I Be Speakin Southern!!!

**From an email sent Mar. 8**

Hey y'all and yee haw!

Ok, I am now speaking in a southern accent. I've really picked up on it down here. I love it. It makes me sound funky. Sometimes I'll say something and not even realize that it's southern term. For example: "That there church is down the skreet, past the barkin' dog." Yes, I know I'm weird.

Last week was a looooooong one. Enjoyable, but long. But on Tuesday, I got quite a shock to my system. It was about 11:00 in the morning and Sister Hardman and I were driving to one of our appointments, and our cell phone rings. Sister Hardman looks at it and says "It's President." And then she answers it. I hear the conversation and he's asking for me. Sister Hardman says "One second, let us pull over, because she's driving." And then President says, "No, just have her call me as soon as she can." Then Sister Hardman hangs up. So, naturally, I start freaking out. Why was the President calling me? At first, I thought it was something to do with my family. That something had happened. Why else would President want to talk to me? So, when we pull up to our appointment, we are a little early, so I call President Bowman. And he answered and I said "Hi, President, it's Sister Hoggard, how are you?" And then he says "I got up this morning and saw that it was raining, so I called to see how you were doing, because I knew this would be a hard day for you." (He knows that the rain makes me feel like crap because of my fibremylagia.) But isn't that sweet!? He called to see how I was, just because it was raining.

Our investigators are well....being a little.....well, I'll just put it this way, they are being very...."southern-ish." If you don't know what that means, ask Jeff. He'll tell you. I'm sure he remembers. One of our investigators is a man named Joseph. He used to meet with the elders. And now, we're meeting with him. He likes the sisters a lot. It's interesting. Sisters get into a lot more places because we don't look quite as intimidating as two young men in suits. Anyway, we're meeting with him again tonight to actually get a sit down lesson with him. His baptism is set for March 28th. Please pray for him. Another is this fifteen year old boy named Brandon. We're still waiting to make sure that it's ok with his parents that we meet with him. He's really sweet. We're also teaching a family. The grandmother used to be a member, but has been baptized into another church, so she'll probably be excommunicated soon unless she starts coming back. But her two grandsons, Caleb and Matthew haven't been baptized and they are baptismal age. So, hopefully, we'll get the go-ahead from their mom and we'll be able to teach them and get them baptized, cuz they both want to be baptized. The Patrick's haven't been able to meet with us. They've been really sick. Sister Patrick actually had to take Brother Patrick to the hospital on Friday. So pray that they'll get better and that their hearts will be softened. We were able to meet with two guys the other day that totally bashed us. We were meeting them at the church with a member couple to help us teach. Finally, the member had to step in and tell them to knock it off. She said that us sisters were good enough to meet with them and help answer their questions, but that we weren't here to be bashed. It was horrible. I cried the entire way home. It's horrible when someone can take something that I cherish and totally use it against me to rip me apart. I keep thinking of part of the song that Sister Hardman wrote: "I have tried to warn you, but my words have only grieved you. When we stand at judgment day, what would ye have me say? I reached out for you, but I could not retrieve you. Would you dare to tell me then, 'I don't believe you.'" I hope their hearts will be softened one day. It might have just been because his friend was a "preacher in training."