Talladega!!!

Hey! 

How is everything going?!?! It sounds like everyone is alive, so I'll put that on my list of things to be grateful for.

This week has been the most incredible week I have had thus far on my mission. The Lord has poured forth his blessings, revelation has been frequent and powerful, and miracles have happened all over the place. It was truly an amazing week. 

Tuesday: We biked 28 miles (yes, we are slightly proud of ourselves). In short story form, the Lord sent angels to keep the dogs away, stayed the forecasted rain, sent prepared people all over our path, protected us in the dark and gave us strength to continue biking. As we were biking home, I literally felt as if I were riding with the Lord. It was an incredible, and very sacred experience.

Wednesday: We saw a less-active couple. They are sweet and really like the missionaries, but if they weren't members they would be eternigators. 

We were also supposed to help a member family move, but they don't have to move. Yay!! :) I really, really enjoy them, so I was pretty put out when I heard they had to move. I'm grateful they'll still be with us.

Thursday: We had an incredibly booked schedule, but it almost all fell through. As we biked, the Lord very clearly lead us to the places we needed to be. I saw a trailer and felt we should talk to the people in there, but there wasn't anyone outside, so instead I talked to a guy walking up the street. He lives in the trailer. We had a very nice conversation with him- he seems to very sincerely desire to draw closer to Jesus Christ. It was neat.

Friday: Friday... where do I even begin?!?!?! One of our particularly poignant miracles happened on Friday. We received a media referral from a girl a while ago. When we called, another girl said that she had signed her friend up to meet the missionaries, but now they had a group of friends that wanted to meet with us. They go to school an hour away from us, but they sounded very promising, and we weren't able to get a ride, so we drove the hour to get down there. Somehow we both knew it would be worth the miles, and it was. There were four high school students, they each went to a different church, but they were very interested in keeping a good world view, and wanted to learn about our religion. 

One young man started off by asking, "Which denomination of Christianity would you say you are the closest to?" 

Sister Stahle answered, "Well, we are closest to the church of Jesus Christ. Like, the original one." From that moment on, we had an incredible lesson. It was beautiful, it was powerful, and they all left with a copy of a Book of Mormon. They asked incredible questions, they thought deeply about the things we were teaching them, they loved how we used the pamphlets, and the Spirit was super strong the entire time. It was a miracle. 

Afterwards we went out to eat around the town, and we once again saw some great stuff. Because the town is an hour from anywhere where the missionaries have been, none of these people really know who Mormons are. They were super welcoming and didn't have the hard hearts that I've seen in a lot of area where missionaries have worked. It was amazing.

Before going down to Ashland, we also had a great lesson with an inactive member family. It was neat to hear them testify to each other and teach each other the doctrine. It was also very powerful, and the sister received a nice bit of revelation. I LOVE lessons like that!!!

Saturday: One of our members, decided to get us a ticket for Talladega in April-basically she took us around to see a bunch of old homes. At first Sister Stahle and I were thinking, "This isn't missionary work... we just go see a bunch of homes..." However, it turned out to be rather different. Yes, we saw a BUNCH of incredible homes, but mostly we talked to a bunch of incredible people. Everyone was dressed super nicely, there were refreshments at most of the houses, and I felt like a southerner. It was almost as if we were being introduced us to the upper social class of Talladega. Sister Stahle is so incredible at making everyone feel like $100, she instantly became best friends with half of Talladega. Later that evening we went down to the square, where they were having a party, and almost everyone we had met flagged us down and started talking to us. It was a great experience, and now we have a great in with the people that would probably typically not think twice about us. It was amazing. 

We also got to go into the local masonic lodge, so that was kind of cool.

Sunday: We were able to visit another sister, one of my favorite widows. She is absolutely amazing, and I love her spirit. It was hot, and we spent a lot of time walking to her house, but it was worth it. Afterwards our Branch Mission Leader took us on a drive through Lincoln, showing us all of the places we could contact people and then we had dinner with them. It was great and we had a lot of fun. 

Thanks, I love you all so much!! Hope you have a great week!

~Sister Pratt