I hold it up and show my buddies like we ain't scared and our boots ain't muddy.... And it keeps me moving on. Waiting on. Letters from home.

Buenos nachos mis amigos! Como estais? I hope all yall serving in a Spanish speaking mission are upset because of my spanish.

 But not too much happened this past week. We are working so hard!!! and not seeing too much out of our efforts... but we did have a pretty cool experience last night.

So last night we were driving to an investigators home and we thought hmm... we can be one where better, so we decided to go to a less actives members house. We got there and began to talk with him about his Coal Mining experience. (Side Note--Coal mining is some sketchy stuff okay? Being 350 feet underground with all that earth on top of you? sketch) Anyway, we visit with him for a little while, and more people start to show up. Some of his sons friends. So he says "Cmon lets go be social" and the first thing he says to them is "Girls these are the Mormon missionaries that Pastor Gary preaches against!" I was like... uh oh.. here we go. BUT NO! One of the girls started asking a BUNCH of questions about the church, things that she had heard from her pastor. We were able to answer all of them and she continued to be interested. So we stayed for dinner and continued to answer her questions. We asked her if she wanted a Book of Mormon and she said "Heck yeah i do!" So we left her with one and a card with our number on it. She wouldn't give us her number so we really were hoping she would text us.

You see... not being able to fall asleep some nights is a blessing.

At about 11:00 last night i heard our phone ding, so i looked at it and this is what the text said,

"This is ______ the one you talked to tonight. I really want to know more. Like everything you all know. Tonight it really hit me and I really want to see where it takes me, so I appreciate it so much!"

So you know... no big deal right... This is the text missionaries dream about.. so we will see what happened... haha im so stoked. That text didn't help with me not being able to fall asleep haha!!! 

Love yall! Hope yall in California aren't drowning, and yall in Hawaii aren't... idk i heard the waves aren't even that big this year... but where every you are, I love you and want to encourage you to always live and be a light to the world.

Lava Yall!

Reese 

So how many rules are we breaking here. Its more that what meets the eye.. Road trip to Zone meeting, driving with the sisters... left the mission... Its all good though. -> We asked president before we left if it was okay. he said yuuupp #approved #malibugatti 

P-Dayyyyyy

People round here have ducks... and dress em up like this. wat

Ask her where she on the way to, she say Laie, said she love the north shore....

So much of this week was grinding, working hard, balling erryday pretty much. Honestly we worked so hard this week and really saw nothing. Soooo when things like that happen my mind tends to drift off to that place where the palm trees sway. So hence the title of this week's email. 

Let's see, this week was NUTS!!! Went to Hopkinsville for 2 days for exchanges with Elder Jessop and elder Rowland.  Then we went down to Nashville for another meeting on Thursday where we learned more about some stuff that is up and coming in the mission WORLD!!! I'M STOKED!!!!!!! Anyway technology is being pushed hard core. We were approved to have Skype lessons with people! But the thing is that not too many people here have WiFi in their trailer so we can't really use that yet... But maybe later in my mission! 

But people are progressing towards God. It is very different here than Clarksville. This area and the surrounding areas have very slow progress. It is a very humbling experience for me to be able to see this. To work so hard and not really see too much come out of it. The problem that we face up here is that EVERYONE has been a part of a certain church their whole life and then some. Meaning generations had been going there so people are very reluctant to listen to our message. There are also a few very anti congregations out here. But it's all good in MoTown. 

Anyway thats about it for the week. More catfish was eaten on Friday night. More people's homes were knocked on and more people were introduced to the only true gospel of Jesus Christ. I know it is. 

Love yall. Miss yall 

Reese 

 the district. + Zone Leaders 

so this kid is legit. We were at a funeral for a lady who passed away and basically knew everyone in town. This is her great great grandson. He lives in Denver Colorado. His name is McKay. He is my new best friend. Now one of the Monicas. ->@sarahmitchelle @bananas4me 

You know how to dougie? Naw not in Kentucky...

So I want yall go say this next sentence like a real southerner--aye y'all Ben up on da hill up ovr ere? Well, I kno em people up ere. Them's good people up ere.  Y'all should go and see em. Jus go down cross da haller then up. Right ere on the left cross from the old gas station. Well it ain't a gas station no more. But you'll see it. 

This week has actually been pretty slow. And it ain't gonna get too much faster this week. We tracked and tracted and didn't find a single new investigator. We are having some pretty good lessons with a girl and her boyfriend. They have a date for April 14th. So it's a ways out but I know A will make it. W is a former JW and is still pretty stuck in his ways. They have a son named X. He is adorable. Anyway we are making some great progress with them. 

Another interesting thing happened last week which I can't remember if I shared or not but we were out in the sticks and were wanted to use miles effectively. So we went and visited this one lady who hadn't met with missionaries in a year or so and she is awesome. She believes the church is 98% true. There are just a few hang ups that she doesn't agree with but we will iron out those details later. We have just been having some great gospel conversations with her and will continue to do that for a while. We are going out to do some service for her later this week. She has a gorgeous yellow lab who is so much fun. Today when we pulled up I opened my door and the dog just hopped in onto my lap and got mud all over me. Whatever lol. I know that there are missionaries in other countries who get muddy every day so I ain't worried bout nothin. 

I love this area. It is super poor. The people are not too humble. But are pretty darn nice. The branch is small but wants to share the gospel. I want to help so much. It is awesome to see the change in me. I don't want to sound prideful, but I have seen the change in myself. I really have such a strong desire to share the gospel with people. I am not afraid to offend the devil. I want to wake up in the morning ready to go knock on doors all day. I'm still working on that desire but I have gotten to the point where I have a BLAST going tracting. The hardest part is getting out of the car to go knock. Once you've started you're good. Anyway.... I love this work. So much. That is all. 

Love y'all!!!! 

Reese

sketchy house. But it's all good. We figured no one lived there. 

Full gospel Eh? Here. Take a Pamphlet.

All you can eat catfish for $6.50. 

Drive on down to the caution light there's a little country store with an old coke sign...

The subject of this week's email happened to me this week. 

This week's has been the biggest culture shock of my mission thus far. So... To explain my area. Trees, with a few houses in between. A restaurant called "farm boy" that has all you can eat catfish on Fridays, where we met the nicest people who, since the rest of the place was PACKED with the entire County, asked if they could sit by us. They then offered to pay for our meal! The father knew everyone who walked in. Literally. Everyone. It was legit. So awesome. I love it out here. Yall. I'm fixin to buy me up some land out ere ya know? I rekon the land is really cheap. Anyway...

My companion is Elder Mathews. HE IS A BOSS!!! He is such a great teacher and always knows when to follow the spirit. He is from a very small town in Nevada about 3 hours north of Las Vegas. He is a farm boy. Super humble. He has a great voice, super good at wrestling and is just an all around great guy to serve with. I am very grateful to be preaching the good word with him for these few weeks. 

So this week during... I guess the grand scheme of everything I was able to feel the spirit strongly all the time. During district meeting while I was helping our district set goals, I felt very prompted to increase some of the goals. Now I didn't want to say anything because I was in Clarksville before where the areas are POPPIN! Elder Taylor and I were finding 10+ new investigators a week. In this district we set a goal for 7 new a week. And I was thinking "okay.... that's less than 2 new a week for each comp. we can do better than that." So we bumped it up to 8 after praying but then I thought of something;) hehe here we go. 

So our goals for the transfer are 8 Baptisms, 8 New investigators/week, 8 attend sacrament per week, and 12 Member present (I know that this isn't a key indicator but it's still important) So I asked everyone to set companionship goals for the transfer. I then asked everyone, at a later date, what those goals were. And it turned out exactly how I wanted it to. The "Unknown" Goal is now 11 Baptisms, 12 investigators at sacrament meeting, 11 new per week, and 14 member present per week. So hopefully we can be somewhere in between those goals! It would be awesome. 

I love this area already. It's awesome. So many kind people. People who love Jesus. I love Jesus. He did everything for me an I'm just out here doin my best to serve him. 

I love y'all so much. Keep workin hard in whatever you're doin!:) 

Love 

Reese 

First house knocked on in Morgantown 

Throw back? 

My little downtown 

Me and da real MTC homie (Sis. McFarland) hit 9 Months

Just a typical day in the life of this G.

Now I guess the real question is... Where is David Archuleta in this picture??? (Jessop, me, Mathews) Family reunion.