Bryndee Down South: SHOOT!!!

Hello everyone!

So, remember how I was super freaked because I was whitewashing and training and leading and everything?

Well, the training and leading still happened, but instead of whitewashing an area, I’ve been called to open up an entirely new area.

Shoot!

The Lord sure must trust me or something....

Welcome to the Simpsonville 2nd ward! We are just south of Greenville, SC and it is absolutely beautiful here! We're in a ward that hasn't had Sister Missionaries in over 10 years, and I have never seen a ward so excited before!!! They're wonderful! The ward is made up of 80% new families with 3 babies, and 20% old people. Our bishop's name is Bishop Powell, and he reminds me tonnnns of President Houserman... super wise, but funny too :)

Opening an area is definitely the hardest thing I’ve ever done. The ward was previously made up of 2 sets of elders, who shared an area, but they have now sent the elders down to Laurens County, and given us charge of this new area. We are currently doing lots and lots and lots of logistical stuff, but we have somehow found time to put a few people on date to be baptized this week :) thank heavens for UPS... I swear, that job prepared me more for my mission than anything else I ever did (besides reading the scriptures and stuff :)) !

My companion is Sister Cierra Belyea (pronounced Bell- yay) and she is super sweet. She comes from a split home, so she is able to offer our investigators a lot of cool insights into that. Her dad is an airplane mechanic, and her mom was a flight attendant, so she has spent half of her life in an airplane, and been all of the places that I have always wanted to visit.

Sister Belyea and Bryndee

The "Greeie"' package Sister Belyea's mom sent them.

The view out her back door...beautiful! She (or I) can't believe how green everything is!

Simpsonville, SC...So beautiful and green!

The area they are in charge of.

People we have been working with this week:

Bryson: Bryson is probably my favorite investigator I've ever had. He's just super funny! He is very political, and super bible smart, smokes a pipe like Sherlock Holmes, and just really fun to talk to. Right now we're teaching him about the Priesthood, and the Plan of Salvation, and he is on date to be baptized on the 6th of July.

Herb: Herb is a 30ish airplane mechanic whose wife recently died. We taught him a little bit about the restoration and he wasn’t super interested, but then he asked us why God allowed people to suffer so much, and we switched gears and taught the Plan of Salvation. He got all quiet and thoughtful, and we took a plunge and invited him to be baptized. He agreed!!! It was such a powerful lesson, one of the most spiritual ones I've ever taught. I am so excited to see him baptized in July as well.

Dejon: Dejon was actually taught by the elders, but he ended up living with his cousin in our area the week before his baptism. Most stressful thing of my life: coming into our new area on our first day, getting a call that basically said "Hey! This guy is getting baptized in three days; ya’ll should probably plan a baptism for him..."

Shoot!

I'd never gotten to plan a baptism before! And here I was, with my new little trainee on her first day, and figuring out how to plan this baptism with ward members I'd never met.

Fast forward to Saturday morning....

We get a panicked call from Dejon (who we had met with twice at this point) saying that he didn’t want to be baptized yet, he felt like it was too soon. We talked to him, bishop talked to him, his old elder talked to him, but to no avail. The baptism was called off 2 hours before it was set to happen :(. We came to find out later that he had been talking to a member, and the member brought up an aspect of the word of wisdom (sweet tea) that the elders must have accidentally left out, and it freaked him out. Luckily, we were able to go over and see him, and remedy the situation. We are hoping to re-teach him the lessons, and put him back on date soon.

Funniest lesson of the week: I got the opportunity to teach someone that had some pretty interesting insights this week..... He very excitedly let me know that he thought Jesus Christ was an alien, kind of like Superman...... :)

Well, I’ve got to go, But I love you all!

Have a blessed day!

Sister Derrick