Well I'm definitely in Arkansas.
My companion is Sister (Mallory--for Holly's fb stalking purposes) Reynolds, and we are opening up a new area (for sisters). Our area is called Choctaw (The Choctaw ward) and we live in a town called Greenbriar. It has been quite the experience. This is my companions third transfer (almost 4 months--she just finished training) and she's totally obedient and ready to work, so that's quite a plus. Not a crazy, which is good.
We are sharing our area with Elders, who have been very great, very helpful at giving us referrals, telling us about people to go to, etc. I guess the ward we are in has been looking forward to getting sisters for months. There are a lot of people that are much easier for us to visit (on account of the extra needed person of the same gender as the missionaries rule) and the young women I guess have just been so enthusiastic about missionary work in general and getting sisters. I thought the utter adoration of sister missionaries would end when we left Nauvoo but this ward is very supportive of us.
There are a ton of less actives and recent converts and part member families for us to visit. Almost all of the recent converts no longer come to church. We were able to find a less active 15 year old girl who had gotten baptized last year as we were trying to find another recent convert less active. She was such a sweet girl, and it was clear that she had felt the spirit while being taught, but did not truly understand the tenets of the gospel. We are going to try and teach her and her non-member family.
Like I was saying, there are some great supportive and very missionary minded members here, which really helps. They are truly consecrated--ready to give of their time and resources (including just letting us teach in their house or business whenever we want).
I don't really know how to describe the socioeconomic status here. We've visited a lot of trailers and tiny apartments. And there is just stuff all over people's yards here. Not everyone's of course. And there are just groups of dogs that kind of run around and follow you as you try to back your companion out of the drive way/road. I already have some teeth marks in my orange skirt (it was a friendly pulling of the skirt, not anything vicious).
People here are really into Jesus. I kind of don't really understand their fervor. I mean, the Atonement is central to God's plan but the way they talk about HIm just confuses me. I think they--they being a very generalizing term; just the people I've talked with so far for the most part--kind of lump everything spiritual or religious into just being about having Jesus in your heart. I think it will be cool to build my own testimony of the Savior by seeing the beliefs out there and having to really hone in on my own.
I love missionary work. I love knocking on people's doors and having an honest moment for the first time in society's life. It's fantastic-ly real. Although we don't do too much tracting here, at least we haven't done too much so far. And in this mission, we call it "spiritual harvesting" ha ha
We only go to doors we feel prompted to. And sometimes we offer to say a prayer of peace and blessing over the home (where am I?) and people here are cool with it because they love Jesus. It's nice though because as weirded out as I would be if someone came to my door and offered to pray, it does bring the Spirit, and helps them see that we are just Jesus followers like them and not of the devil. And then maybe their hearts are softened and they'll listen to our message?
There aren't too many black people in this specific area, by the way. #don'ttellmesegregationisn'tathing
Ok, I love you! I think I've covered most everything important.
Love, Rachel
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