Huntsville: a county without a single stoplight

So I'm here in Huntsville, Arkansas, with my new companion, Sister Hatch! This might be the tiniest town I've ever been in in my life. I don't know why we even have a car, because we could walk the main part of the town in about an hour. We are in the Huntsville branch, where approximately 4% of the active members are full time missionaries. (We serve here with Elders Macreynolds and Stevens.) We mostly only teach Marshallese people, and the Elders teach the English people. Most of the people we visit and teach are less active members of the Marshallese branch, which only gets around 1-15 attendees a week. But we have 2 baptisms coming up in the upcoming weeks! And we get to teach the cutest Marshallese kids. The entire setup of this area is a stark contrast to my last area, so it will take a lot of getting used to. In Van Buren, we had 50 something investigators, so many that we couldn't visit all of them in a week. In Huntsville, it is difficult to spend a whole day teaching lessons. We get about 10 lessons a week here, but it's clear that the Sisters that were here before were working hard to organize and improve the Marshallese branch and serve the members. I love it here already.

Story time: Remember that guy named Shirrick we were teaching back in October? To recap, he was sitting on a park bench smoking a cigarette when Sister Breaux approached him and said "hey! We want you to come join our church. What do you think about that?" Shirrick put out his cigarette and said "hmm. I feel like my Heavenly Father has been trying to get my attention. He wants me to go back to church." We ended up setting a baptismal date with him for October 14, but then he got kicked out of his aunt's house and had to move to Fort Smith to live in a homeless shelter. He expressed concern to us, saying he didn't want to get "attached" to a church and then have the missionaries/ward lose track of him if he had to move. We promised that either we or other missionaries would always be able to find him wherever he went. We went to the shelter a week later to visit him and they had no record of him. Since he didn't have a phone or facebook or any mutual acquaintances with us, there was nothing much we could do to track him down. We prayed every week that we would find him or that he would at least find some missionaries in whatever town he ended up in, but nothing came out of it for a long time.

Well, on Tuesday, my last day in Van Buren, we were walking up to Walmart when we heard "I recognize you girls!" We looked up to see SHIRRICK standing outside ringing the Salvation Army bell. I wouldn't have recognized him if he hadn't said anything. He had cleaned himself up, lost a lot of weight and didn't look like a homeless person anymore. He told us about how he hasn't smoked in a month and is teaching the gospel class at the Salvation Army. He agreed to have the Elders come visit him there. I couldn't even believe it! We had given up searching for him for over 2 months. I couldn't have imagined being blessed with a greater miracle on my last day in Van Buren.


I think that maybe you don't feel like a real missionary until you have your first transfer. It was surreal. I've only been here 5 days and I already feel like Van Buren was a long time ago. It was great though, I got to see missionaries during transfers that I haven't seen in a long time.


Now, I'm loving it in Huntsville. The branch welcomed me in right away and I feel at home already.
I love being in a small branch because I can learn everyone's names so quickly! On Sunday, I found out that the branch pianist is a young girl who can barely play hymns on her right hand. That's the extent of the piano ability they have in their branch. They have been using tapes and cds to sing hymns. When we got to relief society, I talked to the music coordinator and told her I would love to play piano if they wanted someone. I sat down to play prelude music and as soon as I started, the relief society president choked up, and through tears said that the branch has been waiting for a pianist for years. It's crazy, because in Washington and Utah I've never seen a shortage of piano players so I don't consider it some rare talent or anything, but there is a huge need for it here. It was really a confirmation for me that this is where I'm supposed to be and that I do have something to contribute to this mission. I can sight read hymns better than I ever could at home and I know it's because we can be instruments in Heavenly Father's hands to bless others.