Rain and more rain in Kirksville

Hi Yall,

I've been here a whole transfer! I made it and the ball is just going to keep rolling faster. My District Leader was transferred to become a Zone Leader so that was sad because he was awesome. We would talk about baseball and he used baseball analogies a lot in district meetings. He will be missed.

No funny stories to report on today because it seems like a lot of the culture shock is wearing off and the things that are strange are commonplace now (like Amish people in horse drawn carriages and grasshoppers flying everywhere). This past week there was a huge storm though! It was the worst thunder, rain, and wind storm I've ever been in! It came through at night so we were safe inside but during the course of the night the wind woke me up as did two texts to our phone about severe flash flood warnings! I looked outside at one point as the rain was getting smacked against our bedroom window and it looked like the trees were going to be snapped in half! They were dancing around like those weird wind dancing advertisement things people put outside of businesses. We woke up in the morning and the storm had passed. As we drove to go play sports and we saw so many braches all over the ground and some trees uprooted! It was insane. We got caught in the rain the next day and it is raining today. Missouri is a wet place.

This past week was good in terms of the work. We had more lessons than last week when we really struggled to keep lessons and investigators. We almost had three people at church today! That seems like the eternal struggle of missionary work, getting people to church! I don't know what it is yet, but it's hard. We were blessed to have Kourtney there, she's a High School aged investigator who is just awesome! There were a couple instances in the past few days that frustrated me though. Either members were not supporting other missionaries or saying bad things about other ward members. It really had me in a strange mood as I was trying not to get mad. I remembered what I had planned to do if I was getting mad and decided to pray. And boy did I pray! I don't know how long I prayed for but it was quite a while. I prayed until my mind was clear and my attitude about the work ahead of me was resolute. I know that prayer works. Pray vocally and pray earnestly. He will hear you and strengthen you. I love that in the Bible Dictionary it says that prayer is a form of work to access blessings that our Heavenly Father is already willing to grant us. Turn to Him in prayer in those moments of weakness. It is in those times that we need His help the most! If we open our troubled or sick or weak hearts to our Heavenly father in prayer He will heal it. I know it.

Love yall,

Sister Skaggs