How was your turkey day for ya? Mine was great! We ate at the Alvis' home (they just had a baptism in their family, the mom and daughter were baptized by the dad) and we stuffed ourselves. Then we raked leaves into a pile and burned them at their house. It was a big pile and everytime I used the rake to move the ashes around I swear I lost part of my eyebrows from the heat. But it was fun. Then, 4 hours later, we had to stuff ourselves again at the Roark's. Now the Roark family and the children of the Roark family make up half of the branch. So needless to say, there was a lot of food! And it was great food. Sis. Phyllis Roark (the one of the eldest Roarks) is a well known cook in the branch and her cheesecake is legendary. Yeah, we ate really well! It was so much fun and I haven't laughed that hard since our Thanksgiving. The Roark's are just full of stories and jokes and humor to last for hours. So it was great.
By the way, I'm staying here for another six weeks. Transfer calls were last night and we got a call from our district leader asking us if we got a call. We told him no and he said "yeah, you're staying." So we called the Trents, and being the punks we are , we told Bro. Trent we had some bad news. They are gonna have to put up with us for another six weeks. He said "What's your mission presidents phone number! Give me his number!" and we just laughed. We then texted (yes we now have texting and it makes things so much easier), a bunch of people in the branch that we're staying and they all said "Good." This branch was really praying hard that Elder Gaunt and I could stay. Sis. Warner was glad because she's incharge of the branch Christmas party and she drafted us into the "choir". There are about 5-7 people in the choir and Elder Gaunt and I are the only men. And we have two duets that we are going to sing. Yeah, Sis. Warner didn't give us an option, she just told us "you're in the choir and you're singing some songs by yourselves."
So I'm sending some pictures of the baptism we had last Saturday. It was an amazing experience with a fun twist in the story. So the baptism was scheduled at 6pm and we get a call from our branch president at 4:37pm asking if everything was ready. We told him the font is filling and we're all set. He then proceeded to tell us that Makayla (the daughter) is actually not a child of record and is therefore under the juristiction of the mission president. She isn't on Bro. Alvis' record as his daughter (he wasn't active when she was born). We then said "Crud, we'll make some phone calls to see if we can get a missionary down here to interview her before her baptism." We call our zone leaders (our district leader was on exchanges with them) and told them the situation. Our district leader said "Oh dear..." and told us they were going to make some phone calls. About five minutes later he tells us they are on their way down to do the interview... from Richmond (it's an hour away and it was 4:45). We then called the Alvis family and asked them to come a little earlier. Everything worked out well because we needed someone to play the piano and Elder Abbott, the zone leader Elder Shelly our district leader was with can play the piano. It was a miracle that worked out well because we only started five minutes late! And because of that, we hit our goal of two convert baptisms for the month of November! Then yesterday they were both confirmed into the Church. Elder Gaunt confirmed Robin, the mom, and I got to confirm Makayla, the daughter. They are a solid family and are so devoted to the gospel.
Miracles can and DO happen in the strangest ways.
I love you all and I hope you all are doing well. And if any of you are thinking about sending me a cowboy hat for christmas, don't worry about it...the Trent's have that covered
-Elder Ricky-dude
P.S. the attached song is a song that our district leader, Elder Shelley, gave to us. It's pretty cool! At first you'll think, "what the heck" and then you'll be like, "this is cool". At least, that's what I thought. If it doesn't come through, let me know.
