Monday, July 21, 2014

Moooooooovin' along in Maryville


Say hello to Sister Steiner's newest companion - Sister Jones!! 




Aren't they just cute!??

Kristen moved to Maryville Tennessee a few weeks ago, and she is loving it! She and S. Jones are just tearing it up! They are in a big ward with a couple of sets of Elders and a whole ton of work to do! Here are a couple of fun experiences from her letter this week. 

All our appointments cancelled so we did some good old fashioned knocking. We ran into "C". He just got out of prison after 23 years. He was involved in a shooting and put away 23 years ago for it. He was completely covered in tattoos up to his ears, and had a big pitbull that I thought was gonna eat my leg off (thankfully he put her inside since we were all standing outside).

He is moving to Oregon to turn his life around but for the moment his job is a church bouncer. If any drug addicts or gang people or what not come into the church and create problems, he is there to take care of it. Oh, did I mention he goes to the biker church?! Yup! Welcome to the South! 

He could tell that we had "the spirit with us.....to some degree" and was impressed that two young ladies, like ourselves, would approach such a scary looking guy, like himself. Apparently the Jdubs ran the other way when they saw the pit a few weeks ago. He also informed us that he would give a good report about us.....he wasn't gonna call up our church, but he would tell his pastor and let him know the Mormon girls were ok......it  was quite the experience, haha. 





We then met Bro. Saniger (our ward mission leader) at Chick-fil-a to correlate for the week since he was our dinner appointment (two birds with one stone). 

Well, they had the Chick-fil-a cow mascot walking around the restaurant and he loved us! He sat in on most of our correlation meeting-haha. He would make it around the restaurant then come back and sit with us. (I uploaded a pic with Bro. Saniger and the cow). 

Well, I think the cow finally figured out who we were or what we were doing because all of the sudden he holds out his hands (hooves....pardon me) and we ask, 

"Do you want a hug?" 

And he shakes his head no......finally Sis Jones asks, 

"Do you want to pray with us??????" 

Yup that was what he wanted. So right there in the middle of Chick-fil-a we held hands and said a prayer with a COW! Only in the South I tell you.......only in the South! On the plus side of serving in the South, no one looks at you sideways when you pray in public because everyone prays down here.....Oh the South....its a special place.


Kristen would love to hear from any or all of you - drop her an email or a letter. If you'd like her apartment address just let me know, or send it straight to the mission home.