"Aloha Y'all"

Well we had stake conference this weekend and President Hanks was talking about Hawaiian stuff in his family and then said that he came up with the new greeting "Aloha Y'all" Hermana Wong just about died, she was so happy that he said that! haha! And is taking it as license to use it whenever she pleases :) And guess what. Stake conference was broadcast across the stake! Yeah, can you believe it? Our stake center is about 40 minutes away so it saved a lot of people from having to travel.

 

We met this awesome family this week! Their grandma is a member of the church but they didn't know a lot about it. We've taught them two lessons and committed them to baptism! A mom, a 13 year girl, 11 year old boy, and 8 year old girl. They are the cutest :) We are meeting with them tonight and are super excited to see them! They are so smart and have a lot of faith and their mom does such a good job of teaching them.

 

Hermana Wong and I have been doing some awesome language study this week! It's kind of difficult since neither of us know very much but we have been doing a lot of reading out of the book of mormon and working on pronunciation and comprehension and picking out verb tenses. It's been helping a lot!

 

This week Deantra took us to Waffle House for the first time. It was quite the experience! We had been looking forward to it for a long time and were so pumped! We pretty much already had the menu memorized and were so ready to go! And it was pretty darn good and we were laughing the whole time and just loving it! But the highlight was probably the grits. Yes, our first taste of southern food. It was a big deal people! And they were actually pretty good! I just can't decide if I like it better with sugar or salt and pepper better haha!

 

We went to a member's house this week and I got to play their grand piano. Ah, it was gorgeous and I was in heaven! They had this awesome book of classics. It felt so good to play something other than hymns and just take a step back from everything. It's definitely my passion!

 

I've been reading the New Testament and found this awesome scripture this week.

Acts 18:11 "And (s)he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them. Hermana Wong and I were like, "Yes! That's us!!" It. was. perfect.

 

I don't know if y'all have heard of the 12 week training program but we get an extra hour of studies each day to do it and a lot of it is watching The District. So Hermana Wong and I get together with a bowl of ice cream and watching the district and learn how to be better missionaries. We call it our missionary girl's nights :) It's pretty fun!!

 

Not a ton happened this week besides a ton of rain! and not very much humidity. and gray skies! It was like Washington :) It was actually quite nice! On saturday, we stopped by this family's casa that we hadn't seen in a while because they never answer their phones. and we started talking to them and come to find out...they thought we didn't want to see them anymore and we thought they didn't want to see us anymore haha! Oh boy, glad we cleared that one up. We are meeting with them tonight :)

 

Well now it's time for funny moments of the week!

First of all, we were teaching this guy named Herman. hilarious. So we're talking to him about how our church is different than other churches and then he asks us...so if I become a member of your church, do you think I could find a girlfriend? bahaha! we lost it! from then on, we have now decided to call ourselves matchmakers. but lessbehonest.... You probably have better luck somewhere like Utah. There are not a ton of members around here.

 

Second, we're talking with this super cute girl and showed her the mormon message mountains to climb and were talking about the plan of salvation and then Hermana Wong started to ask her if she would "follow the example of Jesus Christ an...." Well she didn't even get to finish because the girl said, "I would jump in!" Best response to that question e.v.e.r. We love the enthusiastic ones :)

 

And last of all, we're standing outside in the rain talking to the Elders after church yesterday and we ask them if they get chased by dogs very often when they're on their bikes. Elder Oslapas responds..."Well I don't really get chased by dogs very often. Mostly I just get chased by the ladies." STOP IT! We were dying haha! Gotta love those Elders!

 

Well that's all folks. I love being a missionary and I love the people of Alabama! Keep praying, smiling, and sharing the gospel :)

 

con amor,
Hermana Blackner