Wow what a week!

Wow what a week! 
It was amazing! We have seen so much growth with in the last week! On Monday we got a call from a member in Savannah who said they had been down to Valdosta to go to the wild adventure park and met a young man names Peter. He ended up talking to him all day about the church and he was very interested! They became friends on Facebook and Peter asked to have him pass his information to the missionaries! So we met with him and he is an awesome guy and he loves the idea of the Book of Mormon  and is excited to start reading it! That was one of the many miracles we have seen this week! We have been working really hard on our area book since I have been here. The last updated progress record was July!  So we went thru our phone and called every number that was not a member and tried to set up a time to see them! So far 9 have said we are welcome to come by! We also have an investigator that the Elders had taught but didn't have time for and she and her 2 kids are on date for the 23rd.  We are just helping her finish up stopping smoking! I also got the chance to speak this Sunday in the branch and we had a good turn out! It was an amazing week and so many opportunities are opening up here! I hope and pray that things will continue to progress! 
Love, 
Sister Randall

We met all of our goals, so that was amazing!

Hey y'all I hope you had a great week! This week went pretty well for us! We met all of our goals so that was amazing! We worked hard and it showed this week! We have a new investigator her name is syriene.  She was being taught by the Elders but since it is to far for them to bike they gave her to us! She has three kids and is crazy full of energy.  She is ready for baptism but needs to quit smoking so we are going to try to start helping her with that.. but other than that we are just trying to build up our teaching pool. We went threw the phone this week and called all of the numbers that where marked as investigators and 9 of them said that missionaries haven't been over in at least a year and that we are welcome to come by! We also went to go see Richard and Ann this week.  They always seem to have food ready for us when we come!  This week we had steak and shrimp and they didn't even know we where coming.  We walked in and he started asking us how we want our steak! They are so cute I love them! Funny story for the week:  We saw a former investigator when we where knocking some projects and so we stopped to share a scripture with her and she is a little off. So I pull out my Book of Mormon and start reading and she sticks her hand out.  I get done reading and she goes to take my book! So I pulled it away and said "This is my book but we have a copy of one if you would like it?" And she grabs it again and says "Oh nah I already got one!" So I pull my book away again and said "So you don't need mine! You have one!" and she got all mad and was like "I gotta go!" Sorry lady this is my book get your own! haha but I hope y'all had a great week! Hope to hear from you soon! Love ya! P.S: Got my first hole in my shoes I'm official now! 

Sister Shelby Randall

Christmas Zone Conference

We had a wonderful Christmas Zone Conference in Tifton for the Macon, Columbus, and Tifton Zones. The food was yummy, especially the desserts made by President Fussell!!

Christmas

What a week! Hope y'all had a great Christmas! I know I did! The beginning of this week was hard still struggling to find people to teach and it feels like everyone has given up on our ysa branch so its been hard! But Christmas Eve we got to go caroling as a district to some of the families that we are trying to teach! It was really awesome and a good way to soften people to our message! Christmas morning was great we went over to the Rigden family farm and had a big southern breakfast with deep fried bacon, biscuits, grits, and all kinds of stuff and Sister Rigden got all the kids around and told them about the nativity it was cute to watch and to be able to be apart of their family for the day. After that we went over to the Robinson's and had lunch and we got to Skype home from there! It was great to see my family and to be able to talk with them! After we talked with our families we opened presents from the ward and the Robinsons.  We got spoiled! They are so sweet to us! That night we went over to Richard and Ann's house! They are a family that we found a couple weeks ago. They are an older couple and they have no kids so they kinda just take everyone in.  They have met with missionaries before but never sisters.  So they invited us over for Christmas dinner! We where a little late but we decided to go any ways and they where so excited that we came! They went all out for Christmas dinner I mean prime rib and yams and all kinds of stuff!  They are the sweetest family and they really like us so I hope that we can start teaching them more! Well I hope y'all have a good week! I love ya! 

Sister Shelby Randall

I Finished the Book of Mormon!

Hey y'all!

Thanks for all the great emails this week! It really made my day! This week was a little hard!  Its the week before Christmas and people don't really want to see us right now and all the college kids went home for Christmas and thinking about not being home for Christmas is kinda sad! I really can't wait till i get to Skype home! Its going to be awesome! Well exciting news this week I finished the Book of Mormon! I really have only read it once before and it was all in one night with Jackie so this is the first time I really have read it and understood it! I love the book of Mormon so much.  It is an inspired book of God and it is amazing the things I have learned from it! Today I am a little late emailing because we went out to the swamp today to look for gators! It was so cool and we saw one! It was a lot of fun that was much needed! I love y'all so much!  Thank you for all your support and love! A big thank you to the Elg family for the cute package I got this week!  It made my day!! I hope to hear from y'all soon and don't forget the reason for the season! 

Love

Sister Randall

Pictures 3-5:
Searching for Alligators!

Exchanges This Week

What a week!  It was kinda a hard one but it went okay! We had exchanges this week so I was in Albany with 
Sister Barber. So that was a good break from the usual routine.  Yesterday was the best day of the week though.  So we had 9 people at church this week and there was a older lady and a younger daughter that came and sat on the front row. They where like the poster children for backwoods hicks South Georgia. So they go to bless the sacrament and the daughter lets out the biggest fart I ever heard. So we played it off continued with the meeting and then it just keeps coming!  Mind you its fast and testimony meeting so she gets up to give her testimony and she tells us she found a boyfriend who finally isn't a butt hole. Then she sits down and a counselor in the presidency gets up to talk and she farts again but this time she yells out GOSH DANG IT!  But she used other words I just filtered that. So it was a great spirit filled meeting yesterday!  Turns out they are from a different stake; they where asked not to come back to so they came to our branch. That night we went out to knock doors so we just got into the car and drove over to a place kinda close to us. It is a really nice neighborhood and typically we don't get much luck in the nice parts of town.  So I was not really excited to knock there, but the first house we knocked the family was really nice and we shared the Christmas message with them.  They said they would watch it and for us to come back in a couple days so that was really surprising. Then I saw a house down the street with awesome christmas lights so I was like "Lets go there."  So we walked up and they are all out side and the man said, "Hey how are you and waved us over and we went over and he was like "I know who you are!  Your missionaries and I know about the celestial kingdom and I have read your book! That was a little shocking! So they invited us in and we had sugar cookies and talked a little more! Turns out missionaries had come by his house 3 years ago and taught him but then he said they went home! They are so cool and they invited us back for Christmas to talk with their family as well. The husband said to his wife "I was going to ask you to join their church but then you would get stuck with me forever! HAHA  After a hards week it was good to end it meeting awesome people like that! Well I love y'all so much! Don't forget to keep the Savior the focus this season!

Love 
Sister Randall

This is the only picture she sent home this week!  I think she wanted us to see the moss hanging from the tree! Very Beautiful!

Food Drive Service

Wow what a week! This week was a struggle, not very many people want to meet with us because of Thanksgiving.. but we got to go and help out at this food drive thing the day before Thanksgiving. So basically people just drive up and we put food in their car.  It was really humbling to see some people who lived in their car with their kids coming to get food for Thanksgiving. After that we went to a lady in our wards house, her name is Sister Paterson and we helped her clean her kitchen so she could have a good Thanksgiving.. well she has 12 cats and they can go to the bathroom where ever they feel like it and every thing has an inch of hair all over it mixed in with dirt and who knows what.. the cabinets where brown when we finished cleaning they where white.. Any ways haha I enjoy going over there she is so funny!  Thanksgiving was great! That morning we got up to go to a feed the homeless event (a lady told the elders about it).  We showed up at this parking lot and no one was there and every one we asked never heard of it,  so this lady made up feeding the homeless hahahah! We went to the Neffs for Thanksgiving dinner and it was really great!  They have an awesome family and the sweet potatoes where amazing! We got to see some cool people this week!  We met with a lady named Leslie she was so awesome! She showed us her AA chips and told us her story and just cried and cried!  She is so strong we talked a lot about the gospel and I gave her a plan of salvation pamphlet and she was so excited.  She gave an amazingly powerful prayer! It was awesome! Then Friday night we had dinner with a member in our ward and Megan their young woman age daughter wanted to go knock with us on her street.  So we went down to this house and knocked and the younger lady was like come in!  They where having a birthday party for their 3 year old and they where like "want cake or chilly?"  They where like "tell us what you are doing?" So we started talking and every one was really awesome and into it. And then the couple that let us in was like "we have to go to a work party,  but y'all stay as long as you want and if you get too tired to go home there is two extra rooms!" We stayed and talked to the brother who lives with them and the mom who is from Florida. He was really interested and told us he feels like something is missing in his life so he wants to get baptized! He is so cool like I would be his friend at home! haha!  So I asked him if he would read the pamphlet we gave? He said "no not unless I long board!  So we went outside and I long boarded in my skirt!  Hahaha!  This week was really great! Don't forget to check out christmas.mormon.org its awesome! Speaking of Christmas I made a pretty sweet christmas tree! Love y'all!

Sister Randall

Pictures:

Food Drive Service

Thanksgiving In Valdosta, Georgia

Sister Randall & Sister Platt

Sister Randalls Zone!

YIKES!

Shelby's Christmas Tree

This sign was posted in Hamilton Georgia, Sister Randall's first area!