I had also asked him if people there in the "Bible Belt" really knew the Bible. Apparently not, though I like Justin's enthusiasm in setting out to change that. :-)
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It's really good to hear that Brianna's testing all went so well. Hopefully they got everything figured out this time and she really is ok. And hopefully it lasts, especially with school starting up again. It must be good to have everyone back in school again, I can't believe Andrew is in high school now! Everyone is getting so old! It's crazy to think that when I get back Steven will be starting his last year of elementary school and Brianna will be getting ready to graduate. That's insane.
The work here is going pretty well, though Jamie has had a few challenges. We'll get Jamie back on track, though. As I said, she definitely felt the Spirit last time and knows that this is Christ's church. She was very excited about the idea of a living prophet on the earth today, and she knows that with all of the trials that she is going through, Jesus Christ's restored church is the only place that she will be able to find all of the answers she needs. The Spirit bore witness of that to her, and she told us exactly that. Please just pray that as we work on trying to see her again that she'll remember what she felt before and that she'll have a desire to feel it again.
There are a lot of other great things going on as well. A lot of people that have a lot of potential, our biggest problem is just getting everyone to commit to sitting down with us regularly. But that's a problem everywhere, not just here. So please pray for us that we'll be able to get into a regular teaching schedule with all of our investigators. It's starting to get better, but we've still got a ways to go. That's really cool to hear about Elder Davis's mom writing you. It's good to hear that he at least kind of likes me... just kidding. We actually get along really really well. I've loved these last few weeks. He's an amazing missionary too. Already better than me. He didn't even need to be trained. One thing that's kind of fun about being an "older" missionary (since 10 months is so old...) is that it's really incredible to see how the quality of missionaries that they are sending out just keeps getting better and better. Each group that comes is stronger than the last. The Lord has definitely saved his most elect spirits to do his most important work in these last days. It's very exciting to be a part of.
Now to answer your other questions: We only live about 3 miles from the church, but there are people in our ward who drive 45 minutes to church every Sunday. There was a priesthood meeting in Branson on Sunday night (that's the most central building in our stake), and Branson is an hour and a half from Ava. There are people who live on the eastern side of the ward who had to drive 2 hours to that. But that reminds me: On Friday I went on exchanges in Branson! I figured mom would be jealous about that. It was crazy because there were a ton of students from other countries that were there for the summer working. In the one day I was there we talked to 3 people from Russia, 3 from Turkey, one from Afghanistan, several from Jamaica, several from Mexico (I'm pretty sure those last two groups weren't students, though), and 2 girls from France that became new investigators that night. One of the people from Russia was actually a member who had a pretty amazing story. She grew up in Siberia in an atheist household. Missionaries began teaching her and she joined the church when she was 18, but she had to do it in secret. Her mom wouldn't allow her to go to church or have any sort of scriptures in the house at all. She came to Branson for the summer and has been attending church actively here, has attended the temple up in St. Louis a couple of times, and has been soaking up as much knowledge as possible. It was time for her to go back to Russia, though, and she was NOT excited. She wanted to stay here so badly. She was really scared to go back. One good thing (though she may not have seen it that way) was that her mom had recently found an album in the house with all the pictures from her baptism. She wasn't very happy. But at least Angel doesn't have to keep it a secret anymore. We had a really good lesson with her on the atonement and how she can rely on Christ through all of the trials that she goes through back there. It was pretty cool. She has a way solid testimony, she'll be fine. It was a lot of fun being in Branson though. It would definitely be hard to be serving there all the time though. At least during the summer. The winter probably isn't bad because there aren't any tourists there, but in the summer that's all it is. It's an interesting place. But back to the questions. Surprisingly, people here don't know the Bible at all. They didn't in Oklahoma or Arkansas either. Nobody in the Bible Belt knows their scriptures any better than anywhere else, they just think they do. If you want to find people that actually know the Bible, you'll have to go to Idaho or Utah or Arizona... It's not that bad. A lot of people do know their stuff very well, which is always refreshing, it's just not nearly as much as you would think for this part of the country. We're working on fixing that though. :) I love you all! Have a great week!
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