Cherry trees!

its springtime in the south!

i'm feeling particularly lazy about my email today, as you can see in my lack of capitalization. but that's all fine. you guys get it.

spring has sprung, and everything is getting extremely green. like... the most green ever. and the most amazing things have come into bloom, too. like cherry trees! there are cherry trees all over! they smell and look great. it's been unusually warm this past week, in the lower 80s. it feels like we skipped winter and spring entirely, and jumped from fall to summer. good biking weather, at least. someone told me i needed to go to goodwill and get khaki pants for the heat. oh gosh i'm dreading the upcoming heat... 100 degrees with 100% humidity. my dad is probably laughing at this, since he's endured it already with his football practice back in those good ol' days, which i'm sure was a wednesday. so yeah. heat's coming. i'll be drinking 3 water bottles a day. also, this weather, as it bounces from high to low pressure systems sweeping through, is still the chemistry that makes bad storms happen, so that threat is there. collierville is in a good spot to avoid the worst of the storms, but we're still gonna get some rough stuff here.

miracles. it's just cool how this transition is working, i guess. members are getting excited about sharing the gospel with their friends, and then they get excited to tell them about how their friends are willing to hear about the gospel, and then the members invite us over to teach them. that third phase hasn't happened yet, but the other two have, so we're gonna be teaching some precious members' friends soon here. it sounds like a great time for this area. maybe these longer daylight hours are working with me to be in a better attitude. i've been asking our dinner appointments to start looking for friends to bring over for dinner with us. members are offering to go out with us on days they've got off from work. this is how i wanted members to feel about missionaries. comrades in their daily lives, not a hindrance in any way. we've got a couple service opportunities coming, and we're actively looking for more. for example, the young women are holding a neighborhood yard sale soon. bro. pennington, the ward mission leader, told us that we gotta go to that.

to be honest, i was extremely uncomfortable about tracting when i got out here. psh, what am i saying... everyone is. doesn't matter who you are. and i'm still nervous about just walking up to someone and talking gospel stuff to them. what a blessing it is to have this new method of sharing the gospel through members! i need to work on contacting, though. that stuff still needs to happen.

the great family from a few weeks ago is still avoiding us. we'll drop in on the tuesday night and see what's up. the family we visited last week is hard to get to, as well, because of work and such. we tried going up to see them after church, but the wife was sick. oh, we drove up to that appointment in a camaro ss, a car made for racing. the engine was loud and the seats were small. i got shoved in the back, as usual. i couldn't even sit up straight.

there's also a family down in mississippi that has several friends and family members that aren't baptized that have agreed to take the lessons.

we need to increase our teaching pool, and give investigators more chances to hear the gospel, but i'm proud of myself and my companion for the work we did this week, and the members for the excitement they're feeling about the work.

i hear you guys got snow! dang it. the only falling white stuff out here are mass loads of petals. that's its own beauty, i guess. and the area will only get greener. hope everyone's staying allergy-free! all of our cars here are painted in pollen, but i'm not reacting to it. which is great, cuz i don't know if i could handle that.

-elder staib

oh, pictures.

1) a family owns a snake, and they fed it a white mouse while we were there. the snake's been sick lately.
2) a bunch of worms got stuck in the same spot in a storm drain after a very wet day. it was a wriggly mess.
3) camaro!
4) one guy we saw yesterday owned a pet wolf. yes, that's totally a wolf.
5) a little girl drew this for me.
6) pretty cherry trees!