Begin Again

What a CRAZY week! I can't even remember half the things I do each day anymore so writing emails is kinda tough sometimes! Well, last Monday I went and started saying goodbye to people. It was super sad :( SO we went out to eat at Chick-fill-A with the young woman who got baptized and then she dropped us off at one of the member family's. We went to the Mesa Christmas lights with them! We can only go with an investigator because it is out of our mission. So the family we were with brought his non member sister. It is SO GORGEOUS! Maybe even better than Salt Lake because it's not AS cold! :) haha it was really fun and the lights on the palm trees are so gorgeous! Also, guess who I ran into in the visitors center!? a young woman from our Stake! She is so cute and we were able to chat for a few minutes. We even took a picture together :) Anyway the lights were gorgeous.

The next day we were supposed to have a lesson with the couple we have been teaching but they cancelled for some reason. So we went and said goodbye to the member family whose home we were to teach the couple at.  I love this family and they have done so much for us; the father told us to come in because he had something for us. He had two forget-me-not flower bracelets hanging on the tree for us! They are so precious! He said he didn't want us to forget their family, or to forget each other (my companion and I). It is so cute! I love that family so much! Anyway then he taught us how to see auras and how to hold and recognize our energy (chi). It was SUPER cool. Sounds weird, but it's really cool. He is so in tune with the spirit. It's amazing. Anyway, they are one of my favorite families so it was really hard to say goodbye to them. 

So transfer meeting was on Wednesday!! The President  made this huge announcement about how there is a rare pair of sisters that are second half training each other and how the Lord is really trusting us and that we were put together because of our personalities, and we are supposed to be together for SURE. It actually made me really nervous! Anyway, we already knew he was talking about us and he was already looking straight at us as well. He also told us not to get a big head of this, but it was doing quite the opposite for me, it made me quite nervous! I hadn't realized how big of a deal it was I guess. Anyway so my new companion is indeed one of the missionaries who was already in our apartment! She is CRAZY! haha so she said when they say our names that I had to run to the front and jump in her arms. Transfer meetings are crazy, President will call one companions name, they will stand up and stuff, and then he calls the other companions name and they usually run up and hug or do something weird and crazy. So that's why she wanted me to jump in her arms. Well we sat on opposite sides of the very last pew of the chapel. President calls her name and she stands up and does a little cheer or something, he says my name and we both start running/screaming to the front. Well I jump in her arms and what does she do? Oh ya, she was laughing so hard that we fell over on the first pew! AWKWARD! Everyone thinks we are nuts now. I could just see President thinking, "Lord, ARE YOU CRAZY? What have we done!?" haha but all is well :)

SOOOO this week has been super draining for me. It's so hard to basically be starting all over again, but I've loved it. We are over two wards, ( in the same stake as the other wards I was over). My new companion and I are already friends since we have lived together and I am already learning a lot from her. She is a great missionary. So we haven't really had any set appointments but we've had quite a few lessons with people on the side of the street and we usually get a lot of OYMs each day. She is very good at those. We also made cookies with one of the Bishops and delivered them to like ten houses of all potential investigators! That was really, really good. So hopefully we get some good investigators soon. We are working on that mostly right now. Being in the same apartment/area is a blessing and a curse. It's really hard to see someone teaching those people that I started with and who are so close to baptism being taught by someone else. I love those people so much! But it's also nice to be so close so I can go to their baptisms when they DO get baptized. 

Anyway just some fun things that happened this week.My very first day we visited this super old, old, OLD lady. She is crazy! We knocked and sat there for a while. All the sudden she started yelling, "BETTY! BETTY!!! HELP ME! HELP ME!!!" We had no idea what to do. We didn't know whether to barge in there or what. We finally decided to just leave a note. So we started writing notes and putting them on her door when all the sudden it started opening. My companion frantically pulled all the notes off and the lady opened the door. She had no idea who we were but she let us in. We tried to talk to her but the only things she said that whole visit was, "yesss, nooo, I don't knowww, and I'm sweaty." Weird.....so since she wouldn't talk, we finally left. It was quite a welcoming moment into my new area ;) She was insane, literally. 

Anyway, we also went to a Quincenera (sp?) for a less active-recent convert. She was so cute. Thank goodness we aren't allowed to dance though because my companion definitely would have made me. Like I said, she is crazy/ a party animal. But we had a lot of delicious Mexican food! 

Another funny story. I was wearing my cute bow flats, that aren't very practical, to church. Well I used to be able to walk to church because the other church is right next to our apartment. Well our new church is like 10 minutes away on bike. So I wanted to wear my cuter shoes for church though. Anyway as we were crossing the cross walk on our way home from church, one of my shoes came off! So I had to roll backwards and slide my shoe back on! So by then the light had changed and I had to wait on the side of the road and my companion had already gone across. It was really funny and embarrassing since everyone at the light saw my shoe fall off and watched me awkwardly waddle on my bike backwards to the sidewalk. But honestly, never is there a dull moment with my companion and I. She is quite funny. 

Also last night I had my first experience of getting "antied". The man would not let us get a word in edgewise! The best thing you can do in that situation is just testify, testify, testify. But we couldn't! He wouldn't let us say anything. He kept saying that Jospeph Smith did all these terrible things and was going off about how he had some Mormon neighbors who did some "terrible" things to him and that he knew what we believed and we don't. He said that the church was conning us and that we should listen to him because we are just stupid teenagers who didn't know anything and that he was saving our souls. It was quite interesting. He told us that people are always lying all around us and that he did his research on the internet to find out all of this stuff about Joseph Smith. It made no sense. I wanted to ask him why he would believe everything he read on the internet if he just told us that everyone lies a dozen times a day. He was so contradictory but kept telling us to do the research ourselves because there is proof that Joseph Smith did those things, and proof that the Book of Mormon never happened. Ridiculous. That just strengthened my testimony even more that Satan will do whatever he can to tear down/distort the truth. And as I was TRYING to testify, I felt the Spirit telling me that what I was saying, is definitely the truth. 

So something funny about my new companion is that she often talks in her sleep and sometimes sleep walks. Well for the past two nights, we have apparently been sleep talking to each other because when she talks, it wakes her up and she can remember it in the morning. So we just have tiny conversations in our sleep. However, I don't remember it in the morning! Kinda funny though! haha. Anyway those are the highlights of my week! I'm sure I'll have more to write as I start to know people better as well! Oh also, it is sooooooo cold here. I was NOT prepared for this weather. Especially at night when I am riding my bike! FREEZING! But I'm super happy to be here and I know that I'm supposed to be where I am for some reason, I just don't really know what it is yet. But I love being a missionary. I have no doubt that I am supposed to be on a mission. I love this church/gospel and I'm so glad I have it in my life! What a blessing it has been! Have a good week! :)

WHEN I FELL OFF OF MY BIKE.....