18 MONTH MARK!

Hey Y'all!

Texas is awesome! I love it! :)

First, Happy Birthday Daddy this week!

Second, IVE BEEN OUT 18 MONTHS!!! What is this world coming to?! Why does time fly by so fast?! Well! I give all my credit to the Billmire family for making my 18 months a blast! So this week I blew up a full on outfit! Yep! BLEW IT UP! Well, Bryce Billmire did! (he was actually in the Denton YSA last year when I was serving so were totally bffs now! :p ) So I have a video...but cant see it cuz I cant send it! But its pretty legit! We gave my outfit some Tanerite and gasoline and a little shot (Bryce shot it, not me) and it exploded! Best thing ever! My clothes = disintegrated! >:D 

Next, Happy Halloween! Hope yall liked my card I sent! You wana know something crazy?! 

Fact: Only in Texas, Decatur particularly, would they switch Halloween to Oct 30th because Oct 31st is on Friday and we cant ruin Friday night Football. Yes, they SWITCHED Halloween because of Football. Are you fa realz?! Great! So we had to stay with members on the 30th all night (luckly we had an appt so we didn't have to worry about that) and stay inside for the 31st. 

Well Nov 1st we had our ward Fall Festival with turkey shoot, food, and trunk or treat! It was so much fun!!! and FREEZING!!! There were so many less actives that came, part member families, investigators, and peoples friends. So much fellowship! It was great! :) We didn't even have to get people fellowship, everyone just talked with everyone. Ward functions should really happen more often :p No we didn't get to shoot but one of the less actives, MaryAnn that we're teaching, came and had never shot clay pigeons, won the womens turkey shoot! It was awesome!!! She had fun, although she got some bruises. 

Sister Bangs and I, on Halloween, were each other, but at the Fall Festival we were twins, both me! :p haha it was hilarious! People would call her Sister Tilton then think...wait, that's not it! Trunk or Treat was so fun! The kids just loved us! And that's probably cuz we were the only truck that actually decorated...no one else did! But it was so much fun! :) I really just love this ward! They are so close knit and its a whole county! How crazy! Such a huge range but so close together! :)  

Alright, so this is the greatest thing that happened to me all week. Did you know Jesus Christ is on the earth right now?! YEAH! He's reincarnated, living in Bowie, TX (our area), is a cowboy, and 25 years old right now. But its fine, he doesn't know that he's Christ yet, but apparently his dad does. Awesome right?!! So we met the CRAZIEST person in the whole entire universe. No joke. He has read the Book of Mormon a million times, D&C, and the Bible all to get secret codes for when the Second Coming is. He has met Christ... i don't think reincarnation was ever talked about in the Bible... :p and he knows the date when Christ will start burning the wicked but he said he wouldn't tell us. Its all going to start in 2017 though. Let's get ready yall! ;p So he was telling us to prepare and was even telling us that we need to start getting food storage....well he obviously doesn't know that that's something we as members already have been doing. Like seriously, he was a crazy man!! He's said his 100 prayers and doesn't think he needs to talk to God anymore....I feel sorry for this man. I think it was the most oddest thing I have EveR encountered. #welcometodecatur

Moving on, :p So Marilyn has been keeping herself busy and is cutting down for sure on her smoking which is great! She is seeing the Atonement work in her life. It's great! She went to the Fall Festival, her and her daughter Ashton, and they both enjoyed it although they froze to death :p 

Miguel we were finally able to meet this week, twice! And he is still at the same place he was last time, really busy, but still wanting to be baptized even though he knows he has to get married or move out, he's just trying to figure out how and what to do. Family is so important to him but is struggling to see how to make it work with this. We taught him the WOW after church on Sunday and he kind of freaked - he likes his coffee - but isn't 'addicted' to it, just likes it with his doughnuts :p great excuse right?! Good one Miguel! :p He is so funny!

Charlie is still pressing forward, he keeps slipping but only with one beer or so. Then he's back on track...till his darn friends come over the next night. He just has to move!!  

We met with Peter this week and oh my goodness, he is on the wrong track on why he's reading the BOM or studying...he's looking for historical points and critiques peoples writings. We gave him the talk "Blueprints of Christ's Church" and he read it and TOTALLY was pointing out things that he didn't explain correctly (He's an architecture). He said he would like to email "Mr. Callister." Really Peter?! Hahaha! Whhaaaaat?? He is too much of a perfectionist in this. We're trying to help him understand that its not about how great of an education our prophets and apostles have, but how it can help him spiritually come closer to our Heavenly Father. We challenged him to study in that way, so lets hope he does it! He's a keeper... :p Also, he told Sister Bangs that she should become a preacher and make her own church...that was hilarious! 

Well that's it for the most part! Have a great week! :)

Sister Tilton

pics: 

                                     18month blowup! Casie, Bryce, and Brady! Clothes in the barrel 

 Caught it in the process! :)

 skeleton trying to eat me...

 boogers!

 Van Wagoner's kids thought itd be funny and make a random fort in the bed of our truck... so we chilled in it :p Morgan and I :)

 Clifton (apple's son) gave us flowers for a present for Halloween! He's just adorable!!!!!!

 Halloween: each other

 Fall Festival: Sister Tilton twins :p

Shailey and Morgan wanted to be like us! So they put on our name tags too! :p

Trunk or Treat! Meet Bob! :)

Crystal(RC) and Garrett!

 This is Sister Chapman! She's so awesome! :)

 Having fun at the Laundromat

 My poor Jack :( he's dying!

Im running out of Subjects....

Hello everyone!! 

So....Larissa's home. Thanks yall for rubbing it in my face!!!!!!!!!!!! 

OH my goodness its almost Halloween....not that it matters to us :p

So you know you've been in Texas too long when your reading the Book of Mormon and read "you shall... " as "y'all shall..."  . . . . . . . wow I'm retarded! Who does that? Pretty sure not even Texans do that...or do they.... 

This week went by a little slower...I wonder why *cough Larissa cough* cuz I knew she was home! Awful, I know! But we still got a lot done! :) First off, I am doing great! I am almost done with Doctrine and Covenants and am rereading the Book of Mormon again. I mentioned that President Ames challenged us to read the BOM in 2 months before Elder Cardon came. Well one thing that he also told us and that is soooooo true is that without the Book of Mormon, and prayer, we suffocate spiritually. After I was done reading the Book of Mormon from the challenge he gave us, a couple days later I was just like "ok, now what?" I felt a little empty not studying it. Weird that that happened. So I started again!! And its AWESOME!! :)

Something that is also increasing, besides my testimony, is this sista! It seems like everyone just wants to feed us fast food now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHATTTT THE HECKkkkkKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!! Im suppose to be on my 6 month sexy right now and boy it aint working!!! 

This week we had awesome opportunities to teach new people. We had a potential that when we went to her house she told us that she found her Bible, pulled it out to show us, and as I was looking at it I saw the word "Stake Center" written on it.... say what? So I look closer and it was from our church!!!!! Donna (the potential) had gotten in about 5 years ago at a book store and had never looked at that. Well she was astonished! so were we, trust me! She was soo amazed and kept saying "I don't think this is a coincidence!" Nope, Donna, it isn't!!! Well lets just say, she's fixin' to become a Mormon ;) The only thing is that she is a home nurse 7 days a week and takes care of this old lady every day from 8-12pm so we have no clue how she's going to be able to come to church...but she said she'd try to figure something out. So I'm hoping God helps her with this! 

Virginia is my other favorite part about this. So actually Donna takes care of Virginia nights as well. But we were at Virginia's house this week and talking about Donna's Bible we also started talking about Joseph Smith as well. Virginia is totally a basher when it comes to that but Donna was saying that she believed it was true and Virginia was like "YOU BELIEVE IT??" Donna: "yeah I believe it!" Virginia: "Well I think....im gona bite you!" Hahaha what?? It was the most randomest thing ever! Gosh I just love that lady!! :)

Next we were able to have a great week with Charlie! We read "Blueprints of Christ's Church" by Elder Callister and he loved it! Ok. Y'all need to read that cuz it is Ah-Mazing!!!! It helped him understand so much better the reason there should only be ONE true church and what "true" meant. He's been better with not drinking but still is falling every now and then. Don't worry, God's got this!

Chuck is back to "needing more time" because he see's it as a big struggle to quit coffee but his sister Jessie said she'd work on it with him this week. Come ON CHUCK!!!! I told him that he's getting baptized before I leave and told him im leaving nov 12th so he best be baptized by then! :p Hopefully that helped? haha  

We also met with Marilyn as well (LA) and it was such a great lesson we had. A couple weeks ago we were impressed to teach her the Word of Wisdom but were unable to get to it because she had other needs and questions. Well we taught it to her last night and she started telling us of some things that she was struggling with that we didn't even know would be a concern. She has been smoking since she was 14 and can NOT seem to stop, no matter how hard she tries. Well something that I learned from President Sagers was I asked her to grab her cigarette pack and I grabbed a picture of Jesus Christ and put them side by side and she couldn't look! I asked her what she loved more. She has such a big desire to quit and that seemed to hit her hard. The Spirit was strong and she could feel it for sure!! LOVE THE SPIRIT!!!!!! :D So we made a plan with her that when she has the urge to smoke or when she needs to smoke, to first say a prayer and read a chapter out of the Book of Mormon. She agreed! So we're hoping it helps her get rid of the urge and addiction. I know she can do it!!! :) I love this work for sure! 

Well that's about it for this week! Hope yall are having the time or yalls life! 

Sister Tilton

pics:

my 'not scary jack skelington'

 All our pumpkins!! :) its always so nice when our ZLs tell us that we have to wear our pros clothes to pday activity...and then everyone is wearing normal clothes...I was mad! -_-

 the most randomest things on my desk: pepper, peanut butter, and hot sauce!

 this made me question why Adam partook of the fruit. I could've totally delt without thistles and thorns! Note to all: NEVER walk in Texas grass barefoot....or in sandals!  

 what happens after church in Decatur? the kids go dumpster diving!

 my favorite! Sister Van Wagoner! We had a member family teach us the Gospel of Jesus Christ and we were the investigators. Ally (Sis V) also sat with us and she was acting muslim. Caught her in action! Hahah! It was the funniest thing ever!!!!