First of all ... I haven't asked permission yet to go to Dave and Monica's on Christmas, so they probably shouldn't count on it (the president usually grants permission for missionaries to visit family in their area on Christmas, but I have to ask). My new comp's kind of difficult ... I don't think she's going to want to do that but I'll see. I'm going to need Dave and Monica's address and what stake they're in. We have a dinner appointment that night and they're super excited about it so I guess I'll have 2 dinners tha tnight plus 3 breakfasts ... that will be fun.
So ... I am now serving in the Bountiful Heights Stake. It's right up by the temple and all the houses are on the mountain. The area is SO different from Layton ... all the people here are very very wealthy. Even if the house if old, it's still huge and really nice. There's absolutely no apartment complexes or really even any rougher neighborhoods. Jon Schmidt is in one of the wards I cover; he's the ward organist and his wife is so sweet. Neil Anderson (son of the apostle) is also in that ward; his family's really nice too. A lot of our ward mission leaders are old mission presidents so they really know what they're doing. We cover 9 wards and a branch for the South Davis hospital. There's a bunch of baptisms in that branch because most of the people in that hospital are victims of really bad accidents or dying of cancer or something ... they all end up going to church services because they have nothing better to do. It's really cool; we met a couple of the people there who've been through terrible accidents (lost limbs; paralyzed, etc) and they said they see their accidents as a blessing because they never would have been humbled enough to accept the gospel otherwise. We have a baptism in a couple of weeks for a lady named Lacey. She got hit by a car while riding her horse about 10 years ago and flew 20 feet. She was in a coma for a couple months and ended up losing half her brain or something? I don't know, it's really sad ... but she really wants to be baptized and it's super cool. All the baptisms they do in that branch are for people in wheelchairs so they have a special ramp that goes into a therapy pool in the hospital. So basically, to baptize, they wheel the chair down the ramp, tip the chair over and bring them back up. How crazy is that? It should be cool to see, haha. Oh, and there's a polygamist complex in the stake ... that's fun.
Me and my companion, Sister C, took over the stake from the elders and she hasn't served here before either, so we're both brand new, starting from scratch. The term for this is "pink washing" (sisters taking over an elder area). We moved into the basement the elders were living in and let's just say it was a nightmare when we first got there ... it was SO gross. Like, I couldn't function or eat or do anything because it was so gross. Cleaning the bathroom, I've never seen so much hair in my life. It was so nasty .. I bet in the 3 years the elders have been living in that basement they never once cleaned the shower. And they left a bunch of old stuff like razors and dirty socks ... blek, I almost puked. The basement is really big but it's in an older home. It makes me miss my town home back in Layton! The good news is, the counters in the mini kitchen down there are bright 70's orange ... orange must be one of those colors that ruins your appetite because the last thing I think about while I'm home is food. Plus the kitchen's really old and gross of full of elder's food ... so I haven't had a problem watching what I eat! Hahah, also, I get to do my studies in the morning in a massage chair, that's nice, and there's a ton of weight machines in an exercise room down there. The elders must have loved that ... so I guess I'll leave the area very ripped, haha.
It is SO cold. The roads here are super slippery and everything's on a slope .. it's really scary. I let Sister C drive because she's from Nebraska. We do have a car! Yay! The other sisters in our zone don't; I feel so bad for them ... but seriously, it's so cold and we've got roughly 4 feet of snow in the last few days. I feel like it's 50 times colder here than it was in Rexburg! My companion is very nice ... but she's going to be a struggle for me. She's really controlling and OCD; she doesn't trust me to do anything on my own. If she tells me to save something in the phone, she doesn't believe that I did it right until she checks it. It's really been hard because I like to be in charge of stuff. We've been out the same amount of time, but she feels like it's her way or not at all. It's really hard. We haven't taught many lessons yet; so far we've just been meeting with all the bishops and mission leaders and auxiliary leaders trying to find out ore about the area and to find people to teach. We taught the first lesson (the Restoration) to a 13-year-old girl the other day. Sister C took lead of the lesson and butchered it. She left out the priesthood and jumped right to Joseph Smith ... like, what?! I've taught the first lesson so many times I could do it in my sleep. Apparently her and her trainer did things a little differently? It's just been a little difficult to love her but I'm going to keep trying. Also ... she hates eating healthy; when we pick somewhere to go for lunch she says, "anything deep fried" ... lovely. As you can imagine, we get along great, haha.
The members here are SO nice! Even though everyone's rich, they're really humble. We went to ta bunch of Christmas parties and moms would come up to us, hug us and just start crying. "I have a daughter on a mission and you remind me so much of her!" ... great! hahahah, literally it happens 5 times a day. Each ward here has an average of 15 missionaries out on missions, no joke! So people here are always saying, "we're going to take care of you because someone's out there taking care of my missionary." They're so loving; we've got at least 10 offers for Christmas day. In Layton, we tried so hard to visit people on Thanksgiving night, but no one would let us! all these cute little moms show me pictures of their daughters and get all emotional and block out their whole schedule on Mondays because that's the day they get to email ... it's funny. It really makes me hope my mother's like that, hahah. The only thing that gets me though ... these parents have kids on missions and pray for them and worry about them ... I just think, okay, I'm here right now. your job is to find people for me to teach . That's so sweet that you want to feed me and buy me stuff and hug me, but then I ask about your neighbors and you're like ... "oh, they're not ready to hear the gospel," "we're not very close with them," "I don't want to ruin our friendship," etc. Well okay ... so your kid is probably struggling with member like you in their area too, ya know? Hahah, it just drives me crazy. There's couple good families who are member missionaries, but not enough. Jon Schmidt's wife yesterday raised her hand in the gospel doctrine class we were teaching and sai, "when my son was on his mission, he said it's so hard to get members to do missionary work when he can't even get his own family to do it. That year he asked for nothing for Christmas other than for us to find someone for the missionaries in our ward to teach. So let's do it for our kids on missions, everyone!" and sat down. I was amazed! Hahah, it was awesome. Like, we don't have time to try to get to know your neighbors, earn their trust, then try to let us teach them. So you do the first 2 steps! It's hard when there's literally only 8 nonmember houses or so in each ward. We're going to get the area moving though!
What time would you like to skype on Christmas? I can pretty much do anytime that day ... we're going to about 50 people's houses and all have offered to let us skype there, so pick a time. I'll ask for approval to go to Dave & Monica's and we'll see how the comp reacts to that one ...
Thank you for the prayers; I really appreciate it! Now everyone go out and find some of your neighbors for the missionaries to teach please! Merry Christmas, xoxoxo
Heidi
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