Yes sir..... We are starting to sweat!

Yes sir..... We are starting to sweat! This week was HOT, haha. I don't know how hot everyday has been but I know Saturday it was 91* and we rode about 15 miles. I got COOKED. Never in my life have I sweat so much. I didn’t know you could get that wet and still ride a bike. It was like we were just swimming down the road haha. Even walking gets you starting to sweat. But it’s been really good down here. Everything is starting to come together better than we ever thought it would.

Here’s a cool fact for y'all. Montgomery south Zone of the mission (or my zone) has had 0 baptisms in the last 7ish months. Last month we had the highest baptisms in the mission, we got 8. THAT’S CRAZY!!!!. It really goes to show that it’s your attitude that shapes your area, or at least played a major factor. It’s amazing to see a Zone that was dead for a long time jump back into life, as we missionaries are obedient and go to work. A clip from our mission president a few weeks ago.

I have great confidence in each of you missionaries in the Alabama Birmingham Mission. This isn’t just any old mission. They can send any old missionary to any old mission. This is the Bible belt. This is the buckle of the Bible belt! This is plain old difficult fun! And they only send ROCK-SOLID STARS to this mission. 

I add my testimony that the south is not a place where you can come out halfhearted and find any joy out here. Just like our good old mission president says, these are the 2 rules of the mission. 1) I know my mission president loves me. 2) Never Give Up.

It’s very easy to find problems with your mission but these last few weeks I’ve watched Camden where I was told nothing happens and everyone didn't like missionaries, go to a place I don't know why people could ever hate. It’s just so GREAT! This place is the coolest place I’ve ever been. Right now I’m sitting across from 5 people. Of the 5 I know 4 of them on a fairly good basis; I just talked with the librarians about Utah, and my family, and learned more about their family and about what they did the last few days. I don't know any other place that I can walk outside, and know about 50% of the people I see.

This week I’ll give you a little bit of a taste of what it’s like on an average day here. We’ll get up, I'll clean the dishes and work out my knee for a little bit. We’ll take a cold shower, (because our water heater blew up) now that I’m more than 110% awake we eat and start our studies. We’ll study for a few hours and then get on our bikes/or car, and we'll go for as far as the road takes us. Once we hit a 4 way stop we park the car and get our bikes. And start riding.

Once you find a house and talk with the person, your next house is about a 5 to 10 minute bike ride, down a dirt road, or the paved road. And that's how you go about finding people. It’s CRAZY, Yesterday we rode our bikes for 2 hours and met 5 people. We rode down a dirt road for most of the time. We’ll come home, cool off for about 10 minutes and then go to the church for some branch activity we have planned. Enjoy the company of the 1 branch member that showed up and return home for the night.

WOW that's Alabama.... That's the south, all the while it takes you all of your brain just to understand what people are saying. This week we were walking around dollar general, and one of the workers, E started talking with us for a little bit. She’s this SUPER funny black lady that we see a lot around town and in the store, but just talking with her about really what we do, has made me really see how were effecting this place. I love this place here. I can’t put into words how much I love this mission. It’s no doubt the hardest thing in my life, but it’s the most rewarding thing in my life.

I love you all

Elder Aldana.