Hola All Y'all: November 16th - First 5 Days in Bama

I gave out my first Book of Mormon at Aldi's (a grocery store) to a guy named Otis who was buying SpaghettiO's (he says he likes them because it's like alphabet soup all with his first initial). We talked about everything from aliens and the zombie apocalypse to modern day prophets and revelation. That was interesting.

These first five days have been busy, but still very enjoyable. Sister Acosta has been sick, so we didn't get to go out as much as expected but I got to go on a Blitz with the STL's from Byrd Springs on Thursday. Sister Castagno (Cuh-Stawn-yo) and I went to see if we could catch Lexus, a potential, but she wasn't there so we went tracting and got 17 “May we teach you's” (an added "Key indicator" for our mission), 3 lessons (which led to a new investigator named Belinda), and several potentials and people to go back and visit, some of which I contacted in Spanish on my own since Sister Castagno is an English speaking missionary. It's interesting that no one ever slams doors, and many more people are at least willing to give us contact information to schedule a time to come share a message about Christ than those that aren't interested. They usually just say they have their own religion already and such, but it's true, everyone here loves Jesus and it's awesome.

Ummmmmm so much has happened I'm trying to narrow down to the most interesting and important stuff. H'na Acosta taught me a couple ways to contact on the street/in public: One of the missionaries will spot someone, turn to their comp and say, "You ain't down!" and somehow discreetly point, nod, or motion with their eyes who they're talking about. It's a challenge to lead out talking to the person about the Gospel. The other is to say "Want to eat the TOAST?" (In reference to Nacho Libre) but with an added context of an acronymn:

T- Thrive

O- On

A- Awkward

S- Situations

T- Together

aka, go awkwardly throw a Gospel discussion in a stranger's face.

In the Branch yesterday I gave a short summary of my life (Snow College, hula-hooping, singing/writing songs, art, sewing, family, why I'm serving a mission, and Oakcrest of course) and bore my testimony in Spanish. Afterwards, a recent convert named Carlos told me that when I was talking he wanted to yell "CHILL!" from the congregation because public speaking for me leads to very rapid speech. I do much better in discussions though. He said "I'm from Puerto Rico and even I don't talk that fast." haha.... oops. O.o

All in all, I've gotten more comfortable talking to strangers and opening up about the Gospel and teaching in various situations. I'm excited to actually start having regular investigators as I've only met one of the investigators that the Huntsville B sisters have. I helped bring in two people from our Blitz as new investigators:

Belinda (African-American woman in her 20's or 30's) - taught her the Restoration in her niece's apartment spur of the knock on Blitz; planning on another lesson with sister Acosta this week. Her mom died two years ago so I'm thinking Plan of Salvation/Eternal Families would help a lot but she already believes her mom is in heaven as she was a good Christian woman. I like her a lot. She's very faithful and respectful. When we brought up modern-day prophets, she raised her hand and said "Now I disagree, but that's ok; go on". hahaha. So I used the 3 questions from the talk "Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration" to talk about why we have prophets: Does God have the same power as He did in Bible times? "Yes" Do we need Him as much as the people in the Bible did? "yes" and do you believe that He loves you as much as He loved His children that lived in the times of the Bible? "yes" Then, I bore my testimony that because of those questions can be answered in the affirmative, that it follows that God would want to bless us like He did His children in the past with prophets to lead and guide us and give us revelation. She seemed more receptive to the idea that Joseph Smith could have seen God and Christ than to the concept of prophets. Odd.

LeAnne (white woman in her 30's or 40's) - blind woman we contacted on our Blitz that we taught about the Book of Mormon. She downloaded Mormon Channel on her phone so she could listen to it online, and she was so excited to start listening to it. I asked if there was anything we could do for her, and she asked if we could help her clean her house because... .she's blind... and she struggles with that a lot. H'na Acosta cleaned out the toilet and sink, I did the tub. We agreed that if we could keep coming back to talk about the Gospel that we could keep helping her with her house bit by bit. Ugh. *debating* yeah. Cleaning jobs are worth it if we can even just plant a seed for her. We have to tread lightly though because she was saying she doesn't want to be converted or anything but she invited us in to chat sooo I need to find a way to get her to subconsciously get a testimony of the Gospel haha

All in all, we teach a lot more in English than I expected to, but I could feel the Spirit very strongly in several of our lessons and contacts; I'm so excited to become closer to our investigators. I love them already. We fasted for Victor (investigator with a baptism date) to be able to find a way to come to church so he can be baptized; but he has work all the time now. Still working on that. I haven't met him yet though.

Loving it here! The field is so white and ready to harvest!!! Ahhh!

Church is true,

The book is blue,

and God loves you!

~Sister Laurel Martin