Hello EVERYONE!!
Oh my goodness you have no idea how great it is to hear from you!! It was really weird and an adjustment not getting any letters for over a week! But the phone call last week was a great help.

Well before I get to your e-mails I'll try my best to tell you about my week since I'm sure you'd love to hear about it! Well I'm serving in Tuscaloosa and well its a little different since well its a total college town! It's so weird. But hey I'm trusting that this where I'm suppose to be! So this past week I can't lie so I better be honest, it has been well... not at all what I expected it would be. Don't get me wrong I love the mission and everything but things are just a tad bit different than the MTC. ahah of course it is! My companion is Sister Moseng. She's a temple square sister so she's currently serving outbound here in good ole' bama! And yes dad she did play b-ball! But yeah I feel my focus for this week has been faith and acting on that faith you have. Life may stink like no other but everything happens for a reason. Satan can get to ya pretty hard but the Lord allows that to test you and see if you will continue to stand by Him. and trust me I am going to stay so close to the Lord! It reminds me of the poem titled "footprints" you should totally look it up when you get the chance! But yeah things are turning around slowly i feel and I really hope I get to Brazil soon!! Oh yeah President has given me and the other sisters an hour of language study in the morning and 15 min to read the Book of Mormon at night. OH yeah I forget to tell you that the other sisters that were in my district share an apartment with me and sister Moseng. Its great to have them still around! We practice portuguese together! Its kinda tough keeping up on the language by yourself so its great having them around. So I had my first day of tracting this past week! It really wasn't as tough and I thought it would be. I was kinda stressing about it because I had only practiced it in portuguese in the MTC! But things went great! I can't say we found anyone but we got some water and 20 dollars each from some nice man! sister Moseng and I call him 40 dollar Gary. He's a leader for the Methodist church and was really friendly. Elders have taught him before so we had a feeling that he didn't care for us that much. but he loved talking to us and and let us share a little message with him. and at the end he was like, "I know you have a tight budget so here's some money for you!" we told him oh no we don't need it! But he insisted and said that he would hunt us down if we didn't take it so yeah we didn't want that to happen so we took it! haha we bought some yummy cookies and cream blue bell milkshakes with it after! But yeah I've noticed the people here in the south are really nice but the second you mention you're a missionary a wall goes up and they turn us away the nicest way possible they know! hah oh goodness. the ward here is really great but there are loads and loads of inactives. So we've been doing tons of work with the inactives. I guess the past missionaries pretty much just baptized to baptize. Its pretty sad actually. We actually just got back from visiting a lady name Pearl. She is the sweetest old lady ever! She got baptized about a year or so ago and hasn't really come back to church since. She calls us sisters her "Sister Elders" and the Elders the "Elder Brothers" Shes so funny! We're trying really hard to get her to call the Bishop so pray that she does this next week!! Well thats mostly everything... I probably missed a lot! So I'll possibly write a letter next p-day and write down everything I want to include in my e-mail! But thanks so much for the e-mails! It helps out more than you know! oh my p-day is on Mondays normally but with the holiday the library was closed so we had to come today!

Thats so cool that i have ancestors in Alabama!! Maybe I'll get the chance to visit where they are from!! so cool!

Well you all hang in there! I sent off a bunch of letters yesterday so hopefully you'll get them soon!! And I'll send some pictures home next week or so so you can see those!!

Good luck with the baby Jason and Jamie! for sure send me pictures! ahhh Amanda you're having your baby so soon also!! Send me those pictures as well!!

Well I love you all so very much!! Write soon! I have a feeling writing letters will be easier for me to write since this e-mail thing is different than the MTC. I don't know If I can print these off. but yeah I love you alll so so so very much!!

talk to you soon!

Eu amo voce!!

Sister Jessica Gregory