Sister Marli MacLay: "There are 54 churches in this tiny town"!

sister lloyd and in the rain! It's the best when Texas decides to rain!

Fun fact: this week I found out from a town official that Brady has 54 churches! Soooo that's 1 church for every 92 people in this tiny town. Haha.

The highlight of my week was getting to dress a sister in our branch, who passed away, into her temple clothes. Her name was Dorothy Tipton. She was 93 and has been sick for quite awhile. We went and visited her in the hospital Wednesday. She wasn't really there; she was ready to pass. But we read to her from the scriptures and "taught" the plan of salvation. The spirit was so strong and grew such a great love for her. She passed away later that night. We were asked to help dress her in her temple clothes yesterday. It was a really neat experience that I was so lucky to be apart of. The spirit was so strong and the veil was very thin. I know that she had a very sweet reunion with family in paradise. And she looked so gorgeous in her temple clothes. She is ready to meet God at that day when our spirits and bodies will be reunited. We attended her funeral today. I got to lead to music in Amazing Grace which turned into me singing a solo basically.

We actually got to teach lessons this week! One was to Daniela. She is 12 and has been coming to sacrament for awhile with her aunt, Flor, who we are also teaching. Her grandma came outside and listened to our lesson too so that was a miracle!

We also got to meet and teach a man named Santos. We taught him the Plan of Salvation. He is really sincere, humble, and wanting to know more. I'm really excited about him!

Sister Lloyd and I sang in sacrament yesterday too. It was terrible lol. We are still having sore throats and days where we feel awful. During my part my throat decided to act up lol. But I mean, they didn't kick us out of the branch for it!

On Wednesday when we went to do nails at the nursing home, it turned into cute little Mary lou doing our nails. She thinks she is 21 and has 3 kids under the age of 4. Haha. She doesn't know where she's at or what's happening any of the time but she is just happy and goes with the flow. But after we painted her nails she forgot that happened and thought she was there to paint ours. So it turned into us getting very shaky manicures. She thought the nail polish bottle was my hand at one point and started painting that lol.

Last Monday night, we were tracting and got to meet Mike, a Jehovah's witness. He preached at us for in hour in the rain and wouldn't let us get one word in

every JW I've met has been like that though. Every time they start preaching at us I feel the spirit leave, and none of what they say really makes sense. But Jesus Christs true gospel is simple and easy to understand! I love it!

Saturday was a rough day. It started off by us going to a recent converts house. We have been working really hard with him. He's the one who lied to us the first time we met him and told us his name was Richard and he wasn't a member lol. Anyways, we went over Saturday and be was maaaadddd. He asked us where we'd been all week and then whipped out his calendar and showed us that the sisters who were teaching him the lessons came every day. We tried explaining to him how there's a lot of people in Brady who need this message and how we are working really hard to find and teach them. He told us that made us selfish, we were bad missionaries, and not dedicated. He told us that if he were our "supervisor" he would send us home. Welp that hurt. Especially coming from someone we love so much and have been working really hard with. Long story short, after a long talk and us crying in front of him after he said more hurtful things, his heart softened a little and we resolved it.

Later that day, we were visiting someone in the nursing home when we met a fellow there who was visiting his wife. Well, he was from the Church of Christ, and they hate Latter-day Saints. They preach a lot of anti. This man decided it was his responsibility to tell us how ignorant we were and how we don't truly know god or anything we are talking about. (Also I heard awhile back that the church of christ is a break off of our church? If anyone knows about that, email me plz) He was the most passive-aggressive person I had ever met.

I had to pray for a lot of patience, charity, humility, and meekness that day. The rest of that day was doors being slammed in our faces and people being rude to us in one way or another. I'm grateful for my companion who is a really good example at not engaging with people like that, especially Bible bashers. Im also grateful for the savior and the needed strength that it gives me. And also the cute little old Baptist couple who was super kind and let us in out of the blazing heat to talk, even though they weren't interested at all.

We have seen a lot of miracles this week and have been able to find a few people who might be interested in learning more! Next week is transfers so we are hoping that we both get to stay here in the heart of Texas! But, wherever the Lord needs us is where we will go!

Thank you all for all your love and prayers <3 and for reading my huge long emails. Haha I have too many good things to talk about!

Love you all!

Sister MacLay