Shayla Tilton's Mission Blog: Week one in Decatur...welcome to Texas y'all!

My dearest family and friends, loved ones and not loved ones....jk yall are all loved ;p

First. Happy birthday to Cara, Drew, and Tanya! :)

Second. IM FINALLY IN TEXAS!

Like, what I pictured Texas to be like....im out in the boondocks! love that song btw...

no joke though, everyone has overalls, chews, smokes, ice cold beers, and cattle everywhere. It's quite the sight :p haha! I loveeeee it!!!!

So. We live in our bishop's garage...classic right?! And even better, we have friendly roommates named nasty disgusting freaky huge spiders. Don't worry, my dear sweet new companion, Sister Taylor, likes to catch them and freeze them. It's fine, we just have frozen spiders in our freezer. NBD. That's a lie, it is a big deal! Oh and she just added to her collection a cockroach. I think I may die but oh well!

What's also fun is I drive a truck!!!! It's so fun!! :) Not like dads ford....but it's a truck! I'm definitely learning how to park now, but its needed! We drive everywhere! Our area is like 100 miles radius from one end to the other....definitely bigger than my last area that is fo sho!!!!!! But its sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much fun! The sights are amazing although it cant be caught on camera! :/ lame!

I miss Keller but I've been too busy to think about it much, that's a good thing right?!

So Sister Taylor is awesome!! She's been out for almost 5 months and this is still her first area so she knows it completely...its great! She's from Utah...nothing new there :p and she is such a great missionary! Our teaching unity has been perfect, I love it! Our teaching pole is good, but its going to get better! We have a good amount of investigators, mainly part member families, and some less active, but they haven't been doing any member work here!!!! CRAZYY!!!!! That's only the most important part of missionary work, nbd.

So my first day I met this less active and her brother lives with her and she's taking care of her sick old mom...her mom needs to go to heaven cuz she's the one keeping her from coming to church....I tried to word that nicely :p so her bro, who is not a member and is agnostic actually writes movies...I forgot what ones...but he's making a new movie and said I'd be perfect for playing the girl in it...cuz you know why? I look like im 12 but can make myself look 18...cuz she grows up in the movie...wow. Thanks man! But he's serious! Once he found out that I only had about 4 months left he was like "OMG you can totally be the girl!!!!!!!" Looks like i'll be going to Hollywood when I get back from my mission ;) haha....that's a joke! But it's ok...cuz he's dating the princess of Dubai...weird? They all call her 'the princess' ....ok!

So our most progressing investigator is blind, Chuck! He's in his late 60's and he reminds me of someone on 'a man from snowy river' its cool! But he listens to the BOM and says he believes it's true, he just wants to take it slow. He came to church on Sunday and is getting use to not catholic church...first time he said it was boring....but now is liking it better! :) We taught 2nd hour cuz everyones gone...the ward is small....TONS of less actives! One day it will be filled :)

So we are teaching this one guy in particular, Charlie...and, well, he's kind of an alcoholic...and he's got lots of other problems but that wont be discussed right now...but we've been teaching him and he's come to church 3 times (not with me here) and we had an appt with him and was late to it, we got in our truck and we noticed we had 12 new voicemails....all from him. :p It was hilarious! He was a little hazey....least to say, we didn't go to that appt! But when we did meet with him he said he wanted to change cuz he wasn't happy and he said he'd quit cold turkey with alcohol, tobacco, Law of Chastity...and all them things...and he did!!!! We went over the next day and he was sober, but going thru bad withdrawals. But get this! Everyone in Decatur knows him...kinda weird...and they always come over to his apartment! We meet outside so everyone comes for fun...we end up teaching all his friends! It's sooooo awesome!!!!!!!! There was this one guy, Tyler, who had questions about pre-earth and spirit world and we were able to help him understand and totally used the scriptures with it. One thing I will say is that I have enjoyed learning the scriptures, I feel like I know them so well! :)

Well Charlie, on sunday, missed church so we went by and he had relapsed...NNOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He was doing soooo well!!! But no worries! He's going to get it! :) It's definitely a great experience to be a part of helping someone change...I wouldn't trade this for the world. I love my mission! I love Decatur!

Oh, someone said I had a northern accent...it's nice to know I don't sound Texan :p

Hope y'all have a great week!!!! :)

Sister Tilton

pics:

my new compy! :)