First Week in the Mission Field

Let me first start off by apologizing that I didn't get to send emails on my usual p-day. We had mission conference on Monday so our p-day was moved to Tuesday.

On October 7th, I had to wake up around 3:30 am. Yuck. We had to be at the travel office at 4:30 am. We rode a bus to the frontrunner station and took the train up north to trax. Trax then took us west to the airport. By the time we got there, the sun wasn't even up yet. It was crazy getting on and off the trains. The workers there had it down to a system helping the missionaries. We had 18 missionaries in our group. They had us get on the train as fast as we could and dump our luggage in a corner. Then they stacked up the luggage and has some of the elders ready to throw the luggage off the train as fast as possible. Kinda crazy. At the airport, checking our luggage and going through security went smoothly. Except for some reason the metal detector said I had something on my bottom. I didn't have any pockets. I was only wearing a skirt and tights. I have no idea why I would have set it off. haha oh well. they let me through anyways. The flight was about 2 and a half hours long. It wasn't too bad. I tried to get some sleep but it didn't work out too well.

We arrived in Missouri and I could instantly tell that it was humid. We met our mission president and his wife, President Morgan and Sister Morgan. They had their AP's there to help us with our luggage. We drove to the St. Louis Temple to take pictures as a group and then headed to the mission home. It was gorgeous!!!!! The sisters slept upstairs with their own beds and the Elders slept downstairs in bunk-beds. :) They gave us a wonderful home-cooked meal and let us just relax after a long day of traveling. I got to play the piano - first time in days. The Morgans were so kind to us and I really felt at home there. They seemed to go above and beyond to make that place one filled with the spirit.

The next day we had transfer meeting where the new missionaries would be assigned to their new companion and area. It was a little overwhelming and sad to leave my MTC companions but it was good. My new companion is Sister Gunter. She is so kind and a wonderful example to me of obedience. She is really helping me and encouraging me in my efforts. We are continually learning more about each other everyday.

We live about 30 miles south of St. Louis. We are in the Sandy Creek ward. Our area that we cover is huge!!!! It is about 60 miles east to west and roughly 40 miles north to south. It creates some struggle when we have to watch the amount of miles we drive every day. We don't have many people that we are teaching. The last two girls left to go home and it was really hard to try and pick up where they left off, when we don't know the area and we don't know anyone in the ward. So we are starting from the bottom. It has been a little discouraging because it seems like an impossible task to make a difference in such a big place. But our ward is great and the members are so kind and willing to help us out. I think I will grow to love the people in the ward. I will just have to take things one day at a time and keep moving forward.

Monday was Mission Conference. What a wonderful day that was. All the missionaries in the mission met together in a church building in Frontenac. There are around 240 missionaries in our mission. Elder Sitati of the Seventy came to speak to us. He is from Kenya Africa and he had a cool accent. He spoke a lot about the spirit and the need of obedience and humility in order to have the direction of the spirit. He said "The spirit will always invite us to do good." I love this because the spirit will invite us. We have the choice whether to act on it or not. and I also like that it says "to do good". The spirit will never lead us astray> If you have a good feeling, then it is the spirit. It is as simple as that. After he spake, they surprised us by saying that they had access to the new movie Meet the Mormons. We got to watch it!!! how cool!!!! I loved the movie and I highly recommend it. It was uplifting to see all the unique members of the church and how they told their unique stories. It was great.

I am continuing to grow and learn. It is a steep learning curve and it is a huge change but I know that it is for my benefit. "Good lumber doesn't grow with ease; the stronger the wind, the stronger the trees."

Me and Sister Fisher on the train to the airport.

Elder Sudbury and Sister Fisher on the plane

Look! It's Elder Spjut!!!! Grandma and Grandpa Durrant told me to look for him. He was one of the AP's. We were taking pictures at the temple and he took a selfie of himself with my camera. haha :)

Us at the temple

President and Sister Morgan. They are awesome!

The St. Louis Temple

Much of our area has curvy, small roads. They are so pretty. Its easy to get lost though

This is a unique speed bump. You actually have to drive into them with your car and they will bend. It took us forever to figure it out until a man plowed through them. We thought they were barriers at first. haha

Sister Gunter and I.