Wow, this is so crazy that I'm actually here and in Arizona talking to REAL
people! haha. The MTC was super awesome and I learned so much there. There is so
much I want to say and so little time to say it! Thank goodness for journals
right?
So I miss my MTC companion sooooooooooo much. I'm literally
having withdrawals. However, I do have a great trainer :) We get along well but
we're still learning about each other and I'm still trying to figure out
everything in the field. She is from Buffalo, New
York and every once in a while she has a little accent :) She has only been out
for six weeks! She isn't even done with her own training and now she is training
me! My mission president said he is hoping to have us stay together for my whole 12
weeks of training though. I definitely hope that is the case because I feel like
we will just be beginning to figure things out really well and mesh well and stuff.
Anyway she is great and our stats have been better than they were before I
arrived so that's good! They say stats usually drop when you get new people but
we have been going steady. She jokes that I'm a good luck charm because we are
finally starting to have some good investigators (hopefully) and have people
follow their commitments.
So I arrived in Tempe on Tuesday. Guess who got sick again? Ya, me.. This
time I was just normal sick though. I hadn't eaten much because of our crazy
schedule and not to mention it was SO hot. So I ended up feeling really nauseous
and so I had to lie down with an ice pack and I ended up falling
asleep. We only got two hours of sleep the night before because of our travel
plans and packing and such so you can say it was much needed. Luckily we got to
go to bed early that night and I was able to sleep off my sickness. SO sidenote,
I stayed at a members house. I was looking at their family pictures on their
wall and guess who their son and daughter-in-law are? They are Adam and Eve on
the temple video! Crazy right? That was super cool though.
Anyway I am in one of the smallest areas in our mission. It is literally so small and so we bike
everywhere. We cover two wards and they are pretty great. I already had my
"first" baptism. Haha the Elders taught the young woman because she is 18 and
they teach the YSA age investigators. However, she wanted to be baptized into
one of our family wards so she was our baptism! She is super amazing and such a
cute, sweet girl. She is going through a lot to be a member of the church and we
are so proud of her.
We have another baptism scheduled to happen soon (hopefully this week, but
there are some things out of our control that might push it back).This little
girl is SO amazing. She is 9 years old and her family is less active
but members. She has such an amazing spirit and heart; it's so unbelievable. We
took her to the Mesa Temple visitors center last night and right when she saw
the temple she asked, "Why do I feel so good?" Then she went on to say that she
felt God was telling her she was making the right choices and that she was doing
good. It was AMAZING! Seriously? A 9 year old said that! She is so awesome.
On my first Sunday we had a woman show up to church! My companion has
visited her before and asked her to come to church but she never has. We tried
to visit her the other day but she wasn't home. So she just started crying when
she saw us and she said she just felt prompted to come today. She came late so
she wasn't able to go to sacrament, but she commented in the lessons and cried
during most of it. She agreed to let us come and teach her more! So that's super
exciting and we are praying for her.
We also met another family that is super nice! They are so non judgmental
and they want to learn more so they know what is a rumor about our church and
what isn't. They are super feminist and don't like women being degraded so they
congratulated us over and over again and said how proud they were of us being on
missions. They didn't know anything really though. They thought we were from
Arizona and they didn't think that we believed in Christ. So we were there for
about two hours just dispelling rumors and such. They want us to come over and
cook dinner and pies and teach them more. The mom is pretty adamant about not
converting, but she is a very spiritual lady so if anything we will just be
strengthening her relationship with Christ and helping her understand the
restored gospel. She doesn't like religion because she thinks its just a
business and such. Anyway we are praying for their hearts to be softened.
However, they are truly amazing people and were so nice to us and we had a great
conversation. They said their opinion, but would also listen to what we had to
say and would commend us for being brave enough to say it.
We had a trunk-r-treat to attend this week and my companion and I aren't allowed
to dress up. So we got as close to dressing up as we could and put tape on our
glasses and did our hair in braids to look as nerdy as possible while still
looking presentable. We borrowed tricycles from a family we know. Like grown
tricycles!!! haha. We loaded the basket with Book of Mormons and candy. Some
kids were so cute and they asked if they could have a Book of Mormon instead of
candy! It was awesome. It was a good experience for us to be able to meet the
members and get to know them more.
We had a pretty funny time the other day. Long story short, one of the
members forgot they were feeding us so asked if they could take us out to eat.
They said they would pick us up at 5. They showed up a half hour late and
dropped us off at Golden Corral! We thought they were going to eat WITH us! If
we had known, then we would have just eaten at home! We had to walk for a half
hour to get home! We had an appointment at 6:15 so we ate in ten minutes and
booked it out of there. Unfortunately, we were still 20 minutes late. It makes
for a good story though! haha.
I've had a good time here and it feels like I've been here much longer than
6 days. It's hard work and I'm really tired, but I wouldn't trade it for the
world. I have grown so much already and I'm so happy I can help others come to
Christ. AMAZING. I wish everyone could understand and feel what I do!
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