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