its suppose to get really nasty the next few days i hear

well i am still alive, but after the storm coming in i dont know haha. its suppose to get really nasty the next few days i hear and from the looks of today its safe to say its going to be a good week.... haha but i think were going to do just fine, it shouldnt be too bad, and i dont think that we are going to be having much of a halloween. we dont really have any plans for it at this point. we might just have to wait till after when all of the candy goes on sale and get us some and have ourselves a party haha.

Elder Evens and i have been getting along super well for the most part. nothing too crazy has been going on down here, we just kind of decide where we want to go for the day. bike out there, knock on some doors and try and talk with some people. come home and eat and then go to wallmart and try and talk to some people for the rest of the night. right now were just really focused on a lady named Jackie she is set to be baptized next Saturday at 3:00, were super pumped for her. shes set it and she really wants to move forward so were just trying not to slow her down at this point. 

Miss Jackie has been coming to church for about a year now, and for a long time would not commit to a date. We started talking with her more and more and i think shes ready now more then ever. its going to change her life so much, its going to be crazy the change in her family. My only fear is that her family wont really support her all the way, and shes wheel chair bound, i just hope her family we see how much she wants this and will step in to support her with rides and not just sit around. 

So, the highlight of the week. were working in the ghetto/hood part of town on our way to see a member, and while were heading there we see this car parted outside with a bunch of people talking. So were like Sweet group contacts? i think yes!! We start locking our bikes up to the fence like right next to them and start to try and start a conversion, and they wont like even look at us. One of the guys in the passenger seat looks at me with like a crazy look. Kind of weird but then i start to see in the car, and like the one fellow looking at me has like 50 miscellaneous bills in his lap. The driver has a semi-large plastic bag in his lap, where there are about 40 other little small plastic bags. At this point we realize there a drug deal going on, like a foot away.... and were trying to contact them. So we kind of like freeze up for a second, and they exchange really fast wave to us and pull out there pot pipe like nothing happend.

its crazy the environment down here. i would say the people are alike to the ones in Camden but the environment is 180% different. All i know is that there is a lot of changes coming here in the next few weeks here in the branch and to our mission so it will be interesting to see what all happends. 

i love y'all, hope you have a great halloween!!

Elder Landon Aldana

nothing SUPER crazy has happened this week

i did get the BOX!!! and it was super great, everything in it has been sooo good!!, so i was thinking this week, and its something ive thought about a little bit, but i do not have a set of scriptures out here. If there was anyway that i could get y'all to send me a Quad that would be super great. theres a few things that i would really like to use on it that our pass along scriptures dont have so. it would just make my studies a little bit better, if its not too much to ask for! :)

this week we were talking with Jackie {lady with no toes} and shes doing alright. she has been taught for a few months now, not just by Elder Evens and I, but shes strange. she likes to come to church and has come for about 3 months now, but she has no desire to really change. we have been working on trying to quit smoking and from what she tells us she really wants to but just gives up every time. its like shes doesn't want to smoke but its to much work to fight it. well have to see how this week goes and if theres any other ways we can try and help her. 

this week we have been doing a good bit of tracking trying to just find new people, and the people here are not super happy to see us i would say haha. you can tell the people that really dont like us and the people who just want to talk. last night we were tracking at like 7:50 and its pitch black outside and we knock on this door and the lady starts walking over to the door, she turns on her porch light and looks out and us, waves us off and flips the lights off. probably got to be the highlight rejection of the week, but it just makes you want to go out more. to find those people that haven't met us before. 

this week ive really found a super great time studying King Benjamin out of the Book of Mormon. the guy is just so cool!!! and he just goes down and does things himself. ive really loved trying to figure out what kind of person he was, how he lived his live and the last words we gave to us to study, i think he had a good idea of what God wanted us to do. how he wanted us to interact one with another. 

this week i also really really like something President Hanks wrote us. one thing he talks alot about is what we call arrows out. all of us have our arrows in, we think about me or what about me, and the whole goal is to take your arrows and turn them out. putting others before ourselves, but a quote i loved from his letter today goes something like this

"the only competition you are in is to become what the Lord wants you to be. Your only competitor is.. . YOU!"

ive really grown to love this the more times i read it and really try and apply it to myself. its something everyone needs to work on. and im so gratefull for the life changing advice our wise President always gives us. 

but anywho nothing SUPER crazy has happened this week, just the good ol grind. I Love you all, its so great to be in Alabama!

Love 

Elder Landon Aldana

Lots of pictures!

you have the best looking yard for the last 20 houses!

HAPPY LATE BIRTHDAY!!!!! POP, I did know it was dads birthday, But only after I looked at my calendar and was like, what’s this little writing on Saturday. Ooooo its dads Birthday! So I didn’t forget so much as I was late :) but from what I’ve heard it sounds like y'all didn’t miss a nothin, always on top of things like always. I'm glad that everything is going well for the most part. Its way too great of weather to be having anything go wrong. 

I've been doing really great the last few days. This week was the first week in a long time that we just had the whole day with nothing written down, so we were able to just go out and start knocking on doors. It was the most fun I’ve had in a long time haha, one thing that I’ve learned being in these small towns is that everyone already knows who we are. So you can to find really creative things to say right as they open the door or they just say, yaya go away. For example,

we're just walking around and we knocked on a door, I could tell on the ladies face that she did not want to talk with us at all and was not interested in talking with us at all. She opens the door thinking we’re going to say like we’re missionaries or something, but we look her right in the eye and were like. "HEY!!!! We’re the Mormon missionary’s going around and you have the best looking yard for the last 20 houses." 

It always makes my day to be doing something like that just to see how much their face changes. It goes from, "get off my porch you Cult!" to "Wait what??" she was no more interested about the gospel but she did get a little laugh and gave us a smile. Much better than an I don't want anything to do with your Golden Bible. It’s the little things like that that just make it so much easier to go out and work hard. 

Clanton has been really good so far, it’s not the biggest town in the world but its a little bit bigger then Camden haha. I’ll have to take a video if possible riding on the sidewalks over here, they might just be some of the worse sidewalks I have ever done been on. So they build all these sidewalks but they never built the ramp to get onto them. So you have to jump off them and then jump back on them, the only problem is there’s a new sidewalk about every 15 feet. So you’re just jumping on and off the curb of riding in the middle of traffic. It’s kind of a lose lose situation. 

We’re teaching a lady named Jackie. She’s I don't know how old, older. But she has no toes. She lives in the hood part of town called west end where her neighbor moved out because they were shot and killed a few months ago. She is trying to quit smoking and drinking coffee, she’s super nice and has a great spirit. She is hoping to get baptized on the 31st of October. I wish y'all could see some of the houses my great friends live in, it’s so hard to be here. To see the poverty around in these areas. I am so grateful for the peace in my life the gospel brings to me. 

I love these people so much, I’ll never forget how much these people have touched my heart here in Alabama. I've made it a goal to "ponderize" a scripture every week, this week its Alma 6 : 5. I love y'all you guys so much, thank you for all the prayers for me and this work we’re all apart of.

Elder Landon Aldana 

Clanton Alabama, its a good little town

Clanton Alabama, its a good little town down here, i had heard a lot about it from some past companions and others that i served around, so i felt like i had a picture of what i thought it was going to be like, but holy cow!!! theres like a billion houses here, and a few trailers.... well a lot. but they have paved roads so thats a lot better then last time haha. and we have a wallmart right next to our apartment so im not going to complain at all. 

My new companions name is Elder Evens. He's from Vernal Utah, guess I'm back to my Utah companions again haha, but i really like him. he's funny and is like a cowboy... ish, but more of just a farm boy. We haven't really gotten to see how the other works in teaching and like we just haven't really had the chance to feel each other out yet and found out how the other works. i think that in a few weeks were going to be rocking it. 

so far most of the people that i have met have been really nice to me. they havent been very interested but there nice for the most part. the Branch here is nice, the people that i have met at least. i hear there's about 30 that come but since it was conference only like 4 people came and we got to say hi to. From the people that i have met they have been really nice to me, were still just kind of in that "who are you and why are you here again phase." but i think were going to get along better.

im super excited just to get out and be able to go and do some work, im hoping that this week because we dont really have anything as far as meetings, we can just go out and just grid the days. its been a long time when we have been able to just go out and do missionary work, im really excited just for the change thats here. 

One thing that ive really grown to see is how just like... i dont know if its lazy or im just like kind of uncomfortable here.... i dont really know how to say it like. i feel like something is missing right now but i dont know what it is. something important that like i had in my personality or something, but i just feel off. i dont know if its just because its a new area or what but its kind of freaking me out. i hope it goes away here in the next few weeks or its going to be a weird next few transfers. 

i dont really know what all to say at this point, i loved conference. i think my favorite talk would have to be from Elder Uchtdorf about keeping the gospel simple. it really just stuck out so much to me about just keeping the gospel simple and dont get in the way of the lord and his work. all our just is is to just take what he gives us and work with it. its perfect the way its at just learn to live with it and worry about the hard stuff latter. 

i love y'all thanks for the support!!

Elder Landon Aldana