Tyler's first week in the field

Well I don’t even know where to start. This was officially my first week in Tennessee and it's going great! I'm in a town called Maryville (pronounced mur-vul), about 30 minutes outside of Knoxville. It's a decently sized town. Probably a little smaller than Bremerton but it's much more spread out than b-town is. There are a lot of tree's here but they actually change color. All the trees in Washington are green, but these trees are green, yellow, red, pink and purple, etc... It's a really beautiful sight! The weather out here has been consistently in the 70's and sunny. I left my journal at the apartment so I will have to say all this by memory. My companions are Elder Brown and Elder Christensen and they are both from Utah, surprise! The area I’m in is like the buckle of the bible belt. It's crazy. If you aren't Baptist or LDS out here, than you are under a rock or something. The Baptist churches out here are like the size of my high school. Bigger than any church I have ever seen. That's for sure! Our main investigator right now is Amy. She is about 21 or 22 years old, Baptist, and studying to be an RN. She is loving the Book of Mormon. She read from the beginning to Alma in between the first and second lesson with her. She is progressing really fast and just loves the Gospel! Besides her there are a few other people interested, but not really dedicated like she is. The members of the church here are really cool! Brother McDaniel’s had us over for dinner on Friday and it was awesome, he's so redneck. He and his wife (probably in their 60's) made us an entire thanksgiving dinner like turkey, potatoes, corn, and all that jazz. He also collects guns and knives. He had around 50 guns and 80 knives. He let us look at all of them, it was so cool! We also had dinner with the Twiner's, but they are just your average Mormon family. Hopefully I can get a picture with them before I leave! We also went to the Fall Festival, which is a giant festival and it's free to get into. We went and tried handing out mormon.org cards. We also saw Squiggy, the water-skiing squirrel. That was weird to say the least. Rascal Flats even made a guest appearance. I guess this little town is more well known than I thought it was. I have only been here for like 5 days, but next week I will write a much more detailed letter. Have a great week!!

Elder Tyler Byron