family so much more. I was real home sick on Sunday because as it turns out I have lived away from home before but I have always had my sisters with me or close to me so I always had someone to talk to about anything. Its different being this far out. Satan tries to attack you however he can and I missed you all alot alot this week, but your emails are refreshing hearing all the support and love you have for me. I am so glad your all enjoying life and having fun. Being on a mission is different to what I expected but I am enjoying it. We get up at 6.30am as we're supposed to, we go running till 7am, then we get ready, then we have breakfast/ personal study, and then companionship study and I really enjoy companionship study. Then we are out all day visiting people or making appointments and then we have dinner appointments and then we come home, plan the next day and start it all over. The experiences are different but I will go with it.
SO this week I have met several people.
We met a lady named Heather, she has 2 daughters, is less active and her daughters aren't members. She is receptive to the gospel and hopefully she will start coming to church. Her little daughter loves church so we're hoping to use her to get her mum to church.
Then we met the Dingledines, they are a recent convert family, they live in honestly a trailer size house, with 2 boys, the dad was having seizures all the time and he used to work at Wal-mart. Once he quit his job at Wal-Mart his seizures stopped and he has been able to find a new job where he doesnt have to work Sundays. There faith is inspiring and they are so willing to do what is right.
Then we met Shane who is a 15yr old boy lives about 40 mins from Emmett with a foster family and is Less active. SO we will visit with him every now and again and hopefully help him come back to church.
My favorite family for the week that we met was the Earls. They have 4 kids, 3 girls and a boy and this family is so golden. We taught them the first lesson and the grandparents were there and the Grandad goes to us, so I live in the middle of no where can I still be a member of this church even if I dont go to church? It was so cool seeing his faith, and the Dad his name is Mart had already read the entire Book of Mormon, and was quoting to us stories from the Book of Mormon. We asked them to pray and they said they would and Mart said he probably had to work on Sunday so he probably wouldnt be at church but on Sunday the whole family comes to church and I said to Mart 'oh so you didnt have to work' and he said well I just decided that my family needs to be here as a family, work can always come later. It was so cool to hear that from his mouth. They have so much potential and I know the spirit will be able to work on them if they are willing. We have another lesson scheduled and a dinner scheduled for friday, and last night we stopped by to drop off a large print book of mormon and they were asking all sorts of questions about the temple and sealings so I am hoping this is only good things.
Then we met a lady her name is Becky, she is less active and we went to do service with her only she didnt have any and we ended up learning of her life story. She lives again in a mobile home, like the size of a trailer, her husband works over in North Dakota and she gets to seem him 10 days out of every 3 months. He's gone for 3 months and only gets 10 days off. She moved from California to Idaho because she used to be a Meth Addict and she has been Meth free for 7 years now, and you know she has so much faith she is just shy to come to church. Honestly Mum I was so humbled walking into her house and she said we finally own everything we have, we didnt steal any of it and we paid it all off debt free. To see such a change in her life, I just wish she would come to church. She would be blessed even more.
Then we met a single mum named Sarah. She has two boys and one is Austistic. She lives on her own, she gets $700 a month and $500 goes to her house payments so in all honesty she lives on $200 a month to support her small family, and her house is the size of a shoe box. She has been working hard to fix up her house so its a nice safe place for her sons. She is not a member but we are hoping that she will be receptive to our messages. She has taken a few lessons from the Elders before but they kinda overstayed there welcome so she got annoyed, but we are taking it easy to see what the Spirit wants us to do. She is amazing, she taught herself how to dry wall ???? I dont even know what that is???
Then we met this lady called Ruth who will confess to having a lot of mental issues, but she is gracious and does want to learn more about the gospel. That was an interesting visit but we will see what happens.
Later that same day we got a referral and went to visit a lady named Valinda. We got there and she literally started crying when she saw us because she was in need of some spiritual upliftment. She is not a member, she is an alcoholic and her husband ray is an alcoholic and was very, very, drunk when we got there. The discussion was a tad awkward to say the least with a drunk man in the room trying to run the show but she said the night before things got out of hand and ray hit her and she was all bruised up and she is wanting to change her life, she has had enough. Interesting though because we went to go back and visit her yesterday and we got the strongest impression from the spirit to not go back there at that time. We are trying to decide when will be a better time to visit and maybe when we can catch her alone without her husband so we can get to know her situation a little bit better. She lives in a trailer and has had a very hard life.
Then last night we met a lady named Angela who was a recent convert in March, she just moved here from Montana and her husband is gone for 3 - 4 months at a time working on a ranch about 3 hours way. She is a little less active already so we will be visiting with her to try and help her come back to church. Its humbling though because I have met so many people who have there husbands for only a couple days a year because of how bad the economy is and how they have to take work where ever they can find it. I kind you not when I say Emmett is a tiny tiny town and the people here are so humble.
Then we met Jamie and Megan last night and they are a couple with 2 girls and one on the way. Jamie is a less active member and Megan is not a member. I am not sure what to do in that situation because Megan seems very shut off from the church but Jamie would make so much progress if he wasnt waiting for Megan to join.
Anyways this is a little bit about everyone I have met. I cannot express how truly humbling it is to walk into a trailer park, or tiny homes and to see that God has literally been preparing these people for us at this time. I know I am feeling a little inadequate but I know my source of comfort is God and these are his children that he needs to hear the gospel. I also never thought I would see such poverty in America of all places. Its crazy to describe everything and like I said earlier what I am doing is nothing like I imagined a mission, yet everything it logically would be.
There is a thrift store in town (like an op shop) so I will head over there and see if they have any clothes, and then we have a grocery store, a mcdonalds, a mini taco-bell and well not very much at all. We also cover Letha, Sweet, Garden Valley and Horseshoe Bend so if you look on a map of Idaho you should be able to see how big my area is. Oh also on Sunday we went to 6 hours of church (LONG DAY) and I was sitting in Sacrament meeting and this one guy gets up to pray and in his prayer he says "We the great nation of America pray to thee God, we Americans come before thee" and his prayer goes on and on about America I nearly busted out laughing in the middle of the prayer I kept thinking is this guy serious? Turns out he was dead serious. And everyone has the American Flag on a flag pole outside there house. I haven't taken hardly any pics this week so I will try and do better and send you some next week.
I love you all and I am excited to get your letters in the mail. I really like mail. Take care, Sister Chadderton
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