A Blue State Girl in the Reddest Place in America: Things Are Getting Much Better

The exchange was not that great. The person that I went on an exchange with would not let me or Sister Meier (mini missionary) talk during any of the lessons and when we did door approaches she would cut us off mid sentence. In the car rides and the apartment she would only talk to the mini missionary. It was so frustrating but it was only for a day so I got through it.

After that though things picked up. We met tons of people and now have 14 potentials for this week! I am so excited. Hopefully they will still be interested as we teach them this week.

Me and my companion have been getting along very well this week. We finally talk to eachother and it has been wonderful. She has been through some tough times so we have been able to share experiences and help eachother. It will be so sad to say goodbye next week. I think that I will stay in this area because I just got here and we are the first female missionaries in this area. I will let you know if things change but just in case I do switch out, you should send mail to the mission home for next week.

Oh one of our investigators, Annette, came to church and brought her 3 grandchildren and they had a great time. They want to do boy scouts and activity days (for the girl) so hopefully we will baptize 4 people. Annette though has a lot of problems that will not let her get baptized real soon. We think that she will get a blessing from the Elders (addiction to smoking and drinking) but she does want to quit so I know that soon she will.

We also did another exchange but this was only for a few hours. Sister Jeppsen (my MTC companion who is now in my zone here) and I had to go to return and report together so Sister Olsen and Sister Rozsa, Sister Jeppsen's companion, went on exchanges together. It was so much fun to see our MTC district back together- minus Sister Owens and Elder Case who are in Minnesota- and we were all able to bear our testimonies again. When we first came to the mission home we bore our testimonies about what we know, Thursday we bore our testimonies on our investigators and having the Holy Spirit to help us. There were 20 of us who came to the mission home and being all together learning from each other and sharing experiences was just fantastic! We all have had so many spiritual experiences that there is no way that people can say that there is not a God. So many tender mercies and miracles!

On Thursday evening we were tracting the Arlington Drice Apartments and we literally only had 30 minutes to tract because we had Bible Study with our investigators and recent concerts. Our morning was spent (me at Return and Report and Sister Olsen with Sister Rozsa in Sister Rozsa's area) so we did not have any time to find new people. We pulled over the car and prayed telling Heavenly Father that we really needed his help because there were like 10 apartment buildings and we only had time for maybe 3. We felt that we needed to go to the far left 3 building. We tracted the first two and found either no one home or no one interested. We looked at our watch and we only had maybe 5 minutes before we needed to leave. We said another prayer and in those last 5 minutes we found 3 people who had been prepared by Heavenly Father: JoAnn has been taking discussions while living in Maryland and did not know how to find missionaries again; Sharita and her husband were looking for a church to raise their kids in, and Musa knew a little about the church and wants to know more. It was just perfect.

Here are some pics!