Hello everyone!!!
Everything is going good out here in Virginia. I'm having a great time helping people and doing service. We do more service out here than tracting. Which is a good thing, because tracting isn't effective out here. The houses are so far apart that it takes a minute to go from house to house. We've done service two days this week. We helped a less-active member put insulation and sheet rock up in his garage on Wednesday. Then we helped the Trents, an active family (well the parents are active), with raking up leaves and acorns and burning them. I'll send some pictures of the service that we did for the Trents. The Trents are amazing. They've been feeding missionaries every week since 1991!!! We were talking about how the Church gives out free videos and stuff, and Sister Trent said "It's not free. Twenty something years ago I ordered one of those 'free' things and I've been feeding missionaries at my house every week since then."
Anyway... It's going great and I'm having fun. This branch isn't really a branch, it's a huge family (it actually really is, most of them are related to each other). It's a family because everyone knows how everyone is doing and everyone helps each other out. I love it out here.
We had a lesson yesterday with the Johnsons, he's the second counselor in the branch presidency, and we got a lot of goats milk from them. They have a lot of land and a lot of animals. They raise ducks, chickens, the have one turkey left (they ate the others), dairy goats, two calves, and some horses. Not to mention four dogs and I don't know how many cats. They're awesome and they love to help us out.
We're so excited to be here. We have a baptism on the 27th. It's a part member family and the father, who's a member, is just barely coming back into activity and can feel a difference in his life when he comes to church. The mom, who's getting baptized, is so ready for it. We went over the baptismal interview questions with her and she said she could do the interview now. Problem is we haven't gone over some things she needs to know yet.
This work is amazing. I encourage all of you to do missionary work in some form or another. It truly makes your life so much better.
I love you all and hope and pray you're all doing well.
-Elder Ricky-dude
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11:35 am
I forgot to mention...
We were the judges of the chili cook off this past Saturday. There were some really good ones there and some really spicy ones. That's what the picture of the table was. We had to wear the hats because that's a tradition here apparently...
The pictures of the dogs are the Trents dogs. The tan one is Lucky, and the white and black one is Whisky.
When we burned the leaves and acorns... we used a leaf blower to give it a little more air so it would burn faster. It burned REALLY fast with that thing. :D
Love y'all
-Elder Ricky-dude
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11:36 am
Oops, once again I forgot
The first picture is of me and the Trents. They're awesome!!
Elder Mallow and Elder Gaunt
Burkesville Branch Chili Cook Off
