Raytown Branch

What up Y'all? How it is? (lol the language of the South)

I am doing well, and yeah I have been hearing a lot about Hurricane Irma. The priesthood in the ward went down to Houston this past weekend and it was crazy! It is crazy how much these hurricanes affect the people around them. We were checking out gas prices as we needed to fill up our car, and since the last time we filled it up, the prices have jumped up 40 cents!! That is crazy, I am wondering if this is God trying to wake up the people to remember Him and turn their ways around. It seems like sometimes in the Book of Mormon that he does that to the people to stir their hearts back to Him.

This week for me has been a super crazy one!! I swear it has just flown by! So last Tuesday was our p-day and then on Wednesday we had district meeting! Then on Thursday our mission president had a district leader conference!! It was so much fun. We started calling it a district Leader retreat because it felt more like a retreat. We all arrived in Madison at 4:30 and then they drove us up to Raytown, which is a small branch building. They had a barbecue, and we just hung out for about an hour-and-a-half and talked. I got a chance to catch up with a few mission buddies! After that, we had a little meeting where our mission president taught us a about the history of the little branch and how much sacrifice and how many miracles it took to keep it standing! Then after we got bused back and we got back pretty late to the apartment that I was staying at. I guess if you are with your mission president, rules go out the window... haha just kidding.

The next morning we all had to get up at 5:00 so that we would be able to get out of the door by 6:40. This was with 11 people in a 2 bathroom apartment. Talk about a short shower. Then we actually had our conference and we were able to learn a lot about how we could improve and be better district leaders and help those that we are over. I am very grateful for the opportunity I had to learn a lot. I really wish I had that chance to learn earlier on when I first became a district leader. But eventually it ended and we headed back to our area.

On Saturday, Elder Deming and I went and tried a bunch of our investigators thinking that it would be a good day to catch them and invite them to the other Elder's baptism. We literally walked 5 miles in about 3 hours and no one answered... or wasn't home. I was so sad. But It was nice to see that others in our district had success that day! The Jackson North Elders got a baptism and after we went to Wendy's to celebrate and we got frosties and played risk in the middle of Wendy's. It was pretty funny, and a lot of fun!! Then on Sunday we only went to sacrament meeting it was actually really neat!

I hope all is well with you!! I miss y'all and hope to hear from you!

Love Elder Corbett

1 Elder Hubert and I. He came out with me!

2 Elder Hubert, Elder Wandry and I. Some of my mission buddies.

3 Guest Star, President Olson, who jumped in on the pic!

4 Playing Risk at Wendy’s

5 The new thing called the Batmanning!

6 2 Elders that are in my district

This is the Raytown Branch building. It is a very small building and over 100 years old. It was built in 1906 and was bought by Joseph F. Smith for 10 dollars cash and was the first LDS church building in Mississippi. The early missionaries would meet there for mission conferences. It was not used for a number of years and then the church came and decided to restore it. During the dedicatory prayer when it was first built it was said that the building would be there until the millennium. Since that time several tornadoes have come through the area and jumped the building leaving it unharmed. There have also been wild fires that would stop just before the building.