Idaho: Week 1
Hello everyone!
I made it to
Idaho! I left the MTC and flew to Boise Tuesday morning, then went directly to
Nampa where we all met and regrouped for our specific assignments.
Specifically, there are just 3 of us new Spanish-speaking missionaries from the
Provo MTC and 1 Hermana who came from the Mexico City MTC. Then there was a
whole district of English Nampa-goers who flew with us from Salt Lake. It was a
fun plane ride. It didn't seem like that many new missionaries, but I was told
that there were about 30 of us new missionaries that day.
So many new
things have happened, but I only have time to touch on a couple. The day we got
to Nampa, we all met and had a little fireside, then went out and tracted!
Yeah. First day. Neither I or my temporary companion had much experience with
tracting, so we just kinda went for it. We went the family history route and if
we couldn't think of any other thing to start off with, we just went right into
how the church is all about families and learning about our family history and
telling about the free services of the church. It went really well. We actually
found a few people who had done family history in the past but hadn't gotten
very far because they didn't want to pay. PERFECT. So who knows if our random
tracting did very much, but it was fun and a learning experience.
Then later
that night, I got my companion... Drum rolllll. Hermana Dickson! She was the
one I had gone tracting with and we had joked/talked about if we turned out to
be companions. I was super excited! A bit about Hermana Dickson, she is
the tallest sister there and I'm the shortest. HA! She actually was in Brazil
for 4 months before getting sick. Then she came home and got better before
getting reassigned to Nampa (because her visa expired). So here we are! She is
so excited about this work and super sweet. She knows Portugese really well,
but has been here with Spanish and is still learning the Spanish. I can't wait
to work with her. She went to BYU a few years before coming out on her mission,
so it'll be cool to see her when we get back. She is really fun and
(unfortunately) allergic to a lot of things, so we eat a lot of vegetables and
she's inspired me to eat even healthier. And we're in Kuna, Idaho. A bit
away from Nampa, but pretty close. HaKUNA Matata! It's pretty small here, but I
like it a lot. Lots of humble people. And we have a car to get around even
though not all the companionships here in Kuna do. SUPER lucky. And because
things are pretty spread out, we have a lot of miles each month. I feel so
blessed.
Random
stuff: It snowed my first night here, so it's all snowy still but not really
too cold. My boots are seriously coming in handy. We live with members. I've
already eaten potatoes. A member brought them over for dinner on Thursday when
Hna. Dickson was sick and we couldn't go out. Elder Bonati is in our district.
Super funny. He's in Nampa, though, so we only really see them during district
and zone meetings.
The other day,
we were driving along and I noticed a really big, black and white cow. I've
seen cows before, but not really BLACK AND WHITE ones, so I said, "Woah,
look at that cow!" without even thinking about it. Hna. Dickson was just
kind of like "Really...?" Yep. I got excited about a cow. Here in
Idaho. We laughed about it for a bit and then, to top it off, she said
"Holy cow" in response to something I said. Hahah We laughed at our
own corkiness.
About our
Spanish branch here in Kuna, it's pretttty little, but there are a handful of
strong members who are in love with the work. I walked into the meeting and
could just tell that they would willingly welcome investigators who came. More
just need to come so that it doesn't look so sparse in there. We'll
get there. So I also gave a talk in sacrament meeting. In Spanish. For 15
minutes. It probably helped that my Spanish is really slow. I felt like it was
a decent talk for having been there only 6 days. I'll take it.
One thing that
I learned this week was more about how baptism is such an essential thing. We
need it to attain the celestial kingdom. And it is the ordinance that we do
only once for ourselves but that can be done for others. How cool is that? And
with baptism, we are showing Heavenly Father our devotion and willingness to
make a covenant with Him. That willingness is essential to the covenant that we
make. Sometimes we aren't quite as devoted and determined to work to be better,
so we remind ourselves each week with the sacrament. We get to renew ourselves
to be better and more devoted to Him and our covenant we made. I think that is
amazing. Heavenly Father knew we wouldn't be able to be perfect in our devotion
and attitude, so he gives us the opportunity to remember each week what we said
we would do. I love that. Heavenly Father wants us to return to Him and
live with Him again. He has prepared a way that we can do this, a way that we
can continually grow and learn. And He knows what we need to accomplish this.
All of this is in the plan of salvation. He has things figured out. That's one
of my favorite things about this gospel. It's for us to grow and be better each
day.
I know that
Christ lives and love us. With all my heart.
Love you all
and hope you're doing great!
Con mucho
amor,
Hermana
Shirley
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