Dear Family,
Hello Everyone, its been another great week here i atmore, but also a really slow one as well as far as lessons go. but the lessons we did teach went well and the spirit was definitely there, and they helped our investigators to really start being interested in doing what they need to to know its true. we taught Dwayne, hes 59 and super friendly. he has a very strong faith in Christ and a true desire to follow him. we have been stopping by for like 2 months and we finally were able to sit down with him and teach him about the Restoration. he understood it and has committed to read the book of mormon, so we are excited for him. we also taught Adrianna and Richardo last friday, and that went really well. we read Alma 32 with them and talked about having Faith in Christ, and acting on that. we are able to teach them more because Elder Payne can speak a little spanish, but they really need to have spanish elders teach them so they can get baptized. then we taught a couple other lessons, just on like peoples porch or stopped on the street. its really hard to get into peoples homes to teach them, because we’ll set up an appointment and they wont be there then we wont see them again for like 2 weeks. we have all these people who are technically investigators but we only see them like every 2 weeks. its just a slow moving area. but i love it and i love the people here. all of them are awesome and they all have a very strong faith and go to church. they just dont want to change is the only problem.
not much else happened this week, we went and saw a lot of less active members as well as members. we met the Kings for the first time, Sister King is a member, Brother King is not. but he does not want to be pushed into joining the church, so it is going to be a slow process with him. they are great people though. and we are having dinner with them in a week. Brother King is awesome, he was a corrections officer at the prison. so hes a tough guy, he also raised fighting chickens. we also met Brother Joe Petty, who owns a funeral home in Atmore. hes a great guy, and he helps people who lose family members learn about the gospel.
We didnt do anything for new years. we were told to be back at our apartment by dark, so 5:30 and in bed by 10:30. it was just a regular day and on january 1 we just went out as usual. i did set new years goals, but im not going to share them. but thats about it for last week, this week should be good. we’ve got trade offs tomorrow and i get to go up to Monroeville again with Elder Browne, and ill enjoy that as always. and now that the holidays are over, hopefully we can start teaching more people.
sounds like everything is going great back home and that yall had a great New Years. i bet yall are so happy to be back in school and work too, haha. thanks Mom for sending the sweaters and ill look forward to getting them. if the box is big enough ill probably send that coat you sent back home in it. there have not been any tornadoes here that im aware of, so i dont know what youre talking about. dad we might do that but im not sure how effective it will be, there are over 100 churches here in Atmore… i think, or at least it seems like it. but Brother Albritton does do a radio show each morning, maybe we could get on there and talk about it for an hour, i dont know. anyways, Im doing great and dont think i need anything… yet. i hope yall have a great week and stay safe. Love yall!
Elder Balling
elderemballing 