Hey everyone!!! This was another fun week! I hope you all had a great happy thanksgiving and remembered all the many blessings you recieve. I am so grateful for the chance to be out here on a mission and be able to preach the gospel to these people. I know it is making a difference in their lives and my own also. I am so grateful for all of your prayers and thoughts. They really do make a difference.
So this week was very exciting. Thursday morning at 8 we went up to Edwardsville to go play football. A couple of the wards up there were doing a joint Turkeybowl. It was a ton of fun to be able to go play football with members and other missionaries. We had a total of 14 missionaries there. It reminded me of turkeybowl back at home but just a little different.
After that we headed down to Dupo which used to be in our area before we were condensed down into a branch. We ate lunch with the waterloo missionaries at a members house down there. It was a full on Thanksgiving meal we had. So after that we went back up to the church and our Branch president, President Oniel was holding a huge thanksgiving/birthday party for his 94 year old father. It was all their family. 8 of the 11 kids from his father were there. Including all there kids and grand kids. So there was over 100 people there. It was awesome. My companion and I were the only two white guys in the building and the only ones who were not family. President Oniel is the only member in his family so this was a perfect oppurtunity for us indeed. We talked to everyone and We ended up teaching a lesson with one of Pres. Oneil's brothers who is a pastor at another church. It was pretty cool he really liked it. But were very happy with the whole thing. So there we had a turkey again.
Then after that we went to President Hair's home which is in the zone leaders area. Since my comp. served there and is very musically inclined they had us over to sing and and for dessert with them. President Hair is the 2nd counsler to our mission president. It was fun! I had talked to pres. Hair before not to long after getting out of the mtc because one of the fake investigators I had there was one of his good friends. The fake investigator knew I was going to STL mission so they talked about me. President Hair also has family that used to live in Temecula and stuff. It was fun to be there with the zone leaders and Presidents family including his sister in laws family. After that day I have never felt so full in my life before.... hahaha
The day before thanksgiving we also had a thanksgiving dinner with a member. We had a appointment right before that at our investigators who were are pushing to set a baptismal date with right now. We did not succeed though... After while waiting at the bus stop to go to our dinner appointment a car pulled up to us. It was an undercover cop. He asked us what are you two doing down here?! We just said we are missionaries. He asked you two are going in soon right? We replied yes we are going to another appointment. He then drove off. But I had a feeling he was going to be watching us. So a minute later I saw him staked out watching us. Then after few mins he pulled up to us again. He signaled for us to come over again. He had a picture of this white girl and said have either of you seen this girl in the past week down here. We said uh actually yes we think we did. We saw a white girl a few days ago. It was so odd to us because you never see any white people at all in East St. Louis. We told him where we saw her. She ran away from a near by city. I do not know why she ran away to East STL. She was staying at some projects that one of our members lives at. We had not been down there to those projects in weeks so we had no info to confirm she was down there. While talking to him we missed our bus. So he said jump in I will give you a ride. So we both jumped in the back of the Undercover Cop car. He gave us his phone number so we could call him if we saw the girl again. He told us that he is actually a U.S. Marshall. We were like oh wow this guy is the real deal. We figured that is why it was so hard to tell he was undercover it looked like just any other car in East STL. So yes I got to ride in the back of as U.S. Marshalls car this week:) He asked us if we carry weapons on us we said no. He was suprised at the notion. haha but it was a sweet experience.
Friday night we had sister Lehr the only lady who can drive missionaries by herself in our mission take us around a few places. She asked if we would go out to dinner with her and her family and their friends. We said sure! Everyone there were nonmembers except us, sister Lehr, and her daughter who is inactive. It was really cool because it made sister Lehr feel like a real missionary having us with her. Mostly everyone was drinking too which made her feel better also that we were there with her. It was really cool because we got a referal out of it which is not even in our area but it is cool because we may get to teach the guy.
Last night we had dinner at a members house who is an import up in Granite City. When they took us home they had to drop off some other people who were there with us who live right in the heart of East STL. Right as we turned onto the street the tire went flat. We were so blessed that it did not go flat on the highway. But it was already around 9:30 by that time. We went to the trunk of the van the jack and all that stuff was not there. So we had to call someone else to come with the stuff. It was a big mess and took forever so we did not get home until 11. It was way cold last night so all the gangsters were inside so we had no problems:) Even though we do not get bothered at all anyways, well except drunk or high people. Or mentally ill people. But I am so blessed for everything and all the good things happening here. Hope you all have a great week!!!
Love,
Elder Derek Turner
*SERVING IN ZION*
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