The Barn Red Trailer

Here's an update from Elder Darke on his first P-day in Georgia:

Dear Mom

    I am having such a great time in Georgia.  My Companion (Elder Stewart) is super funny and he reminds me of Mike a lot of the time :D.  It is kind of distracting sometimes though because when we are laughing too hard to plan at the end of the day then it is bad.  However we usually have smiles on our faces all day :D.  He is really good at teaching people to, he has been on his mission for about a year so he has everything down and he knows what he is doing.  He has also been in this area for a while so he knows everyone around here.  It is interesting because he recognizes people's cars as they drive by.  It makes me laugh a little.  The other day we were teaching (so teaching is still interesting for me becuase i keep thinking of words in Portuguese so when i talk i have to make sure i am speaking English, but it is amazingly spiritual all the time) on someone's doorstep and talking with them about the restoration and they agreed to let us come back! (this has happened a few times actually)  You wouldn't think that such a small thing as agreeing to return would make me very happy or anything but it does!  It is so weird how happy I get some days.  

    A really interesting thing about our area is that it also goes onto fort benning.  So not only do we teach the people in our area but every Sunday we go to fort Benning and we teach solders there!  It is cool because all the people that we teach, come to us.  We aren't allowed to tract or hand out panflets or anything to the solders but if they are curious about the gospel, (which quite a few of them are)  they come to us to learn.  We even had a baptism yesterday!  It was so cool!  We also have one scheduled for next week so i am looking forward to that also!  Our area is huge though.  We have a mission car, and its a good thing because we need one.  We cover three different cities and fort Benning.  We are based in Casseta, Georgia.  We also cover Buna Vista, Georgia and Richland and Lumpkin Georgia.  Plus everyone seems to live really far away from each other.  So i am really grateful that we have a car!
    Casseta doesn't have a ward, and we don't even call it a branch really.  We call it a group becuase we only have like 23 people that reliably come to church.  However we as missionaries are trying to improve that number!  We have many new investagators, and other investagators that are looking very promising and there are even a lot of non actives that i have faith in!  Everyone still has their agency but i want them all to go to church!  So sense we are based in Casseta we live in a barn red trailer.  Someone literally painted our trailer barn red.  It is fun!  i always know what trailer is ours :D.  The members here are all super amazing.  In fact, they are so amazing that they just gave us Bacon!  I am so excited!  They are so nice to us :D.

    My mission president is amazing as well!  When he went on his mission he was also a Visa waiter, to brasil actually.  So he speaks Portuguese and (this is kind of funny) he is really strict and how people lead music.  The first thing we did in our (new people meet the president) meeting was learn how to properly lead music.  So we are all professional music leaders now.  He is also super funny.

    400 Northside Crossing Macon, Georgia 31210.  This is my mailing/package address mail it here and it will be passed on to me until i go to brazil then it will get intestesting :D.  I Love getting letters and packages from anyone but i can't promise I will be able to send anything back very fast.  I have very limited time (again) but now its even more limited because im helping everyone :D.  I will keep sending letters and things as fast as possible though, don't you worry.  I hope to hear from you soon :D.  

    I also know what it sort of feels like to sort of work in a sort of fast food restaurant.  Becuse our group is so small we don't have a place to really do sacrament and church, but our group is too big to do it at any of our members houses.  So Every friday for like 4 hours the elders (my companion and I) go to a resturant place and do service there.  Becuase we do this the resturant lets us use their building every sunday for church!  So it is really fun :D.  This week for Preestood meeting we met in a hallway in the resterant :D. It was fun!

    Well anyway i love talking to you, talk to me back please :D

:D

-Elder Darke

We love those letters!  Don't you love that spelling?! That's my boy!
Thanks all!
Melanie (Mom)