November 3, 2014 -- Happy to be here

Hello Familia!!

Well this week has been great.  I really love this area.  Last p-day we went up and enjoyed the leaves from the Pinnacle where you can stand in Cumb Gap National park and see Virginia Kentucky and Tennessee all from one point.  It was SO gorgeous!  It's super fun to be serving with Elder Bradshaw from Holladay.  He went home for 5 months cause of a broken leg and just recently returned.  We took a picture to honor our alma-mater. 
Go titans :)


We also met a Cherokee man who plays the flute! It was cool.  


Anywho, the work has been going well here.  We have had some cool experiences.  The other day we went to contact a referral, and they didn't live there (turns out I'd put it into my GPS wrong-but it wasnt a coincidence!) At the door was a lady named Judy, and we talked to her for a minute and she explained that she wasn't really looking around at other churches at this time.  But then she started talking about her family-she has a young teenage daughter who's making really bad choices.  We talked with her about how God loves us and He gives us these trials to learn and grow from.  She told us that she's never explained that much detail to anyone cause she doesn't feel comfortable, but she feels comfortable with us  I told her that it wasn't us that made her feel like that, that it's the Holy Ghost - and she can have that feeling more if she'll read and pray.  She said that she's busy but she'll try.  Even if we never see Judy again I'm just glad we had that experience and impacted her life for the better a little bit. 

Things with my companion are going better, I believe.  I really like her to be honest.  She is a good missionary, loving, funny and easy-going.  I tell her that all the time.  Her love for me, though, on the other hand, is not as strong, I believe.  I have a lot to learn from her about patience, so that is what I am working on.  More patience especially with investigators.  We have this one named Shirley who's mentally challenged.  You have to meet her to understand, cause she acts like she believes everything and understands it, then she'll thrown in a comment like "Ya, the Book of Mormon was copied from the Bible." I, being my impatient self, just want to drop her.  But Sister Behunin teaches her slowly, sweetly and with no problems.  I need to learn how to be that patient!

This week we got to have pumpkin-carving fun, and watched Legacy with some members because we had to be indoors after 4.  We had so much fun!  

 There's a sister here from Idaho named Rachel White and she is like my favorite, she made us breakfast this morning, and then we went to a Relief Society exercise class.  Cumberland Gap is the life.  I am very humbled and grateful for all the member love and support.

On the other hand, Middlesboro is still Middlesboro - the other day while running in the morning a bearded man hollered out his car window to me, "I love you!" and I jumped out of my britches! and it startled me so bad!!  My companion was laughing pretty hard at me.  

We met two hispanics, hope we can contact them again.  I feel a bit like a stalker cause I talk to everyone I see that even kind of LOOKS hispanic.  One time, at a stoplight, I rolled down the window and talked to the guy next to me and then I asked him if he knows spanish and he was like way offended, he said, "Uh, no, I'm from Chicago and I am not even Hispanic."  It was a good thing the light turned green right after, I drove right off!

So I am still learning how to listen, love, lift, and be patient.  Pray for me.

Hermana Collier