Collierville - Planning for a Baptism

Hey everyone.

This past week has been incredibly slow. Our potential investigators haven't been home. Tracting hasn't been too successful, either. There are many proud people here, saying, "We have our faith, and we're fine with it." They say they respect what we do, but they're not willing to listen to a message about Christ any day other than Sunday. We're working to find those willing to hear about the gospel.

The members are helping us tremendously. They drive us, feed us, and make sure we're taken care of. We already have Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day all set up with members. I have many friends in this area. Collierville has become a place I know I can return to and visit some time. It's nice to have so many friends around you, always willing to cheer you up. Our ward is pushing towards missionary work, no matter who you are. We're making sure new converts are welcomed into the ward, like Blake.

Blake has been in the ward for a couple months, and everyone is excited for his baptism. He told us that he had some doubts he didn't know he had before the baptismal interview, but when we went over the questions with him, he really thought about those things, and he felt his testimony grow as he prepared to be interviewed. Blake is too awesome. We're all excited for him. He's being baptized at 3 this Saturday by his fiancee's younger brother, and then we're going to have dinner at their house.

This weekend, we went to a service project at a Scout Camp -- Camp Currier -- over in Mississippi. The project was to clear a path through a forest to connect with another path on the other side of the camp. It was true forest wilderness. We came prepared with chainsaws, rakes, clippers, weed wackers... The path was about 200-250 yards. We tore through all the trees and thorns in an hour and a half. Our team of 30 people fluidly moved through the forest, and the path was cleaned up, with the exception of the layer of fall leaves. It was awesome, and we all had fun doing it. Everyone came out of there with a feeling of accomplishment. It was a joint effort of Collierville 1st and Collierville 2nd ward.

Afterwards, a ward member, Bro. Michaelis, took us quickly over to Graceland (since it was on the way home). We didn't look around too much, but we parked outside of Elvis' mansion and looked at the wall surrounding the grounds. It's covered in names people have written there. Bro. Michaelis showed us where his family had signed. Elder Fry and I signed right above it. It'll be there for at least 10-15 years, I predict. I'd like to try and go back someday, and see the entirety of Graceland. I was surprised, though. It's located in the middle of a tough. It wasn't like that 20 years ago, apparently. But now it's about as tough as most other places around here, which is kinda sad. It's amazing what gangs do around here.

It rained all day yesterday. It's raining all day today. And it will rain all day tomorrow. Collierville is one large puddle. Biking around has been miserable. We're getting around however we can. We get our car tomorrow morning.

I hope you guys are doing alright! I miss all of you over in Utah. Enjoy the snow. I know I would.

-Elder Staib

Thanksgiving in Mississippi, and Orange Mound

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! How was it for y'all? For mine, we went down to Mississippi and had it with the Byrd family. The Byrds are part of a giant family, the Allens, that populate a ton of our area in northern Mississippi. It seems like there are 50 people down there from the same family tree. We have a big genealogy list in our room that links them all. It's very hard to keep track of everyone and their relations.

We had dinner with Bonnie Byrd and her children, and parents, I believe. Caleb is her grandson, and he's an investigator. Bonnie is a member, and many extensions of the Allen family are inactive or less-active members. There's lots of work to do in Mississippi.

Our Thanksgiving - or as they say here in the south, THANKSgiving, with the enunciation on the "Thanks" - was pretty crowded. There were maybe 15-20 people there. The food was different from home. Really good overall, just different. We had ham, creamed corn, black-eyed peas, mashed potatoes with chopped deer gizzard and heart gravy, and cherry Koolaid. The desserts were freakin' boss. Someone made this big mixture of thick pudding with crushed Oreos mixed in. And then, the most amazing cake I've ever tasted. It was a strawberry cake. But the frosting had strawberries blended into it, and strawberry juice had been cooked into the cake. Pure magic.

Oh yes, I keep forgetting the week extends back until Tuesday. I was put on exchanges from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday morning. I was sent to ORANGE MOUND, a really tough place. Walking down the street in a small drizzle, more than half the houses on the streets were boarded up and abandoned. The windows had been shot up.

It was quiet, but I didn't really feel scared. We taught a couple of people, tracted into a few. It was a very productive day. I taught a room full of at least 7 women, ranging from teenagers to an elderly lady, and a couple of men.

It was extremely intimidating, but it ended well. I slept over that night, and went back to Collierville the next morning. I made it back safe from the town where many news reports of shootings take place. Many, many crimes take place there.

Blake is still going through with his baptism well. He's got his fiancee and her family behind him. He's a great guy.

Elder Fry and I are seeing who we can. I've found it's near impossible to tract in rich areas. People say they already have their own faith, and they're happy with it. The work this past week has been slow because everyone is moving around and working. At least that's what we hope. A lot of our potential investigators are hard to get to. We really want to teach them. I'm not sure if our bike week this week will make things better, either. We'll see what happens.

Anyway, hope you guys enjoy your holiday season! It's supposed to snow tomorrow morning here! If that happens, society will shut down. No one can mentally handle frozen rain here in Tennessee.

-Elder Staib

Pictures from Past Week

A Great Week In Collierville, Tennessee

I'm sorry for the lack of written letters...The snail mail system is incredibly slow. I think it'll be ok to send things directly to my apartment. I'll be here for a while. The first area greenies stay in lasts 12 weeks instead of 6.

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Hello, everybody. Missionary life is picking up, and the last week is more or less a big blur. I've got a good story to kick off with though.

On Wednesday, we taught a guy named Blake. Blake met a Mormon girl that lives in Collierville named Molly 8 months ago. They're getting married in June. Blake's been taught the lessons and he lives with Molly's parents. He knows everything, he just hadn't received the witness he needed to be baptized yet. We were teaching him this week, answering his questions from reading the Book of Mormon. We talked a bit about why he didn't want to be baptized just yet. Elder Fry eventually asked, "How often do you pray every week?" The number wasn't much. So I went forward and asked, "Would it be ok to kneel right now and pray to know if the church is true?" He replied with, "It wouldn't hurt." We knelt, and he started praying out loud. There was no doubt the Holy Ghost was in that room. He asked his question, and he paused. He paused for at least 2 minutes. The Holy Ghost was at work on his heart. He finally spoke again, and ended the prayer after a few more words. We sat back down, and I asked, "How do you feel?" "I feel that It's true. I feel like I should be baptized." I didn't hesitate, and asked him to be baptized. My first baptism will be held on December 10. We'll figure out the technicalities of who will baptize him and stuff. But I'm very excited.

This past week was our first bike week. My legs are destroyed, but I feel myself getting a bit stronger. We haven't been able to go around and see as many people as we've liked to, though. Our area is very constricted on bikes. We do what we can, though.

The bikes have slowed our progress, so I guess there's not too much to report. Blake's baptism is definitely the highlight of this past week. He's been on the edge of baptism for forever, and it's finally happening. Molly and her parents are very happy that it's happening.

I hope ya'll are enjoying the snow over in Utah. It's raining hard over here. The weather can't decide if it's September or November yet. Sometimes, it's warmer in the mornings and gets colder in the evenings. It's very weird. The humidity is refreshing, though. Who needs chapstick? Not me.

My Second Week in Collierville

Dear Everyone -

This week has been a long and pretty slow week. We keep trying to see people for first or second appointments, and they always seem to be gone. There's lots of drama going on... And I'm in the middle of all of it. The white handbook it says I can't counsel people. Drama drama...

I gotta maintain a love for the people, and just keep inviting them back.

Positives, positives... Oh! Ok, so I don't know if I have introduced them yet, but there are 2 people here that are extremely important in my experiences here in Collierville. There's Holly. She's in her mid-30s. She joined the church in early spring, and she was a middle school English teacher until last school year. Now she's sitting around. BUT she loves to see us missionaries. Her personality reminds me of everyone in my D&D group shoved into one (Yeah, shout out to you guys! Hope the campaign is still going well without your air pirate!), so I get along with her very well. It's never a dull moment with her.

The other person is Zach. He was baptized on October 12, and we've been keeping close with him for a long time. When I say we, I mean the missionaries. I've only been here 2 weeks, so what do I know? Zach is all sorts of amazing. He's 18. Even though double-step isn't my thing, the passion he has for listening to his music in his stereo-laden car is contagious. He has a strong testimony and has life experiences to back it up. Good kid, lots of fun to be around, and I'll have to get a picture with these people at some point within the next week.

So, back to my positive story.

Zach was out with me, Elder Fry and Brother Pennington (you'll hear about him a lot, too. He's the Second Ward's mission leader, and he takes us down to Mississippi every Thursday. He's also the most fun person to be around). We went out to give someone a blessing, and came back to Baskin Robins for shakes. After that, we were cruising down the street when Zach said. "I've never been to Goodwill, would it be ok to stop there?" Goodwill is the non-Mormon equivilant of Deseret Industries.

Anyway, we popped in there, and Zach found a pair of spankin' new Polo shoes. As we were walking through the aisles, an employee commented from the side, "So what does 'Elder' mean?" Meet Vernita. She is very Biblically knowledgable. We taught her a couple things in the few minutes we had about some specific doctrines within the church about families and such, and she believed every word. Her husband was in the hospital all of September and has been sitting in bed ever since. She's a little out of our area, but we're hoping we can have the opportunity to teach her. She's a golden person. We left Goodwill, and commended Zach on having the impression to go there in the first place.

The thing about Zach is, whenever he comes out with us, we always have an amazing experience. He had a friend that died recently after fighting cancer for 7 years. His testimony and story has touched every person he's talked about it with. The people we were teaching definitely needed the message at the time, too. He's been a great asset and blessing in our teaching.

Unfortunately, little teaching has been going on in the first place. We're usually visiting less-active or inactive people. And even then, they're really stubborn and don't think they can come back to church after what they've done. There are also some people from part-member families that know everything; they just refuse to be baptized until they feel they're "ready". If you're a returned missionary, you just rolled your eyes at that whole paragraph. It's very frustrating.

This is only Week 2. I just gotta keep working at it. My Southern is getting better (or worse...however you look at it), but it mostly shines around other Southerners. One of those adapting things I do or whatever. Thanks for all the emails, and thanks for thinking of me. Elder Staib is still out here, working how he can, when he can.