A letter from Sarah!!

This week has been NUTS! I mean that in both the figurative and literal! The pecan trees are dropping nuts like crazy! Which has been HILARIOUS because my blessed companion is allergic to tree nuts and people have been putting pecans in EVERYTHING!! Also nuts in the---“HOLY CATS, THAT IS CRAZY,”  kind of sense! I am not talking about the regular “missionary crazy” (foreign country weirdness, dangerous situations, people getting baptized in two weeks), I mean just awkward and unusual weirdness!

      I am going to start off with the weirdest story because I really want to make sure y'all get it! So it all began on a regular Tuesday morning! We had just finished doing service for the Catholic Church at Saint Vincent's (sorting clothes and hanging things) we went home and ate lunch (Grandma' s poppy-seed chicken without the poppy-seeds...or much chicken). Afterwards we went to go see one of our Potentials; we had an appointment. Sister Garry and one of the Sister training leaders had tracted into them and kind of talked to them about the Holy Ghost, but not actually taught them anything. So I had never really met with them except when we briefly were able to set up the appointment.

So we pulled up to their house and they were out in the front yard with these tarps. They explained they were taping their tarps because they needed to cover their motor home before it started to rain. So we offered to help of course! They are retired and both struggling with physical handicaps. Sister Garry and I, in our skirts, started to tape up this dirty worn-out old tarp with ace bandage tape (Hey, you use what you got!). They had this little dog who was tied to the porch with her leash, who kept crawling between our legs and would get the leash caught in her "mom," Deb's, ankles. So Deb took the dog off of the leash and "Dollie" started to run around and play with us.

We had been there for about five or ten minutes when this white van started to drive by. Dollie RAN out in front of the car and started to bark at the van. Deb yelled at her to come back, "Dollie get your #$%#@$%

This whole time Dave, Deb’s husband, was yelling, asking, "Deb should I get my keys? Do we need to take her to the vet!?" Deb wasn't saying anything to him. Sister Garry got down and started to look at the dog. He told her "I am going to go get my keys, we will take her to the vet!" and Sister Garry was the one who had to tell him, "I am sorry she isn't breathing and there is blood coming out of her nose, its too late." They BOTH started to cry so we just stood there waiting till we got some sort of prompting or they said something.

The whole time this crazy dog from the neighborhood kept trying to bite/lick/smell Dollie, and Sister Garry would chase it off. After about ten minutes she got up and came back with a box and put the dog inside. I asked her, "Do you want to bury her with her dress?" because Deb would dress up Dollie in baby clothes from the dollar store. She did, so I folded the dress up and put in in next to Dollies' tail.

We asked Deb if she wanted us to leave, and she didn't, so we followed her to the backyard. Dave brought a shovel and started to dig, but he has a prosthetic leg so I offered to do it. I dug a hole probably about 3 feet deep, in my skirt and blouse whilst being devoured by mosquitoes in complete silence except for the occasional, "That van could have stopped! They didn't even stop to apologize!"

The neighbor dog, meanwhile, had gotten in the backyard and was foaming at the mouth and acting crazy. Dave told us the dog actually belonged to the people in the Van who hit Dollie, and, "If I don't get to have my dog, they don't deserve to have theirs." I had already pointed out that foaming at the mouth is a symptom of rabies, so he picked up the phone and called animal control and told them, "I got a dog with rabies in my backyard. You need to come right now!"

Then we put Dollie into the ground and Deb started to cry and put Dollie's blanket on top of her box. We kind of stood there for a moment and I piped up, "Let’s sing a song for Dollie!" So we sang “All Creatures of Our God and King,” which was the only hymn I could think of that would be appropriate for an animal funeral. I talked for a couple minutes about how animals are so important that God tells us about creating them in Genesis and that animals are a symbol of how much God loves us. But mostly about how Dollie was sent to them so they could feel how much God loves them. I can honestly say that it was the spirit because I had NO IDEA what to say! Dave said a prayer and Sister Garry covered up Dollie and filled the dirt back in. AND THEN! Animal control showed up and this old black man comes and tried to trick the neighbor-dog into coming to him. Finally he gets this leash on the dog that was like a noose and it starts to choke the dog and the dog FLIPS OUT and is twisting and freaking out but he gets it in the car. After a while Dave had to leave and he asked us to stay with Deb and help tape up the tarp. So we spent the next couple of hours taping and then Sister Garry ended up climbing up onto their ladder and putting the tarp on the top of the motor home. Remember we have been in skirts and dress clothes this whole time! Dave said, "Well, I guess we gotta come to your church now! We sure do appreciate this!"

They didn't come to church...But we were still glad we could help!

      One of the older Sisters in the Greenville ward made Sister Garry's week. We went over to help her rake the leaves off her yard mostly because she gets lonely. At first the plan was to put the leaves in garbage bags but then the wind died down so she told us just to rake the leaves into the ditch. And when we had finished-- SHE LIT THEM ON FIRE!!! BEST DAY EVER!! Mississippi is super weird about lighting things on fire: if you can light it, they will burn it. I took a ton of epic missionary pictures in front of the fire.

     We had a cottage meeting, or devotional, in a member’s home last night and it went REALLY well. The elders brought over a catholic investigator they have, hoping we could teach him how to pray, specifically how to say a prayer that is not recited and why we do that. It was so awesome, the spirit was SO strong and all of the investigators expressed interest in coming back to the members’ home.

We found 18 new investigators this week! So crazy---AWESOME! I have a testimony of knocking on doors and asking EVERYONE if we can teach them!

LOVE YOU SO MUCH!! Talk to you next week!