SHNA!
whoa. IM IN FREAKIN KANSAS HELLO HELLO IS THERE A WORLD THAT EXISTS BEYOND AN HOUR LONG LINE TO GET INTO THE GRAND OPENING OF ROSS!. Ross. ross. THIS PLACE IS AWESOME.
ok ok ok backing up. So much happened in the MTC but it literally feels like that was back in 2006 so we'll skip that.
BEFORE I FORGET! Dad, Kendel, Al, Kels...anyone else out there who is reading this I HAVE A CHALLENGE FOR YOU: Every Sunday, or someday or every single day if you can! Read your journal from your mission and see what YOU were doing on that day I am out here or whatever. I realized Dad you probably haven't even TOUCHED your mission journal....let alone maybe even HAVE your journal with Nazi-cleaner on the loose (mom-seriously. dont clean my room. please.) BUT what a blessing it is to write things down! I even have felt the blessings from it re-reading things from the MTC, its crazy how fast you forget.
FAST FORWARD: ok blah blah left the MTC before the sun was up wanted to cry a little bit but also laugh at the same time becasue me and sis nash got new roomates so we were packing in the dark and then had so many bags we couldn't even carry all of our random stuff and we had to pull it all the way to the opposite end of the MTC and we were running late OF COURSE and sis nash can barely walk so i was trying to help her but my suitcase weighs 68 pounds and my other one 59 so i could barely walk IT. WAS. SO. FUNNY. just imagine a train wreck and that was us.
BUT we made it on the bus....and then to the airport....and THEN to Missouri.
I prayed I wouldn't have to sit next to someone on the plane I would have to preach to and i was wedged in between so many missionaries I coudln't even breathe... the Lord has a sense of humor.
Got to Kansas Ciry MO, wow. airport is so small. we are walking off the plane come out of the terminal, some man and his wife say "hi sisters!" we're like 'ya ya hi..." EVERYONE in slc would say that:
"where are you going!?"
"Missouri!!"
"oh..."
so we were over that at this point
EXCEPT for that that was President and his wife... haha best first impression ever. Me and Sis Nash were apparently way ahead of everyone so we awkwardly tried to recover but WOW THEY ARE SO NICE OBSESSED WITH THEM
so many things happened, #1 30 of us fit inside of their house comfortably (there were only 30 of us due to sickness etc) it was awesome. Seriously they are so nice I will bow at their feet every time I see them for the rest of my life now.
After a long story I will have to tell you later....got assigned to...... LAWRENCE KANSAS. Hometown of Kansas University and WOW EVERYONE IS SO OBSESSED. There are these TERRIBLE KU signs outside peoples houses like straight up rock sign with their last name on it and this ugly little mascot bird BUT awesome because we can ultimate creep on people becuase it has their last name.
So sad saying bye to Sis Nash. Had to be done.
COMPANION/TRAINER: Sis Hawkins. LOVE HER. small world Dodi and Bro Clark were her Bishop at BYU. tell them.
She's the greatest.
oh except yeah i also got a BONUS companion for 10 days, Sis Park, because she is going home next week and me and Sis Hawkins (shes been out for 9 mo) are new to the area so it has been like WHIRLWIND memorize the maps and peoples names, and the system, and the area, and the bus route, and the places where food is quality...and where it is not..and what people are nice....and how the RS Pres hates america...and yeah.
So on that note......I'm going to need a GPS at some point......becasue apparently the people out here in good ole Kansas decided "hey, we hate America, so instead of making our road system SIMPLE, we are going to name every cross street after a state of America....in order of WHEN THEY JOINED THE UNION. and then the other streets we will put numbers on them....but not in order because we have now renamed half of them after dead people. And then we will get people hopelessly lost because we have no mountains and no hills and its so flat they will keep driving on Bob Billings street whcih turns in and out of 23rd street and think its ok because we just built a new ROSS."
Help me. Sis Park has a Garmin....and shes leaving Friday.
SO MUCH TO SAY. This is not fair, I have been here for way longer than a year in the amount that has happened but one email to sum itup.
Highlights: first day of the mish involved feeding homeless people AWESOME they do this community thing every other month broke my heart how nice the people were I was loving it...but then got slapped in the face awakening when they were like "wow you love this! how about you go get some of the food and sit with them and eat! you deserved it!" ohhhhhkkkkkk. I HAVE A PHOBIA OF PUBLIC CUTLERY. ESPECIALLY ONES THAT DONT GET WASHED.
but i did it.
Blessings.
Sat by a woman who wouldnt tell me her name "guess its a church song!" Ruth...? Noel??? "Grace." DUH. shes awesome....and 195 years old. comes every week. LOVE
then went on a tour of the town by a sister giving us a ride home ..... and 2 hours later we now had a more confused perception of where we were as we drove back and forth and everywhere as she told us EVERY. BUIlDING. EVER. BUILT. EVER. I literally fell asleep like 4 times....woke up... STILL TALKING. so funny. but she bought us slurpees BLESSINGS.
Salvation Army the next day to serve food again. SAME PEOPLE. so awesome I love them. and they get confused when i introduce myself as sis murray so they all started introducing themselves back as "brother Damien" or their name YES SPREADING THE GOSEPL............................................
First appt ever: less active kind of handicapped 60 yr old man who is trying to finish the book of mormon, sis hawkins was falling asleep AS SHE WAS READING outloud. so funny. he didn't even notice. apparently we were really entertaining.
FIRST EXPERIENCE TRACTING: in the rain. but it was warm. and really windy. PFAT!! (pray for a tornado! PLEASE I WANT DESTRUCTION SO WE CAN BE PART OF HELPING HANDS) except no death.
So I contracted a strnage disease where my tongue strats to swell and I can't speak so i became a mute I KNOW,
so they forced me to talk at an apt complex we were knocking.
and so a young girl answered SO not digging our tags or us being there or religion and im so nervous rambling on THEN literally the doors face each other in a corner, other lady opens the door to walk her dog, freaked out we are standing there but facing sideways talking to the nieghbor (following?) dog gets loose RUNNING around
Sis Hawkins said we looked to scary having 3 of us on the doorstep so she hid around the corner, dog comes up to her she pops out to save the dog running away, girl is freaked out like we were going to try and jump her with one of us hiding, lady and daughter trying to calm down wildabeast CHAOS.
One of those it was funny now...no STILL funny now. I started laughing when trying to tlak to the girl and I just wanted her to so badly shut the door in my face and make it stop. SO. AWKWARD.
We visited a less active lady in a trailer that smelled like old flesh, cigarette smoke, cats....and mystery meat. I LITERALLY COULD NOT BREATHE. said 1 million prayers that my weird nose disease where i pick up on ONLY bad smells would go away and all of a sudden i started smelling my hand sanitizer i put on SERIOUSLY THE LORD LOVES US its amazing.
She also told us about 400 different ways of how her husband died...so we realized that she may or may not have amnesia...or some sort of crazy resilience becasue apprently he died in a chair last year...but also in a crazy car accident 10 years earlier....but then also he had a bad heart and had a heart attack. So TBD which one.
I'm in love with the Church building. It brings so much peace and comfort, the Spirit is so REAL. It's amazing how prevalant it is, and how i missed seeing that in Utah when that Spirit is at every building. I love Church so much, it was the fastest 3 hours of my life! I love Lawrence. I LOVE IT. (pep talk.)
Help. Lawrence is waht we call "dead." Sis Park admits that she helped kill it beasue shes been sick and not wroking as hard as she could. We have 0 investigators, 1 we just found yesterday (amazing story) BUT maybe not amazing because he is from China named CHARLIE (give charlie a hug for me) and we ran in to him power walking. He smiled a lot and agreed to having us come over agian.....but I'm pretty sure he might think we are actually selling girls scout cookies and not his salvation so....maybe I have little faith but it's definitely a challenge. We have maybe 15% support from the ward, apprently they hate us. GO DO ANYTHING YOU CAN TO HELP THE MISSIONARIES there is nothing like proactive members. I'm so excited to turn it around though. I KNOW me and sis Hawkins can do it I KNOW IT (right? right? right?) at least i know Sis Hawkins CAN do it. so blessed to have her.
THIS is a century long. still figuring out this time thing. I'm pretty sure I just spent it all writing this and not the President. CRAP
ok bye.
LOVE YOU ALL
ok bye.
*******---->JOCELYN: Alma 60:6<-------******
STRINGHAMS AND BRYSONS: I want to cry. Your letters MADE. MY. DAY. I'm writing you back stat.
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