I LOVE PRAYING IN THE SOUTH

MOMS GOING ON TREK!!! She might die. Are you sure that you want to go and sleep in the middle of nowhere in a tent.....  I think it’s going to be a blast, I love the birthday present. The cookie dough blew up in the package.... so there was oats, and flour, and who knows what else all over everything, but it worked out just fine. Also I’ve been taking a few pictures... I’ll have to take some pictures this week and when we go to the temple next week I’ll send my card home so you can’t have some pictures. That's good that Chance is in good ol Texas. If he thinks everyone’s Baptist over there... ooooo boy. I could count the number of people that are not Baptist down here on 1 hand.... just kidding it’s a very large majority down here are Baptist, then Methodist, then church of Christ, then Presbyterian/Pentecostal, then Catholic, then the Mormons... but most of the Baptist are really nice and open to talk, you just got to watch out for the preachers. They will get ya and they’re not very nice haha.

Today we're going fishing with the ward. And we're going to have like 5 fish fries. So summers coming. our friend JP, he’s the one going on his mission to Brazil, had a party on Saturday, his dad was telling us about "REAL REDNECK".... he said they took their tractor and would drive it as close as they could to the creak without driving into it. Would then raise the bucket up as high as it would go, and climb up onto the tracker and jump off the bucket into the creek. Haha, I can’t even tell you most much I wanted to go with them but we can’t swim so we were not able to join in the fun.

Camden is doing super good, and yes I feel like I literally have met everyone in Camden. :) but that's what makes it so much fun haha, it’s really hard to stay working "hard!" down here because there's not a whole lot for us to do. But we are working, even if that working is just talking with the random person at the store for the 5 time this week and getting to listen to their week and what's happened. And trust me I think we should chance church to 2 1/2 hours everywhere, it’s just super good haha. One of my friends in my last area was just saying that he wished church was 2 1/2 hours some days :)

Something that happened this week happened when we were tracking in a part that we had not gone before but kind of had an idea of what was over there but hadn't gone ourselves. So we started off tracking, and a few houses in I knock on this one door, who then responds as most people do "COME IN!!!!!" so you pretend you didn't hear them because I hate walking into houses blind, so you respond with "ITS THE MISSIONARIES!!!" they then follow "I SAID COME IN", by now you have already opened the door about half way and stick your head around the corner to see what all is going on.

This time the house that I peeked into was FULL. There were about 10 people in there T.V. Blasting; the mom is putting a weave into their daughter’s hair. The house is full of smoke, kids running around. so you don't want to hold them up anymore than you are so you yell into the room "we’re missionary's and were going around sharing this book called the Book of Mormon" as I wait for a response I go to look over to Elder Anderson, but the doorway is too small for the both of us, so I’m the only one in the house and the only one that can see what’s going on. After a few seconds of no one daring to say anything, you have to assume they no one has any idea what’s going on. So you ask if it would be all right to say a quick prayer before you leave

Now you got everyone's attention, everyone starts to quiet down and turn off the T.V. and wait for you to pray, I LOVE PRAYING IN THE SOUTH. Nothing is better than praying and every now and then you hear this, "AMEN!" or a "YES PLEASE!" I’m telling you, I could pray all day if that how everyone was for my prayers. I totally understand why people like preaching so much. I think we should have some amens in our church back at home. After I finished praying we asked if we could come back,- no response so we left.

When y'all told me that Alabama was a different world, let me testify that this place really is as far from anywhere else in the U.S. Right now I’m in the poorest county in all of Alabama. I would dare say one of the poorest counties in the U.S. but the love that these people show to us, regardless of how the feel about our message, really shows me how people can be happy, truly happy even when they have nothing. "Do something good today" that's what I try and live by every day.

I love Alabama, I Love Y'all at Home. Missions are the best/worse 2 years of your life, but never regrettable.

Elder Aldana