In the Middle of No Where -- Next to Nothing

Here I am ya'll! I'm in Texas!!

We arrived last Wednesday afternoon where our Mission President and his wife and his assistants greeted all of us off the airplane. We did have 2 other missionaries who flew in on different flights. One from Mexico MTC and one who was waiting on his visa to come to the US from France. 13 in all! There are now even numbers of Elders and Sisters in the mission. Almost all the wards have a set of Elders and a set of Sisters (my tiny branch being one of them).

So the title of this might make you curious...well...I litterally am in the middle of no where...next to nothing. My companion, Sister Sheldon, has been out 6 months since I arrived in the field. 3 of those months have consisted in living in the tiny little branch of Sealy. The Sealy branch streches from the outskirts of Katy, TX to the other small town of Weimer, TX. it takes about 1.5 hours to get from one side of my area to the other. I live somewhere in the north east part of that area in a place called New Ulm. In the TINY town of New Ulm, we have no place to buy groceries (Dad...we have a full blown post office!! but they don't have an elementary school...). Every day we travel to a different town to visit investigators or to visit members or less-active members of the church. This can make things a little difficult when planning to travel.we try to hit a town a day. It can kinda be confusing. This makes planning so KEY in everything we do.

The past few days have been pretty windy...they've also been pretty wet. That combination makes things pretty miserable...okay REALLY MISERABLE. Other than the weather everything's been pretty great!

Saturday we made visits in a town called Belleville. While there, we made visits. There were plenty of visits that ended out being us standing on a porch for a few minutes. COLD!! and by the end of the day I was tired. We both decided to visit this one part member family. Michele (who is not a member) answered the door and let us in. Her husband and 2 little boys wern't there and she had been taking a break and started a movie. As we got to talking with her, she opened up to how she had started to feel about God and His role in her life. She believed in God. No doubt about it but she had lost most her faith through her son's battle with cancer. He is now 5 years old and still has a year of chimo left. She lost a lot of her faith. She was tested and tried and doubted alot of her beliefs. We continued to talk to her about this and asked her to pray. She got very misty eyed and told us she was scared. She was scared what God would do. We assured her that all would be well. he would be there for her to help her as long as she let Him help her. We challenged her to pray and to read Romans 8. She said she would. We will check up on her sometime next week.

Well...I don't have much time left. I love ya'll.

Yes...I am picking up this accent. No doubt about that one.

Thanksgiving is all taken care of. We have about 5 families who would like us to come over, but because of distance...we will probably be able to make it to 3. We will be pretty full by the end of the day. Pray that we can make it through the day!!

Much love,

--Sister Carling

PS -- Due to the amount of mail going through the mission office (and the fact that it's 90 miles away), they have asked us to please send mail to our living areas. For all those who would like to write me, please write me at this new address (it will chage as transfers come an go)

Sister NaTosha Carling

741 Walnut St

New Ulm, TX 78950