May 20th letter from Sister Randall

Can you believe that it's been 3 months since I've been home!? It's so crazy to think that I've completed a sixth of my mission already.

Monday was a ton of fun...but super crazy again. I'm grateful for the things that we were able to do but I'm really glad we are laying low today. It's been a little too crazy for me to keep up without my down time on Monday's. We've been visiting a lot with a less active member who i just realized is as old as my mom :) It's funny how as you age age doesn't matter as much. We've become really great friends with Wendy and love going and reading scriptures with her. It's turned into a weekly thing now so it's great. Another great thing that has happened is Ruth is reactivated! She has been to church 2 times in a row now, been to two church activities, and has asked her friend to meet with us! We are so proud of the progress our members in Albany are making and can't wait to see them grow more and more.

Albany has officially hit summer... Tuesday it was 97 degree's out side and Saturday it was 105 degree's couple that with the humidity and you have hot hot hot! We are spending a lot of time tracting now. Because it has warmed up more people are outside and willing to talk with us. On Saturday we were tracting out in the country part of Albany when we knocked on a woman's door named Vicki. Vicki has been prepared for the gospel. She has a strong relationship with her Father in Heaven, she knows how she receives answers to her prayers, and she has recently lost her mother. We ended up spending 3 hours with her discussing gospel principles with her. It was funny I don't know if we really taught her anything because she already knows a lot of our basic doctrine is true. We are so grateful to have found Vicki and we can't wait to meet with her again tonight and invite her to baptism!

Saturday night we had a branch BBQ that the Senior Sisters put together. These last few weeks we have been individually inviting many of the less active members. Our hard work sure paid off! we had a really great turn out. We had a few less active families that no ones seen in a long time show up. We even had a few part member families show up with their non member spouse. It was a lot of fun and really great to see so many people come out to the activity.

Yesterday we had a great day at church. The Relief Society lesson was on temples and family history work. I wish as missionaries we could do family history work and take the names to the temple. I wish we were able to attend the temple more often as missionaries. Oh how I long for that peace right now that comes only from being in the holy temples of the Lord. It really saddens me to think of how many people back home don't take advantage of the temple being so close to home. On the other hand I love seeing the dedication of the people out here. We have one couple that drives to the Kansas City Temple (about a 2 and a half hour drive) every week to be temple workers.  Yesterday we went to the Gardner's for dinner. Their house is crazy but we love it there We were able to get into a great conversation with them about why they aren't coming to church and to resolve some of their concerns. I really hope that they got what we were saying and have that desire to return to church. At about 7:45 last night while we were there we heard thunder and decided we better head home. There had been a lot of talk about a possible tornado yesterday and the sky was getting pretty sketchy looking. It began raining on our way home and only got worse after we got home. There was also talk of baseball sized hail coming with the storm so we parked Morris (our car) half way under the porch so the windshield was protected. I took a picture of it but i forgot my camera so I'll send it with next weeks letter. It was pretty funny. It was pretty funny because of how Sister Grange parked we couldn't get out of the front car doors so we had to climb in the back and run  out from there. I was in the rain for maybe 5 seconds and when i got inside i had to change because i was soaked. Hooray for crazy adventures!

Well things are going great in Albany, i love serving the Lord and can't wait to hear back from you all!

Take luck!, take care of the luck... (look it up :)

-Sister Randall