Day 45, Decatur, Alabama

Hi Y'all!                                                                                                                Monday July 29, 2013

    I'm in love with in Alabama!

    We arrived safe and sound.  It started raining pretty hard right away.  Birmingham is beautiful and so green. They took us to the mission home right away.  Our flight was great, although we were all pretty tired.  A lot of people's (there are 17 greenies) luggage didn't make it on time, but mine did.  By the way, my luggage is awesome and works great.  And I am so glad I only have two bags.  I had to carry one of my companions’ suitcases and another one's duffel bag in addition to mine because I'm stronger, and they had way too much stuff.  But just by myself my luggage is a breeze to take care of!  Thanks for getting me good stuff!

  Anyhow so we arrived at the home about 11:30am  were we met with President and Sister Hanks.  I have the coolest mission president's in the entire world.  I love them both so much. President Hanks is a big guy, and a spiritual giant.  He is straight forward too, but he is so humble and accepting while being very bold.  I was curious how everyone else who already had Holzaphel would accept him, but everyone loves him.  In my interview with him he said: "I have a prediction, you are going to be one of my best missionaries".  I don't know if he says that to everyone, but it made me feel good.  I want to be a good missionary.  I want to be the kind that makes the President cry when they leave because they were such a good missionary.  I think I started out on a good foot.  I am excited to work more with President Hanks and serve him.  It's our jobs as missionaries to make his job easier.  Or at least that's what I am going to try to do.

  We spent Tuesday night in a hotel (Marriot) and had probably the easiest day of our entire missions.  Then the next morning, we went to the stake center to meet our new companions.

  My trainer is Sister Leahman, from Clearfield Utah.  She is amazing.  Blonde, blue eyed, gorgeous on the outside as she is on the inside.  She seemed just as nervous as I was though, it was cute.  I said good bye to Hermana Easter, and we were off to Decatur.

  I love Decatur.  It's not exactly small, but it's kind of sleepy.  Everything moves slower here...which is difficult for a person who is used to go go go go go go.  (AKA-me!)

  We are living in a little apartment.  It basically one big room with a wall that that almost goes up to the top that divides the bedroom from the kitchen, and then there is a bathroom to the side. It's all we need. It's great!  Today was P-day so I scrubbed everything down good because it needed it.  Mom and Dad, thank you for teaching me how to clean.  It's been a very useful skill that not everybody has.  

Alabama is awesome.  Although I have been here for 5 days and no one has fed me some authentic southern food that everyone told me I was going to be stuffed with.  What's up with that?  My companion and I decided that we needed some authenticity so for lunch we went to Wally's and got the lunch box- a pulled-pork sandwich with coleslaw on it (genius!), a little cup of baked beans, and a little cup of potato salad.  It was perfect!  And it tasted so good.  Other than that I just eat my normal Greek yogurt, fiber one, and sandwiches and salads.  Whoo hoo. I'm a happy camper!

  The South defiantly is different.  No one can understand me because we have to switch between English and Spanish so much and so I end up talking in a lot of Spanglish when I am not paying attention, plus I am a white girl from Washington who starts to drawl when I start talking to actual southerners.  Basically, I'm a mess and I just have to repeat everything I say until they get it.  

  As far as the work goes, oh goodness, I love it.  It's hard. But it is so worth it.  I love love love it. The sisters here before... struggled.  So there is a lot of work to be done and a lot of things to polish up, but we are working hard. My trainer is amazing and so sweet. She has been here for one transfer before, but her last companionship... was very difficult.  Her last comp was not motivated to work, and just wanted to do service for members in the ward.  Which is fine, but we are here to invite others who don't already know about Christ too.  Hermana Leahman and I get a long great, and both have desires to be help and serve the best that we can.  So I jumped in with no progressing investigators, and really not much of a base, so we are starting from scratch; including the Area Book.  This past week, we have been tracting all over.  Some very prideful southern Baptists tell us we are wasting our time.  Others, usually awesome African American ladies, give us big hugs and tell thank us for sharing Jesus, but that they are firm in the faith.  Especially this one lady we met Saturday out tracting.  She reminds me of an African American Kristen, she was just so sweet!  She was sitting on her front porch with her neighbor enjoying the afternoon.  She told us we were crazy for being out working at the hottest time of day.  Then she told us to walk to the corner store and buy us a drink and a moon pie-so we said "Yes M'am" and did just that.  

We have found a lot of Spanish speakers as well, and I can understand them for the most part!  I just tell them that I am learning, and then they help me and we talk.  One of the problems is that most Latinos want to go to a church in Spanish so they can understand, but there is only one ward here in Decatur and it's English.  So we decided to start seeing if they would be interested in a Sunday school class in Spanish...and then people got really interested!  And then we got so excited we started inviting people, and then we asked the bishop.  Probably should have done that in the opposite order...but it worked out! Our bishop was excited so our first Spanish Sunday school class will be this week.  

   We have one investigator, Ramero, who is awesome!  His faith is so great.  He calls the Libro de Mormon "bonito libro".  He studies all he can and shows up every Sunday. He is about 29 and from Mexico.  But he wants to be 100% sure before he commits to baptism.  It is a little frustrating, we have shared Ether 12:6 with him and tried multiple ways to show him he needs to be baptized, but he just wants to be 100% sure.  Last night we met with him though and talked about faith again, and how it was an action. I asked him how he could act of his faith, and he said that is a very good question.  He asked if he could answer it next time.  We invited him to pray and think about it.  I hope he comes to the right answer.  Yay for questions!  Anyhow, I brought him up because we asked him to help teach us the Sunday school class because he studies and knows so much, and he has a very strong desire to one day go back to Mexico and share his faith like we are.  I really think this will help him.  He is so awesome; he just needs to be baptized! 

  The ward is great, and I just went around introducing myself and meeting as many people as I could yesterday.  We wanted to introduce ourselves in a good way so we did a musical number during Sacrament Meeting.  I played the piano and Hermana Leahman sang.  She has a beautiful voice!  We actually have sung lots for people because it invites the spirit so well, and the words to hymns are so powerful.  I love "Nearer My God to Thee".

  Each person we come in contact with I just care for so much instantly.  I just want them to have this gospel in their lives.  I think and pray for them all the time.  I love this work.

  I've got to go, but I love this work!  And I love each of you!  I pray for you every night.  Take care!

My new address is: 

     Hermana Aubryann McClune

     2216 Acadia Drive SW apt #170

     Decatur, AL 35603

Con mucho amor,

Hermana McClune