September 2, 2014

OK, it has been way way way too long since I've been able to e-mail. Our P-day is normally Monday but it was a holiday so they changed it to Tuesday but the last one I had was Friday the 28th. I've been dying! I thought they would let me send an e-mail when I got to Toronto. So much has happened, I don't even know where to start!!

MTC: The last few days at the MTC were amazing. I seriously loved the sisters in my district and will probably be friends with them forever! I was sad to leave but excited at the same time. But when we got in Toronto we realized that half of our luggage wasn't on our flight. It got a little crazy when we had to figure out who's bags were missing and their bar code number. Anyways we eventually left the airport and went to the mission home, which is adorable!! They gave us a yummy dinner and the President Clayton gave us interviews. All of the girls spend the night at the mission home and then the next day we went to the stake center to meet our companions and find out what area we will be in. The last night was sad. The other 3 girls were crying and I was totally feeling it!

SAD: I'm kind of glad I didn't get to e-mail you right after I got here. For three days I felt like I was constantly holding back my tears. People on the streets would yell at me and I was just grumpy and super homesick. But then it got better. I was reading Dad's journal one night and he wrote "I want to serve the Lord, but I guess I'm not fully doing my part." I realized that I was just thinking about myself so the next day I tried so hard to focus on everyone else and realize why I had come. I didn't give up all I did for nothing so I'm going to give 100% all of the time. It's still been hard but gotten a lot easier and more enjoyable. I still haven't gotten used to being with just one person all the time. 

AREA: I'm in Weston. My apartment is not much better than Moms. Our walls are peeling away, our shower curtain has mold on it, the floor had not been swept for like 6 weeks, and there were juice stains in the fridge. I thought they would be required to clean before they moved out but I guess not. Oh, our view is TIGHT! We can see the needle and the skyline really well! So I guess I can't complain. I was so excited that we had a deck but when I opened the door I almost threw up. It is covered in white! I think like 30 birds live out there.

WARD: The ward here is different from the ward in Provo. People are from EVERYWHERE which is awesome!! And the boundaries are just a little bigger! There are three companions in the ward. We have been invited for meals three times. They have all been so sweet and generous. No one here has money, but they are so willing to share what they do have.

Berry: The last missionaries left us with a note that they met him on the bus and he was interested. We went over last night and oh my, he was NOT interested. As we were walking up I saw a large, black man sitting on the porch without a shirt. EW. Anyways, we started just chatting with him and he didn't invite us in or get us chairs so we taught him the first lesson standing up. The whole time he was rolling his eyes and not responding to our questions. At the end we asked if he would be interested in reading the Book of Mormon. He was like, heck no. But didn't say heck! haha BUT THEN he changed the subject. He grabbed my hand and asked if I was single!!!! OH MY GOSH I wanted to slap his face. He was like 30 and super creepy and smelly. I told him no and pulled my hand back. Then he stood up and was like, "well in the near future maybe we can meet up." I was like BYE! Ah, it was so creepy. We quickly walked away and crossed Berry's name off of our potential investigators list.

Jill: OBSESSED WITH HER! She is such a sweet lady who is tiny and has like 5 dogs. boo. But she's been coming to church and at our last lesson I invited her to be baptized and she said yes! YAHOO. She's older and gets around on this motor scooter and said she couldn't come to church unless the weather was good. We prayed for good weather but on Saturday it said it would be rainy all Sunday. But it didn't rain. Jill came to church and started crying when I bore my testimony. I wanted to cry too. Anyways I love her and am praying that she'll stick to her baptismal date on Sept. 28!

Shauna: She's this 30 year old, black lady who is hilarious. Super dramatic and super loud. We taught her on Thursday and she came to church on Sunday! YAY! I didn't think she would stay for all three hours but she did!! In Sunday school the teacher had all the visitors stand up and introduce themselves. When it was her turn she walked up to the front and talked for like 7 mins. She told everyone how she is going to school right now so she can eventually open her own bar. HAHAHAHA!! One of the elders leaned to me and was like, "shoot, have fun teaching her about the word of wisdom!"

Creepers: We were walking to an appointment the other day and saw three guys outside. One of them was like, "oh man, your boss must love you. You can sell anything with that smile of yours." EW. After I told them we were volunteers I asked them if they had ever heard of our church but they weren't interested in talking about the gospel. I finally just gave them a card and told them to check out the website. One of the guys responded, "Nah, I'll just check you out. Wanna go out for drinks tonight?" Hahaha guys are so gross here!

Stranger: While we were waiting for the bus I started talking to this man. He is from India and was telling me about his crazy hard life. He didn't want to meet with us because he has his own religion but he told me that my smile was an inspiration. He also told me that I made his day but NO he made my day! Pretty sure God placed him in my path because like an hour before a lady said the F word to me. Ah man! It's hard to just ignore people like that and to not be offended. I hate it when people hate me. But I need to get used to it real fast! People also ignore me all the time.

Love you all!