Sometimes Oklahoma Seems Like a 3rd World Country

We have had a busy, awesome week! I'll explain the subject heading in a moment.

Tuesday we went out with what we call Sister Traveling Training Leaders. President Shumway had two sisters become similar to assistants to the president and they have an assignment to go to all sister areas in the mission in the next two transfers. So they came out with us! That day we split up, and I stayed in Talihina with one of the sisters, and Sister Harris went to Wilburton. We had amazing blessings! We ended up teaching more lessons that day than we did all last week! (We had a good week last week too!) We had found new people to teach in both towns.

Wednesday was a pretty normal day- we went to District Meeting, came back, worked hard, etc! Normal stuff.

Thursday was a little different. We had a funeral that day. Sister Harris and I ended up singing a song for the funeral. I think we sounded good...

Friday was really cool! We had a few people walk up to us and ask us what we're all about. And one of them wants to be baptized on his birthday in August! We're so excited for him. His fiancé is a less active member, and they're both starting to go to church! We also talked to a young mom who doesn't go to church and wants to find truth, not just go to church. So of course, we invited her to learn more!

Saturday is the reason I have decided that sometimes Oklahoma feels like a 3rd world country. We started off the day by finding out that we have cockroaches. We found them on our clean, drying dishes. That seems like a violation! If there's gotta be cockroaches, couldn't they be on the dirty dishes? But worry not, we cleaned really well and did a treatment for bugs not coming in the house (the elders had a spray thing from last year, we've had problems with spiders too).

Then we go to an appointment, and there was a thousand flies and at least 5 wasps inside the building we were meeting at. A hornet almost landed on my shoulder. Not the most comforting place to be in. Especially since I'm SUPER afraid of bees of any kind. Usually I start flailing, screaming, and doing some odd ninja moves.

I held it together though, and the investigator we met with really felt the spirit, and came to church the next day!!! But after that appointment I was really wound up and stressed, so we went and got a glass of water. Then we went to our next appointment. While we were there, we sat on a couch full of bedbugs. We then went back to our apartment and checked our bags and clothes. I really don't want bedbugs... But it's an epidemic in Talihina. They're not the worst that could happen though.

Then that evening I had to remove a tick from Sister Harris. The poor thing didn't know how to remove them and I only heard what not to do. So I did everything that people say to remove one. By taking a lighter to it and rubbing alcohol on it. It worked! It came off with its head and all! Sister Harris may or may not have a burn mark on her. But the tick is gone!! 

Sunday was an adventure too! We were really worried because we were planning on having 6 investigators at church this week (all of them came!!!!!!!) and it was branch conference. They're a little different from normal meetings and it was all of their first times, so we were praying that they would feel the spirit and feel good about it all.

Then another thing we were worried about was scouts. And that worry manifested itself by giving us over 50 scouts! So we had 109 people at church, when we told our investigators that we usually have 30. But there was a huge miracle! One of them was the young mother, and she was able to be in the nursery with her son and a member and they talked about the church and made friends. Some of the investigators were kids with their mom (she's a member, starting to come back to church), so they were in primary.

We had been asked a few weeks ago to help with singing time in primary, so we took Tommy (who's 25) with us into primary. He had the option to go to the adult section, but he was nervous, so he just listened to primary stuff. It was actually the best thing ever! Heavenly Father really has a plan for all of us! Tommy needed to be in Primary, he had many cool experiences. He had an answer to a question he had (why do we have to go to church, I can worship and study on my own). He heard the beautiful primary songs, and the silly ones. He just needed to be there, so Heavenly Father made it branch conference and a scout week to make sure that happened!

So we had a great week! And we're going to go do it again! I'm emailing early today because we have a zone outing and we have to travel a distance. I'm sorry, but I can't email people back this week! I love you all! Take care! Don't do anything I wouldn't do!

Love to all,

Sister Elkins