Well, here's your long overdue update, if anyone is still following this blog!  Erika continues to work insanely hard day in and day out and sees very little reward for her labors.  People in general just don't seem to want to hear her message.  They don't want to change.  They don't want to put forth the effort to be better people or draw closer to God.  They don't want committment.  Not everyone, of course! 
Here's an example plus a reminder that Erika is still....Erika!  She makes us smile!!!


"Our tracting has been somewhat fruitless, except on this occasion. The other day while we were tracting a lady rolled down her window and pulled out a pineapple and said, "fruit of the spirit?" In other words, "do you want a pineapple?" Of course we wanted a pineapple! So we went tracting and I was holding the pineapple while knocking on people's doors 'til I figured out that I could put it in my backpack so that people weren't wondering what the heck I was doing randomly holding a pineapple."


Even so, her letters are FULL of ENTHUSIASM and often include multiple highlighted and enlarged words!

She loves everyone and she loves serving!!!!!!!!!

She just finished training her companion.  They will stay together in Tallahassee for the next few weeks.  Although, with companion 'trade-offs" she gets to see quite a few other communities.  Here's a couple highlights from some recent trade-offs:

"This week for tradeoffs I went to 2nd ward. We went to Monticello, which is way out in the country. Monticello county stretches from the Gulf all the way to the Georgia border and there is not a single stoplight in the entire county. We drove past the hanging tree, where they used to hang people. It definitely fit its name. Monticello is also the most haunted town in the US. Sister Strate showed me a bunch of haunted houses. They were easy to point out because pretty much every other house was haunted. How do they decide if it's haunted I wonder? I don't know if I want to know....Haha. Some stores there still traditionally close on Thursday afternoons "for the hangin's" even though they don't hang people any more."

 

"So last week for tradeoffs I went to 2nd ward which is a lot of country. Come to find out, the next day the sisters went back to the neighborhood Sister Strate and I were walking around in IN THE DARK and found a bunch of police cars and a fire truck and an ambulance and a man lying on the ground. He'd been shot. The moral of the story is, we weren't shot. Yay!"

 

We found this next story rather entertaining!

"Super funny story- So last week when we were still in the computer room, a couple Spanish elders were in with us emailing their families and they started talking Spanish to each other. They talked in Spanish to each other for quite a while when finally one of them said, "I'm sorry..... I know this is really rude......" I was halfway smirking the whole time 'cuz they thought they were being so sneaky. I said, "It's ok. I speak Spanish." They both just got deathly quiet and they looked at each other in horror. It was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO PRICELESS! I just started busting up laughing and they were speechless. They just started stuttering in unbelief. They were like, "no way.......... I thought you spoke German?"

"That too."

"You're joking. Say something in Spanish."

Hahahahahahaha."

 

 

We're looking forward to our Monday morning letter tomorrow.  Perhaps I'll be a little quicker on the new post!  My apologies on the late posting this time around.

 

Here's a final quote from Erika:

 

"To end, I just wanted to express my DEEP GRATITUDE for God and for His mercy. "I cannot say the smallest part of which I feel." I love Him so much. The power of the Atonement covers EVERYTHING."