Atlanta Georgia--The Mission Field

WOAH is this real life? A ton has happened this week. So tuesday at 330am we took the frontrunner up to SLC airport and after carrying my 10 million pound bags across the airport we finally made it to the gate and I was able to call my family and talk to them. Ah I love them so much they're the best ever. We flew to Atlanta and all I can say is I've never seen so many trees in my entire life. and WHERE ARE THE MOUNTAINS?! It's not as humid as I thought, the weather is just fab haha. President and Sister Foote (or the feet i guess haha) picked us up and we drove to the ATL temple to do baptisms and the whole time I was just confused if we were going north or south or what cause its literally just trees and open sky. Crazy. We went back and ate dinner at the mission home and stayed the night there in Peachtree City. The next morning we went to the church and had transfer meeting. They assigned us our new companions- SISTER SIMMONS- and did a little training and sent us on our way. So I am with sister Simmons she is from St. George, UT and it's her 16th month on the mish, crazy. (she calls me her baby haha). She's so fun and we get along just great. We're assigned to the "Whitewater area" which is really close to the mission home here in Peachtree City. We live with two other sisters. We are one of two biking areas. So we have a car and two bikes and we switch off with the sisters we live with. I love biking though its a blast.. except for having to wear the helmets haha! Peachtree city/Fayeteville are the really nice parts of GA. I'd say like the Saratoga Springs kinda. All the homes are really nice and the ward here is big (there are few black people) and everyone is sooo nice. We have people signing up to feed us everynight  Oh and funniest thing. Here in ptc there are these little black paths by the roads and people drive golf carts on them everywhere. They use them as cars! there are golf cart parking spaces everywhere and people just drive them to school and church and to stores and they have radios in them and its so cute. Wish they gave us missionaries one!

Anyways my first night we had a couple appointments and then Katie Anderson (from BYUH who lives in Georgia) lives 5 min from us! The other sisters were eating dinner there so we dropped them off and I got to say hi and visit with her! She leaves to the SLC west mission November 3rd. 

The rest of the week we had appointments and lessons with recent converts or less actives. We tracted for a bit... everyone kinda says no. Its funny. Here in the south, when you're knockin doors you say "Hi we're representatives of Jesus Christ and are goin around saying prayers with people, could ya'll use a prayer or could we say a prayer with ya'll". It's CRAZY people usually decline or say yes. Since theres tons of baptists and christians its not uncommon here. There are like 15 different church buildings like baptist, lutheran, christian, non-denominational, etc in the area that people already go to. But Anyways we got one lady to say yes so she came on the porch and my comp asked if theres anything we can pray for and the lady mentioned her son and her mother... then sis simmons said a prayer and by the end of it this lady was crying. THE SPIRIT WAS SO STRONG AND I KNOW SHE FELT IT. We talked more and asked if we could come meet with her another time but she declined. Ah so crazy. hopefully heavenly father can prepare her more so that she can meet with missionaries in the future. 

this one family: the whites are recent converts but haven't been comin to church for awhile so we stopped by to visit. They basically told us they got baptized cuz they were going through hard things at the time and have a lot of questions about joseph smith and his validity (the fathers parents tell them a lot of anti-mormon stuff) anyways we had a long talk with them and we're meeting again tomorrow to re-teach them the lessons. We just keep prayin they'll be willing to read it with an open heart and be willing to pray about it. 

Saturday we got to go singing hymns at the old folks homes with the elders and that was fun! We do a ton of service here. Most missionaries only get to do 2 hrs of service a week but our president lets us do up to 10 a week! 

Sunday we went to church and I met more people in the ward and we spent some time with the medical senior missionaries in our area and our district leader and his comp. I honestly just love everyone here. I hear a lot of "ya'll"s and "have a blessed day"s out here. Not a ton of strong accents but i've heard a few. Oh! Jake: we went to volunteer at a thrift store and the lady workin there said "Hey could you grab that buggy over there" haha she was talking about the shopping cart and it just made me think of you. But yeah, sorry this is so long I just have so much to say! The south is beautiful (btw haven't seen 1 peachtree yet SMH). But I can't wait to see what this week has in store. Missionary work is amazing. Church is true. book of mormon is true. READ IT. god be with ya'll till next monday!