Provo, Alabama

Welcome to Provo err...Huntsville, Alabama! I am in the Monte Sano ward which is part of the Huntsville area and it's awesome. Seriously, there are a lot of members up here and I love it. Our ward is very strong and helpful. They give us rides a lot and feed us a lot and help us out a lot, it's great. Our area is very big, it goes all the way up to the Tennessee border and we don't have a car. Welcome to the life of an Elder. But we make do with what we have! My new companion is Elder Harman and this is his last transfer. He is a cool guy and a great missionary so this'll be a fun transfer. It'll be pretty weird to see him go home. Our apartment is probably the nicest one in the misson. For real. We leave our trash outside the door and they pick it up for us it's like a hotel! And it's just the two of us in a huge apartment, I love it.

This weekend we had a baptism! His name is JaJuan and he is SOLID. It was probably the most spiritual baptism I've ever been to, it was amazing. It was also one of the most stressful hahaha. We may or may not have over-filled the font cause we were preoccupied with pizza......We get back and we see water start seeping out from behind the door and we start freaking out hahaha. Luckily, they had a shop vac in the church so we sucked most of it up and it dried by the next day. We got everything figured out and the baptism went perfectly. His mom is not a member and she was bawling the entire baptism. Hopefully we can start teaching her this week. JaJuan seemed very happy and he will be a strong member of the church. He has a big testimony and I think he wants to go on a mission. He was singing in the choir after church- that just doesn't happen! So cool. (Here's the pic)

So Friday we were tracting for some sisters in our district cause they were kinda struggling. We met this girl named Ashley and she told us she would come to the devotional we had last night if we came to her church. So we got permission from President Hanks and went to a baptist church yesterday! We had a member come with us and we were the only 3 white people in the congregation. It was literally insane, I loved it. Everyone was singing and dancing and screaming and praising Jesus. There was a band and choir on stage rocking out the entire service and it was probably one of the craziest experiences of my life. Not gonna lie, the music was good and the service was entertaining but it was definitely not church. They were feeling a very different spirit - not quite what I would call the spirit of God. BUT! They were some of the nicest people I've ever met - We didn't get any comments or nasty looks thrown our way - just love. The preacher even had us stand up and they sang us a welcome song! He said something like "Welcome to our brothers in Christ from the Mormon church!" It was so funny. But that is something I think every Mormon can work on- just loving others non-conditionally and making sure they feel welcome and happy. Anyway, Ashley actually came to the devotional and it was great! President and Sister Hanks came and spoke and it was like a come and see type of thing. They talked about the difference between us and other churches and the blessings of being a member. I think Ashley enjoyed it and they're gonna start meeting with the sisters! It was worth going to the baptist church for sure.

So that was the exciting things from this week. We had a fall activity/chili cook off in the ward Friday night and, of course, the missionaries were the judges. We tried 18 different kinds of chili and I was so sick of it afterward haha. Some of them were downright disgusting, most of them were average, but a few were delicious. We also did a bit of service, I mowed a lawn again for the first time in 6 weeks! In Birmingham no one had lawns to mow, but I'm back out in the country again :) Well, it's not really country, but it's mostly residential areas. Other than that...I'm happy and healthy! Loving life and excited for this next transfer.

Love and miss you bunches! Glad you had fun in Hawaii. Don't have too much fun without me and I'll be home before you know it. Have a wonderful week!!!

Love,

Elder Weight

ps. There's actually a part of my area called Chase. I'll have to get a sign next to something haha. We were driving down the street and I saw "Chase's Church of God" It was pretty funny.