Okay! So I am actually really excited to tell you about this week!

            I FINALLY HAD A SOUTHERN WEEK! Which is really weird because Vicksburg and Yazoo city where I am serving in ARE REALLY DEEEEPPP SOUTH!  I wish that I were a better writer just so I could somehow describe it to you!! But here is a short list of very southern things I did just so you can somehow fathom what it is like:

-I had frog legs as a meal twice in one day (from a member and an investigator. I do not like frog legs they taste like swampy oil.)

-I tracted along a bayou (there will be pictures of my mosquito bites, it looks like I have a disease)

-I was taught a lesson by a Baptist minister about why The Book of Mormon is the anti-Christ. (She is supposed to read the introduction and the testimony of Joseph Smith before our return appointment next week so BOOYAH!)  

-SO MUCH FRIED CHICKEN!!!!

-SO MANY RIBS!!

-I had catfish...I am not sure how I feel about it yet...

-SO MUCH FOOD!!  

-I sat on the edge of a porch, on a trailer, on the shore of the Mississippi River, eating jambalaya while we watched the herring fish in the mangrove trees down in the water. ALL THE WHILE--a 75 year-old black lady told us stories about her first day at an integrated school....SOUTHERN TO THE MAX!

-We contacted our media referrals in Yazoo, which we don't usually have the miles to do. Yazoo is super rural and 50% farms 50% Mississippi jungle. Which leads to the next bullet point!!

-I BIKED THROUGH A COTTON FIELD!!!!!!!!!!!! WE HAD PERMISSION, BUT THAT IS BESIDE THE POINT!! MY LIFE IS LIKE GONE WITH THE WIND! I WAS RIGHT!! Only part of the cotton had blossomed, which is why Sister Walker’s allergies allowed it.

Fourth of July was awesome! At ten a clock they started to light of the cannons at the military park every hour. So to end companionship study we sang, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” while the canons were going off. Probably one of the more dramatic moments of my life. We had some appointments that day, but mostly we tracted in this trailer park our golden investigator lives in. Lots of drunk people. And then we drove into the Mississippi jungle to the Johnson's (it is thirty minutes on a dirt road, I made Sister Walker pull over so I could get my camera out of the trunk) but we ate ribs and talked about how we can reactivate the black population in our church.

 

            Yesterday during fast and testimony meeting AL bore her testimony about how Sister Walker and I are good people and the lord loves us, it was basically my favorite testimony in the history of EVER! 

            When I got to Mississippi, I thought there were a bunch of frogs in the trees...well...there aren’t. I honestly thought cicada (the bugs that make that noise) were frogs. Finally they got so loud I told Sister Walker, "It must be really annoying to have so many frogs in one tree..."

            "Uhhh-- Sister White. those are bugs..."

            "AHHH WHAT??!!"

            She picked up this HUGE dead bug in the gutter! They are so gross! But it is so cool to go tracting in the afternoon because the cicadas wake up then! 

            I love being a missionary so much more now that I have some experience (1/18 months) under my belt! There are so many awesome spiritual moments, so many funny moments with people I don't ever know or remember what to tell you! We are so busy all the time because people just let the sisters in.

 

I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU!!!

 

Oh my gosh: Mississippi has cured me of the pack rat disease!! I do not know what it is about the south, but their front porches are littered with junk and then you walk in and they have three computers from the early ninties stacked up in the corner and millions of knick knacks covering every surface. Which is gross because that is how you get cockroaches. SO, YES! Throw it away!!!

LOVE: SISTER WHITE!