In The Great Wide Somewhere: 03/13/17

I know I'm a missionary

and I could lie

but I think I will just tell the truth

I have fallen in love.

Whoops!!

Take my tag and send me home

(jk.. please don't do that)

I. Sister Saunders. Am. Actually. And Very Literally. In. Love.

I have butterflies, my heart swells, #SWOON

The name of the love of my life:

Brewton

Population: Less than you think

Town: SO adorably cute

House: quaint little Southern house with a beautiful view by the countryside

Area: Rolling hills, fields, creeks, rivers, valleys, wildflowers, breezy sunny days, green, trees, roads to nowhere, little homes, antiques galore, fancy plantation homes, cows, farm fresh produce

People: Porch sit'n, big hugs, football lov'n, cobbler mak'n, southern accent talk'n, farm'n, Jesus Lov'n, ALABAMA

This place is so perfect. So prepared.

Alabamazing.

I love it.

We have already found so many new investigators in the short time we have been here, so many are prepared for the gospel.

but I need to back up a bit.

Tuesday, I finished packing, said some goodbyes, shared some testimonies, and panicked a little bit.

The Harts let me carve my initials in their tree :)

The Tew family <3

The Elders gave me a blessing.

Can I just say how much I love my District of Crestucky.

Praying they haven't all already forgotten me, they each have made such a profound impact on me and I miss them very much.

Shout out to them<3 I love ya'll to the moon and back and around the world twice and even all the way from Brewton

Loraine <3

The spirit was bearing me up as I left my home of 7.5 months,

and my lovely companion of 3

We drove to Tallahassee because I had a training meeting to be at the next morning where I was so spiritually fed from President Smith about training.

Training is the best thing ever. I am so blessed to be able to train a new missionary again, and very humbled and honored.

After the meeting, I met SISTER FAST

FROM CALIFORNIA

all of my companions have either been from Salt Lake Valley or California

and this California girl.... is amazing.

Transfer van headed to Brewton!

She is my soulsister

I don't even know how to say this in English, or in any other language for that matter, but we are the same person.

the same in all the right ways so that we don't butt heads, but we get each other.

She is a free adventurous spirit that likes dread locks and saving the world and inspiring people and being passionate/soaking in life and learning and loving every second of everyday

She identifies her spirit animal as either Pocahontas, a mermaid, or a gypsy with a little bit of unicorn/Lioness in there somewhere.

My spirit animal is most definitely also a mermaid or a gypsy with a little bit of Cheetah and flying Beluga whale.

I would say we compliment each other very well based on those spirit animals.

lol

life with Sister Fast is so interesting and fun and full of miracles.

Here are a couple

1. Pulled over because: saw a man on a porch and felt inspired to go talk to him. Get out of the car down the street, start walking over there, he sees us and goes inside. I said "Mine elect hear my voice and don't go inside when my other elect try to talk to them" to my companion and we turned around to walk back to the car only to realize as we shut the door, that a man had somehow appeared on his front porch right across the street from us. I opened the door back up and said "Hi!" He said "Hey!" I said "Can we come talk to you?" "You sure can!"

He straightway invited us in, introduced us to his wife, sat us down to hear what we have to say and by the time we left, invited us back for dinner and a lesson saying things like

"You two are so special. How could people not love you? I feel so much love from the two of you. The holy Spirit is with you that's clear enough. I know this is weird, but I love you. Thank you for bringing us light. I have been having a hard time with my church recently, I know God led you here. If you ever need ANYTHING please call us."

They. Are. Awesome. Cute couple.

So prepared it's amazing

2. Went to an appointment, they were running late getting home. Saw a couple of ladies on their porch a few houses down. We went and talked to them, they pulled out chairs for us after a while. Found out one of them recently lost her husband. She cried to us about how she felt, we testified that he is still very much involved in her life and that she will see him again. We talked a lot about the love of God and His intricate plan for us. We thanked her for her faith and kindness. We set a time to come back and they invited us to come for dinner. She promised to make her famous peach cobbler.

TENDER MERCIES ALL AROUND

We get to spread the life changing soul praising news of the gospel AND get food which we need because.. it's a branch of 35 active members and the nearest one lives 20 minutes away from us.

"The Lord is feeding His sheep that are feeding His other sheep" -our ward mission leader

FUNNY STORY

NOT

it's not funny at all

okay it kind of is

Sister P was here in this area before but she was the only missionary assigned to Brewton because she was in a trio with the Milton sisters so they worked both areas half and half

She gave me a binder of stuff I needed to know about the branch and gave me a warning about our ward mission leaders assistant whom we had a meeting scheduled with at his in-laws home where he is currently residing.

"Make sure you are ten minutes early. He's old fashioned and believes if you aren't early you're late type thing. He's kind of a do not contact because of some drama that just happened, but he's probably okay to meet with. He received this calling as a way to hopefully reactivate him

long story short we walked in the house for our meeting and the family was super cold to us

"He's got you set up over there" not so much as a second glance

then he walked in, keep in mind we were five minutes early

"You're late. I'm disappointed..."

we were like.. scared out of our minds at this point.

"LESS TIME TO SPEND WITH YOU LOVELY SISTERS!!!!"

the mother in law then attacked us with hugs saying she was sorry and that she didn't' want to go along with it but they made her, everyone busted a gut laughing because we were in shock and awe because turns out Hyrum (the ward mission leader assistant) is the nicest human in the world and he is twice as active as any other person I've met here.

SHAKING MY HEAD HYRUM

but we still love them