Monday, October 7, 2013

Letter #62 (Wiggins, MS)

Hey Momma,
So naturally, I must start this letter by declaring how amazing this week was. While it was amazing for sure, it was really unlike any week I have had to date on the mission. Monday and Tuesday went just like every normal missionary day, but Wednesday was interesting. It's kinda crazy, but President asked that I be a district leader again. Except the district I am now over is huge. It's the size of the Zone I was in when I was in Ashdown last year at this time. But with this zone there is a lot of missionaries that I don't know all too well, so I took Wednesday and worked with one of the companionship's in there area, that has been struggling. It was a lot of fun to take some time to work and learn from other missionaries. And hopefully Elder Sumsion and I were able to spark something with both the Companionship and Area that will get them started. We will see. But then Thursday is where it got totally crazy. So down here in the South, it's not quite like Utah where you have a ward every three blocks. Here it stretches for miles and miles. My area for example is almost 1200 square miles. Crazy right. Well, we have a town called Poplarville that is about 30 miles away from us that has nearly half of the Branch's members living in it. For obvious reasons, we can't get out and work Poplarville all too often, so with President's permission of coarse, we set up living arrangements with Jason, a less active in Poplarville. We were originally planning on staying with him and family, but about two days before we were too meet with them, we realized something we hadn't earlier. He had a teenage daughter living in his house!! And this, for obvious reasons, wouldn't work for a two night living situation. Well, we called Jason too see if he had any other ideas, or possible living situations. Well he did. I will send pictures because words don't do it justice. But here was the new plan. Jason's job is to be the Athletic Director of a local college in Poplarville. As the Athletic Director, he can also pull some strings. So Jason went too work because he really wanted us to come spend time with him and his family. Well, his solution was to put us up in a room up above the College's basketball court. Ya, crazy right. It's apparently a room where they put players in during the summer. It had two separate bathrooms' and showers, so it wask perfect living accommodations. Plus the showers were designed for tall basketball players, so the shower heads were placed about 7 feet up on the wall, so Elder Sumsion was excited to finally get his head wet for the first time in a while;) But it was overall an amazing trip. I felt like how I would imagine the first missionaries to have felt. Going into a brand new city, with only members to stay with. Well the weekend only got better with General Conference. It was completely amazing, but the thought I wish to share didn't come directly from something the Brothern said. It has to do with myself. I have come to realize that messing up isn't always a bad thing. And more than that, God is a God of "trial and error". Let me explain. For nearly a year upon returning from Savanna, I prayed for months that I would not serve my mission in the South. But how wrong was I? I tried, and made an error. God knows what we truly need to "prepare to meet [him]". He loves us, and when we try something, mess up, He is there waiting to show us the correct way.
    ~Elder Maddox

So a ward member that works for Nike hooked
 the missionaries up with some pretty nice Nike stuff!
They were so excited!

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