God will smite the earth with a curse

Alright now y'all, this place is crazy!!! I think God has sent many a curses over here. I now feel like I can say I'm fully immersed in the south. This week I got to see just how many bugs there really are here. Bleh.

This last week we went over to this ladies house to teach some kids and have dinner. Well, the kids didn't show up for us to teach and she told us that she was gonna have us make ourselves the dinner. But, her kitchen was in no shape for making anything. It was legitimately crawling with bugs. The dirty dishes had been sitting out for days so a swarm of gnats and flies hovered over the sink and countertops. Then wherever you went there were cockroaches. In the fridge, on the stove; you opened up the cupboards and they just lined every nook and cranny. So, I worked on the dishes while my comp worked on the room and the food. Needless to say, those dirty dishes were the nastiest smelling and feeling things ever. I had cockroaches crawling all over my hands the entire time. Luckily for us, we had an appointment so we didn't get to stay to eat dinner. It was a fun adventure and service project. The lady texted us a couple days later thanking us for it so I'm glad we were able to help her. Just bleh tho. Also, my comp woke up to a tick's head jammed into her side. She tried pulling it off and then all that's left was the head. So I tried performing surgery with a needle and some tweezers. Man, that sucker was in there (haha punny). We got it out, but I won't go into details how. However, after all these experiences with bugs I think it's safe to say I'm the most paranoid person on the planet. Every little thing I feel touching me I start swatting my entire body. Utah, you don't know what you're blessed with. 

We also experienced a mini flood. The rain doesn't come down in drops here, it comes down in buckets. It's crazy! I'l have to send you my picture next week, but there were entire full grown trees entirely uprooted! It was so insane.

Something that God has not smitten the South with is famine. There's so much delicious food here! I may be coming back a chubby bunny, but I'm working my hardest not to. This week we had some frozen yogurt. Holy cow, it's an entire buffet of every sweet you can imagine to top on your froyo. 

But despite all the craziness, this week has been awesome for actual missionary work. We read the introduction of the Book of Mormon with one of our investigators, because she just kept not keeping commitments or understanding. And we got to see the amazing power of the Book of Mormon. We saw, just while reading the introduction, her countenance change, her attitude change and she was finally understanding and told us she was now interested and curious about learning what we were teaching! Woo hoo! The rest of the week didn't go at all to plans. Because they all got cancelled!! Every single one of them. But I was glad actually :) Sad I couldn't see those people we had planned to. But we got to go knock and find people! And great things came out of that. And it doesn't really matter how effective knocking door to door is, it just shows the Lord that you're being diligent and trying to find people to teach. So He will bless us in our efforts :) 

Also my comitment to you guys (man I must be a real missionary now, leaving commitments and stuff) but read Jacob 5. I've read that chapter so many times but every single time I read it, I find different ways to interpret that analogy. It's one of my favorite chapters ever.

Well I'm glad to hear from you all! Happy pioneer day Utah, I send it my best wishes. I love you all!! 

-Sister Ali Johanson