Mitzi Gates: Sister Mitzi Gates // Week Sixty-Nine

What a crazy week!

I sure love Kentucky though!!

It was so hard to say goodbye to everyone, but it was a fun new start!! I am with Sister Curtis, she is 21 and from Holiday, Utah. She has McCall Smiths personality... It's crazy! But we get a long.

Kentucky is so different than all the other places I have served. We actually over part of Illinois, which is cool to say! We cross the Ohio river to get there. It is so beautiful! It is so small town here. Seriously everyone is so humble. We have so many investigators! We haven't done any Tracting while I've been here. Weird! We have so many people to follow up with we don't have time. It is so fun to stay busy. We set a couple baptismal dates with some of our investigators this week. My hair always stinks like smoke because all the people we teach smoke. They all have at least one tooth gone. I have never visited so many trailer parks yet! They are all so humble. A little crazy! Haha They all wear camo jackets and shirts. They all have beards. All day in church it smelt like bacon and fried chicken. Then this less active leaned over to me and said do you smell that? I said yeah. She said yeah I made fried chicken and onions last night and my jacket kept the smell! Haha oh my gosh.

We go on so many exchanges with members! It's awesome. We lead the mission in members being present for investigators lessons. Yay! I feel like I know the Ward already. It's a small one!

I am still an STL, but we only have 3 sisters we are over in the zone. Which is so different, because I have always had 6-7 sisters to worry about.

We went over to Metropolis, Illinois for a funeral, with a member! Now that is small town. We actually had to give a musical number. We share the Ward with the Zone Leaders and Spanish Elders. So we all got up there and sang! Hahah none of us sing. But then after we went over to a Huddle House and had fried pickles and lunch. I love southern food.

For Valentine's Day we went shopping for a bit with an investigator for some church close. Then we went to dinner! We filled out her baptismal record and she was baptized yesterday!! She was ready. Her two daughters joined a year ago. But she was just prepared! I feel like I have known her forever, not just a couple days. It's weird.

It actually snowed 10.5+ inches, it hasn't stopped since we measured this morning. So we are staying in today. Cars are parked! We helped a guy who got stuck in the snow this morning. He was a doctor trying to go to the hospital. Haha everyone was freaking out over this!! Seriously. They said it hasn't snowed this much since 2004. So we will probably be walking around and knocking doors!

I am so grateful the lord sent me to Paducah. What a blessing it has been for me!! Haha such a culture shock too. I read this as I was reading the BOM with the institute Manuel

"Often we associate prosperity with tangible blessings, such as wealth or the material things of the world. President Heber J. Grant (1856–1945) taught about what true prosperity is: “When I say prosperity I am not thinking of it in terms of dollars and cents alone. … What I count as real prosperity … is the growth in a knowledge of God, and in a testimony, and in the power to live the gospel and to inspire our families to do the same. That is prosperity of the truest kind”

This just fit in perfect as I have come to love these humble, ready people of Paducah! That is true prosperity!

Have a good week. Love you!!

Sister Gates