Monday, November 23, 2009

ATL - the Big Show

So I am super low on time but, we did have transfers and I never would have seen this happening, but I got moved to ATLANTA! woohoo! time for the big show in the city! well I guess actually my area is Union City but its part of the Atlanta Ward and its not to far from all the stuff down town and We get to ride MARTA which is a trip, but I am still in car so that's nice and actually I like MARTA a lot, it doesn't really get all over our area, but it gets us to all the stuff down town and p-days we hang out with everybody in our zone at like Centennial park or play basketball somewhere or whatever we want! With some restrictions I do suppose but I am loving it!

I do miss Griffin but I guess change is always good, I think that's part of keeping your eye single to the glory of God, plus President probably knew I would have had too much fun if I stayed in Griffin, but then again I am darn sure I'm gonna have a lot of fun here, and probably anywhere I go, I like the motto one of my former companions had which was to work hard and play harder, meaning get work done and then when its p-day get all the extra energy and fun out so you can dedicate yourself the rest of the week. Well I forgot to bring my new address but the mission office forwards everything to me and it only takes another day or two so if you have anything to send this week you can send it to the mission office ;D Well I hope y'all have a great week!

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Super Blessed

Well, I finally sent that letter in the mail this week, hopefully it either has gotten to y'all or will really soon. This week has been pretty good for us, Saturday we had a perfect day, we saw everyone that was on our schedule and were just super blessed. There is a lot going on in the Griffin ward right now, and it felt like we were running around with our heads cut off at church because there were a lot of less active members that have been making their way back and it almost feels like a lot to handle sometimes, but it is pretty much freakin' awesome.

Transfers are next week and I kind of have the feeling I will stay in the Griffin Ward again, but you never know. Right now the ward has 2 sets of missionaries and the missionary areas are divided by a highway that separates us into the east and west parts, but the west part has a lot of the county where nobody lives, and the place with the most potential for them is at the top of their area which is hard for them to get to because it takes a lot of miles to drive up there. On the East side, we have the ghetto and the city part of Griffin where it is really dense and we can get stuck doing stuff all day there, and on top of that we have and area south of us that we don't get to see a whole lot of because we don't have the miles to go, and there's a totally different area to the north that has a lot of work to do but the same thing, we cant afford to drive up there except maybe once a week, and we haven't even made it up there in the past couple weeks becasue we have so much going on in the city part of Griffin. Well there used to be missionaries in locust grove, which is the area to the north of us but because the number of missionaries in the mission has gone down we had to combine the areas, which are all part of the griffin ward. But, we had interviews with President Satterfield on Tuesday and they are heavily considering taking one of the sets of missionaries and putting them in the north part of the ward and leaving one to cover the south part, which would make things a lot better for missionary work. So I don't really know whats going on this upcoming transfer, but I definitely would like to stay for another transfer in this area around the city part of griffin, so I guess we'll just wait and see.

Well I'm always glad to hear from y'all and I hope you have a wonderful week!

Love,
Elder Edwards

Monday, November 2, 2009

Halloween!

Well it has been a super week indeed. We were able to teach and prepare Brother 'C" for baptism, have him interviewed, found worthy and dunked on Friday. It was probably one of the best baptisms I have been to. There was a super strong spirit there and it really confirmed D&C 84:20 that the power of God is manifest in the ordinances thereof. We had a lot of support from our ward in helping make the baptism a success, and it definitely was! I will send the pictures whenever I my memory card gets more full.

There have been a lot of miracles lately here in Griffin, and I can definitely say that the field is white already to harvest. I got the chance to read several articles from the October Ensign this week and it has definitely inspired me and given me a vision for the kind of miracles and success that can happen. There was a talk about the effect of members in missionary work and there were several outstanding stories that really gave me some good ideas. Recently we have had several less active members make their way back to church, which is one of the coolest things to see. This week we contacted a media referral we received and as we went it turned out that she was a member that had fallen away but really wanted to get back on the path. She was able to come to the chili cook off at the Griffin Ward and have an awesome time, but she didn't make it to church this week, but I'm sure she will this upcoming week.

Well, as far as Halloween, we had our Ward party/ chili cook off/ dinner theater/ trunk or treat on Saturday, which was pretty cool because normally the rule for missionaries on Halloween is that they have to be in by 6:30 Pm but we got special permission because it was a ward activity and got to be out later than probably most of the mission. It was kind of funny because right when I got there I got suckered into baby sitting duty by the bishop and had to watch the kids that were in the super-bouncer that was in the gym, which was really awkward because missionaries really can't play with kids at all so there wasn't much I could do except watch, but then we got another member to take over my post for me.

Then we had our chili cook off and after people got settled in we had a little dinner theater skit put together for everyone to watch, and all the missionaries and several members were involved. IT was called the Gladdem's Family, and was a sort of parody to the Addam's Family, and showed how members can help the missionaries with sharing the gospel. So I got the part of playing Puglsy which was pretty fun, I only had two lines. But the play was really fun, I got brother 'T' (a nonmember married to sister 'T' who is a member) to take pictures of the whole thing which was pretty cool, so I'll send those pretty soon as well.

And then right after the dinner theater we cleaned up and had the trunk or treat, except that it was kinda raining so everyone got their candy and went around to trick or treat in different rooms in the building. Well while everyone was trick or treating we got put to work vacuuming and what not so I got maybe two pieces of candy, but it's OK because I don't need that much candy and if I want any I can just find someone who has a lot of leftover candy and mooch off them!

So I just realized last night that at the end of this month I will no longer be a teenager! Ah! It was kind of depressing at first but I guess I will have to get through it. As far as needing anything, I can't think of anything off the top of my head, in fact I will probably end up sending some stuff home sooner or later because somehow I now have more stuff than I came out with and my suitcases are starting to be a lot heavier. But ya I will let you know if there's anything I need! Well this email is getting pretty long so I'll let y'all go, have a blessed day!