I called Sister Gentry last week! I called to check up on Dusty and Mercedes, and they're both doing great! Dusty got the priesthood!!

On Sunday I spoke in both Priesthood and Relief Society. The backstory behind that- I was serving in the Family Living Center a couple weeks ago and was talking to one of the senior sisters about revelation. I'm studying the Book of Mormon on revelation so I showed her my markings and everything and she goes, "Oh, you're an answer to prayer! Will you come speak in Relief Society?" Then her husband heard about it and asked me to do the same thing in Priesthood. Then, we had our Young Sister Missionary Sociable! Sociable = pioneer word for fireside. We've been practicing it for ages. Sister Poulsen and I sang a duet of I Stand All Amazed, with each of us having some solo parts. Who knew I would ever sing in front of ~400 people? PS those 400 people included the Performing Missionaries who sing, act, and dance. Majorly talented.

Monday- we were serving in Pioneer Pastimes, which is really just playing with kids and pioneer games for six hours. It's more fun than I thought it would be. Some of those pioneer games are pretty good. There was a little, like, 3 year old boy and his 5 year old sister who came in and were playing with the stuff. The wagon ride came clip clopping up the street and the little boy spun around and yelled, "Anna! Anna, look! You. Will. Be. so PWOUD!" And Anna went sprinting up to the fence and just watched the horses go by. Me and that Anna girl are kindred spirits. 

    Later that evening, we were greeting (aka taking tickets and counting people, welcoming them) for Rendezvous In Old Nauvoo (a show the seniors put on almost every night) and now that it's getting to be the busy season, hoards of people are showing up.  Sometimes people give you looks that kill when I tell them they can't save seats, or they need a ticket, or whatever. 

Tuesday- A few of us were asked to attend the Young Performing Missionaries (YPMs) district meetings and prepare a roleplay for them. We got there at 8, like we were supposed to, and 45 minutes later, we find out that they had changed the time to Friday. 

That evening, we went to watch Sunset By the Mississippi- a comedy variety show that  the seniors and YPMs put on together. It's hilarious.
     We also did service for the Community of Christ- we painted the fences that will go around the Smith family cemetery. While they were drying we went over to where they were having an archeological dig for pioneer artifacts. They're trying to find Lucy Mack and Joseph Sr's home. It was so cool! I found three things in a half hour, one of them was a piece of porcelain with blue and white designs on it. They actually had pretty fancy dishes back then.

Wednesday- For the fifth time this week, I had to prepare another thing to present to a bunch of people. Sister Maile and I did a part of our Wednesday morning mission training on how to help the members that come here. That same day, all of us went to see The Promise, another show put on by the YPMs. Oh my goodness, it is my favorite. When we go to their shows, they always say we are their favorite audience because we make the most noise. :) Being disruptive is my specialty. :)

Today!- I ran all the way to the temple and back, which is a mile and a half, in 20 minutes. I am darn proud of myself. :) We went to the temple to do baptisms this morning. It's been almost a year since I've done baptisms so I literally forgot how it all works. The plan for today is to chill, got out to lunch, and watch The Promise for the third time :)

So we live in the basement of the sisters' house, right? Well we had a massive thunderstorm (midwest thunderstorms are a sight to see) and it FLOODED. I woke up in the morning and swung my feet out on the floor like normal, except I hear a "splat" and my feet are all wet. I go, "Sister Maile! Is the carpet wet over there?" Hers wasn't. We got up and checked the basement and, good morning! There are lakes of water by the outer walls of the apartment. Like, it splashes when you walk on it. So we called some people and by 11:00 that morning, everything was moved out of our room and the carpet was stripped. I have pictures!

The first one is my footprints when I first got out of bed. The carpet didn't look wet until you stepped on it. I think about 2/3 of our apartment was soaked.

The second: The sisters were evacuating some of their stuff that had been stored down in the basement. You can see the wet foot traffic in the carpet.

I found some footie pajamas that a sister from last year left behind. They're very flattering...

We were serving in the Cultural Hall, so of course we had to play on the stage. 

A picture from Easter. We had an Easter egg hunt outside the house!

Some of the horses from the Civil War reenactment

A hilarious old man who we taught in the VC. He couldn't hear anything. He told us all about how terrible the Cubs are.

The same old man. He has a tattoo that says "Almost a Mormon". hahaha. 

May 9, 2014

Goodness gracious I am a lazy blog writer. I would never succeed as one of those happy homemaker Utah moms.

Alright so we left off at the airport reunion, yes? Well after that it was announced that Sister Maile would be my companion and my greenie. I'm training her! She's Tongan so this is how every conversation with senior missionaries goes:

Senior: "Hi sisters. Sister Maile, where are you from?"

Maile: "I'm from California."

Senior: "Where are you from originally?"

Maile: "I was born in Hawaii."

Senior: "No, I mean originally?" 

Maile: "I'm Tongan."

Senior: "Ohhh! That's wonderful!"

hahahaha everyone wants her to say she's from Tonga.

Fun fact about Tongans that I learned the other day. The younger generation gets gold teeth as an accessory. Sister Maile has one tooth that's outlined in gold. I got a Rolo wrapper and made myself a gold tooth so I could be an honorary Tongan. Pictures to come ;)

After a couple weeks, all the second-summer sisters (meaning those who were here last summer versus those who just got here for their "first summer") got their callings. Sister Etherington (one of my companions from MTC!) and I are over Call Center! I remember thinking last year, geez, I hope I'm not over call center next year. And ta-dah! I'm actually really happy about it. Both of us feel that we can make call center so much better. Call center is where we do our outside-of-Nauvoo proselyting. It's how we make baptisms happen!

The seniors have been glad to have us back. They say we lower the average age of the mission drastically. :) They've also started a thing where they provide a meal for us every Sunday so all 19 of us can eat together once a week. It's so good. And Easter was outrageous. I think we still have some candy lingering around here.

We did a cool roleplay with the first-summer sisters. All of us oldies dressed up as investigators from our outbounds and wandered around the Visitor's Center (henceforth known as the VC) so they could practice contacting us and teaching. Sister Searle went to West Virginia and apparently every stereotype you've heard about West Virginia is true. hahahahahaha.

We do a thing called Nauvoo On The Road. One or two companionships of YSMs (Young Sister Missionaries, which is us) and a few seniors take a trailer and go to surrounding areas of Nauvoo, up to I think an hour away. We do all the fun pioneer stuff, like their pioneer games, how they made ropes, candles, bricks, etc back then. Sister Maile and I went to one that was at a Civil War reenactment. So cool! It was the first time I had been on Nauvoo on the Road and didn't feel out of place because of my pioneer dress. AND there was a half-Friesian that someone used for the reenactment. Stop it. He was so beautiful. I totally ditched on our stand to go pet him. :)

Okay, highlight of my LIFE. We got to watch a recording of the new British Pageant which is coming from England this year. Oh man. It was SO GOOD. No, more than that. It was phenomenal. AHHH I am so excited for anyone who comes.

This monday we went on a three mile handcart trek in our pioneer dresses. We stopped at various points along the way to have spiritual messages and such. It was awesome! Again, more pictures to come next week when I get around to taking pictures off other sisters' camera.

Tuesday, for a bonding activity, we all took the color personality test. I'm a yellow! Which was no surprise to any of the sisters. :) If you know about the test, I was 3 red, 5 blue, 12 white, and 24 yellow.

That's all, folks!

~ Ashley