Sept 29, 2014

Well hey there! So guess what, I'm sitting in a Panera Bread typing
this on my iPad. No biggie. But seriously this is sweet, we can email
anywhere there is wifi. Also I might have mentioned this last week but
we're allowed to check our email throughout the week but can only
reply on Monday. But I would say getting an email in the middle of the
week feels about the equivalent of getting a letter. Just saying.

Last week I said we were going to ancient St. Augustine. It was so
cool!! Wow stuff from the 1500s, it was amazing. The main part of it
is Saint George street which is a bunch of shopping. One store had a
wall full of beautiful shells and once I got about seven in my hands I
had to say 'Alright, sister munro, step back and think about this'.
Turns out I have a real love for shells.

Remember what I said about the phone that got twinkled? Well the
prodigal phone is now found. One evening, we're leaving our apartment
complex to go to a less-actives house and sister hale gets this
feeling that we should go see someone else. Alright, so we go. No one
answered (we knew they were home and we even tried bothersome
Christmas caroling to get them to answer the door, but to no avail).
This has happened to me before, where Heavenly Father leads you to
places you already know, then leads you further from there- so we
looked on the gps to see who was the next closest person. We went
there and this woman's 16 year old son answers, says he will go get
his mom, and comes back saying "she's in the shower" (we heard her
whisper to him to tell us that, whatever). So we go back to our
original plans (it's about 8:30) and this less active (LA) woman answers and
basically says, sorry if you had come sooner I could have let you in
but I'm putting the kids to bed. So there has got to be a reason why
on earth all this happened. We got back in the car and immediately we
get a phone call from Brother Collins (our Ward Mission leader) who
tells us an address and says "Go there. This person has your phone".
Had we gotten to the LA woman's house when we planned, we would have
been in a lesson at that moment. Perfect. So we went and talked with
this man in his driveway while it's pouring and mosquitos are
eveywhere. He's Native American so his religion is fishing. Okay.
Nothing worked to get him interested in the the gospel but he told us
the story behind him finding this phone. He and his granddaughter were
going to church (fishing, remember?) when she wanted to go a different
way than normal. They went and he saw something out of the corner of
his eye. He kept going but he says "something told me to look again"
and this happened twice before this little voice in his head chastised
him on the third time and said to go back and get it. He picks it up
and it's our phone! It's totally flooded with water so he puts it in
rice and later in the fridge, then when it starts working again (this
is over like a 3 day period) he gets our text saying if you find this
phone, call Stephen Collins. So he does and that's how we ended up
there. Heavenly Father is very aware of our situation. And thankfully
so.

We had a zone conference with Elder Golden from the seventy. Wow that
was the most doctrine-packed six hours of my mission! I had a teensy
bit of a sour attitude about this because I figured he would just
reiterate what he said in Nauvoo (other Seventies have done that
before) but no sir, it was all new. Apparently the apostles and the
seventy have this gift of being able to 'interview' each missionary in
just a handshake's time, so we had all shaken hands with him before
the conference and at the very end, after the closing prayer, he asked
five missionaries to come talk with him personally. I have no idea
what happened but one elder looked like he had been crying. Ruh roh.

I don't think I mentioned much about the shirt we were designing for
the sisters in Nauvoo but they were finally completed and the sisters
mailed me mine! Pictures to follow.

Sister Hale and Sister Corbridge taught these two 14/15 year old boys
and then had handed them off to the elders, and they were baptized on
Friday! Normally the mission rule is "The mission ends where the sand
begins" and there are no beach baptisms, but an exception was made
because our building is shut down for a few months (mold was ravaging
it) so we went on the beach!! Again, pictures to follow.

We've decided that each of us are going to be Disney princesses for
Halloween. We can dress like them but still be acceptable for
proselyting, so that will be fun. I'm going to be Snow White- I'm
already pale, have dark hair, and a yellow skirt, so it will be
perfect. ;)

The other day we saw a sign that said 'Deaf Child Area' so we stopped
and knocked some doors around it and we found a house of SIX DEAF
PEOPLE!!! We haven't been able to teach them yet, but tomorrow is the
day. Very exciting.

Life is good. And in the 80s.
Love,
Sister Munro

Sept 22, 2014

Hello Florida!!

Well let me back up a bit. It feels like it's been forever since I was in Nauvoo but I'll get you all up to speed.

The sisters were absolute lambs and helped me get all packed the day before. Sister Etherington and I planned on getting up an hour and a half early to be completely ready (bless her heart she was going to get up early with me) but, of course, the alarm didn't go off (we had three dead alarm clocks at that point) and we woke up 20 minutes before we had to leave. What!! You can get a lot done in panic mode. So I was just zipping up my suitcase when President Gibbons walked up to the door. Perfect timing. 

President and Sister Gibbons and I drove the three hours to the airport. I played the alphabet game and 20 questions with two 75 year olds. So much fun! I almost won 20 questions because they guessed Michael Jackson with only two questions left. They are pros. (One of the questions President asked was "Would Sister Gibbons and I listen to this artist?" No. Definitely not. hahahaha.)

The days leading up to the airport day, I had prayed that there would be people prepared for me to meet to talk about the gospel to. I had solid conversations with three people, two of which accepted to learn more! Score one for Heavenly Father's team. One was a sweet old woman who lived alone in Jacksonville Beach, so hopefully they'll keep me updated on what happens to her.

In flying into Jacksonville, it was so beautiful! So much green and so much water... I couldn't believe it. Everything was littered with rivers and streams and marshes. Wow! The airport itself was nice, too. A senior couple picked me up and we arrived at the mission home around 7:00pm. The group coming in from the MTC had already had their dinner and was in the middle of a meeting, so all the other senior couples took my bags, microwaved me a plate, had me fill out paper after paper, got my driving certificate... it was a whirlwind. Also my President (President Craig- he looks a lot like President Ames from Texas, but shorter- also our interview went on for like 15 minutes because he just wanted to chat. I was like, "President you have other missionaries waiting" he goes "I know". hahahaha) informed me that there will be a transfer on December 11th and another mini transfer on the 30th, and I am currently signed up for the 30th. There are other ASL missionaries coming in from the MTC in December so it could be helpful if I stayed to help transition them and we were in a trio for just three weeks... I don't know. I'm thinking it might be the 30th.

I joined the MTC group for their training on the using of iPads and things. They've got plenty of restrictions and whatever else on the iPads so people don't get into trouble with them. They are very handy! And effective, from what I've seen. For Facebook, we disable our old facebook for the time being and make a new one. I'll be starting to make mine this week. There are also plenty of rules for facebook usage so don't anyone go being offended if I can't friend you or talk to you. :) 

Anyway, that night all the sisters stayed in the mission home then we went to greenie training the next day. It was probably about 2 hours worth of "these are the rules" and 4 hours of "you can do it! go get em!" and by the end of that 4 hour pep talk I was sooo done. Just let me go! hahaha. During one part of the greenie training, we were put into the gym and roleplayed with the "seasoned missionaries" (little did they know about me) and first we were the missionaries, then we switched and we got to see how the veteran ones did it. I got a piece of paper that I held saying I was a woman, sad, crying in the park because a family member died. One elder comes up to me and goes "Are you sad?" (I had to play along and not make any smart comments so I said yes) and he goes "What happened?" I said, you know, life is hard. He says "Did a family member die?" Are you joking me, elder? Hahahahaha that's not how you do it!

I met my two companions- Sister Hale and Sister Corbridge. They are great!! This is Sister Hale's last transfer and she is training Sister Corbridge, who this is her second transfer. Both of them have had some ASL in the past (high school and things). We are in the St. Augustine Shores ward. We are right on the coast! Part of our area is an island!! It's called Anastasia Island. The weather is absolutely beautiful all the time. St. Augustine is the oldest city in the US. It certainly doesn't look like it where we are but we're going up to the actual ancient St. Augustine today! Very exciting.
We've got a concentration of deaf members because there is a deaf school nearby. We have probably 20 deaf people. It's sweet! Of course three of the deaf families either know me or my parents.

We went to Walmart on my second day to get bike shorts for me (we bike here, but thankfully we also have a car) and we saw a deaf woman signing to her daughter. We interrupted and, bam, miracle. She has been wanting to go to church but there are no interpreters. We have them! So we exchanged information and hopefully we'll begin teaching them both. We also have a deaf investigator who, in our last lesson, went to ask her mom if she could be baptized (a miracle in and of itself) but mom is very Catholic and blew up about it. Seriously I have never seen someone react like that. We suspect it's a multi-faceted reaction- there's more about it than we can see on the surface so we'll continue working with her mom. Regardless, some very good things, especially as pertaining to the deaf, are going to be happening here.

We went to visit a potential investigator (who became an investigator and came to church yesterday!!) and, somehow, from the car to the house, we lost our phone. Gone. Absolutely just was taken up into heaven. Our Ward Mission Leader (best WML I've worked with, ever) lent us his daughter's iPhone to use. Apparently someone found our phone because he got a call from it but now it goes straight to voicemail so we assume it's dead. We've got to get a new one tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow we have a zone conference and Elder Golden of the Seventy is coming to speak. He spoke in Nauvoo not too long ago.

I saw legitimate flamingos here. Real, pink, flamingos. Also there are little tiny lizards everywhere. And you better believe there are some of the biggest spiders I've ever seen. Ugh, disgusting. I don't know if you could tell them apart from some halloween decorations.

I will send pictures another day!! I love Florida!

Love,
Ashley

PS- Our mission motto is (and imagine hundreds of elders shouting this) "I love tough things! I am the first to do tough things! I do tough things first! I love being a missionary!"

Sept 15, 2014. 

I guess this week really starts on Wednesday. Many of you know by now that I got my new call to finish my mission in Jacksonville, Florida(!!!) so here's a little more detail on it.

So Sister Russell and I are sitting in the Bakery. The APs come in and of course, I say, "Why are you guys here?" They get this sad face and say "Well, we just had to talk to you. We have some news about Teaching Center. Sometimes we have friends in Salt Lake and sometimes-" "JUST TELL ME" "Okaywellyou'regettingyourcalltonightintheseventieshallbethereat7:30!!" Of course they found great joy in dangling me like a spider over a flame, but it was all good. 7:30 came soon enough. We started by singing the classic I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go, the APs said a few words, then President got up and announced the calls. (PS It's way cool that this was done in the Seventies Hall because that was the first MTC- Missionary Training Center). Sister Allred was called to the Washington Seattle mission and was of course cool as a cucumber. That's Sister Allred. Sister Etherington and I are bawling our eyes out, mostly at the thought of leaving Nauvoo. She was quite excited about her call- California Ventura. At this point I was certain I would be going out west- no way would Heavenly Father bless me so richly as to go to the south or the east. "Florida Jacksonville mission"-- what!! That's the south and the east! Thank you. Over the course of the week, both Sister Allred and Sister Etherington met people from or going to those missions, and I had yet to meet one who knew about mine-- until today. 

So today we're in the temple and this lady asked me if I had a family name to do, I said no, so she gave me one of hers (she had many) and get this- the woman's mother's middle name was Texas. The baptism, confirmation, and initiatory had been done in the Washington DC temple. And she was from Florida. "No way, I'm going to Florida tomorrow!" "Where?" "Jacksonville" "What! I am in that stake!" So we chatted about my mission about 16 hours before I leave for it. She said the missionaries there are on Facebook... so we'll see how that goes. 

Friday night, we (Allred, Etherington, and I) had our farewell dinner with President and Sister Gibbons at the Hotel Nauvoo. Wow 2 1/2 hours of laughter! I love them, they are wonderful. 

Saturday was my last day to serve in the Visitor's Center ever!! So I had a lot to get done, especially as far as teaching center goes. But Sister Jenson, one of the seniors, poked her head into the office and goes "Aren't you coming down to the wagons?" What? I had made a comment in passing to the APs about how my dying wish was to narrate for the wagon ride and I thought they were joking when they said they would make it happen. Well, it happened, but someone forgot to tell the person who was doing it. Anyway I panicked because this is an hour-long thing and I had never studied that script before in my life. Sister Jenson gave me a bunch of notes to read off of, she plugged in my microphone headset, and off we were- 7 guests, two draft horses, and 5 missionaries cruising the streets of Nauvoo. It was SWEET!! Fun fact: Did you know that when you set prairie grass on fire it will burn at about 70 mph? 

After getting back from the wagon ride, we had scheduled one hour (2:00-3:00) to be on the VC floor so we could do it then get back to taking care of things in teaching center. Well I just knew that Heavenly Father would make things happen exactly at 3:00 and of course that's what happened. This family with a daughter with a non-member boyfriend comes in, we gave them a tour then showed them Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration. Oh, it was so good. We both said things in the tour that we had never said before. Sure sign of the spirit.

Sunday- I had my exit interview with President Gibbons. Wow did I cry and cry and cry. Poor man. hahahaha. We talked to Patti and Shannon that evening and right after we finished, I was leaving the office we talked to them in and Sister Hughes flags me down. She apparently has something she needs my help with. Okay. So she takes me into their office, shows me these two huge bowls of popcorn, and chats it up and after 10 minutes, I said something along the lines of, okay Sister Hughes what do you need my help with. So she brings up this Word document and asks me to review it and give her my thoughts. It took like three minutes so after that, she lures me into a conversation about patriarchal blessings. It gets to be 8:30 and I said, "Allllrightly I have to go home and pack". She says "Will you help me find Sister Hansen?" Fine. So we go looking for her when I look down to the first floor and I see all the sisters dressed in their pajamas. What???? Then it hit me. I was duped! They had brought my pajamas and my pillow and they made a banner saying "We (heart) Munro" and the Gibbons had dropped off two more bowls of popcorn, and we went into one of the theaters and watched 17 Miracles. I think I got all the tears out in that movie because I haven't cried much since. I love these sisters!!!!! Wow they are precious. Also, Sister Etherington had been in on the whole plot. :)

Well, folks, my next update will be from Florida!

Ashley

My last day in the VC!

Deleting my file from the scheduling computer 

Just after getting our calls 

Pointing to our missions

September 8, 2014 

I think getting people to come to church has been the most difficult part of my mission. I still remember the very first day we had someone come to church- January 5th, 2014. I cried when I saw her coming up to the doors. I think perhaps people don't grasp the magnitude of why church is important... we obviously try to teach the doctrine, people say they understand and that they will go, but it is once in a blue moon that people actually do. Oh, my heart.

I wrote about Chris way back when I was in Venus. He was baptized in July!! I knew he would be. I finally got in contact with him. It was wonderful talking to him again! He actually said "Sister Munro, I'm sorry I didn't open my eyes sooner and come to church when you and Sister Gentry were here". He talked about how he decided to close his store on Sundays and felt that it wasn't right to sell tobacco anymore. He goes, "Sure, I lost some customers but God blessed me with new ones." What faith! 

Report on the vegan week- successful! I mean we had to break it when we were fed by seniors, but other than that we were very diligent. I lost 6 pounds! 10 total since coming back from Texas. I'd never go completely vegan but hey, the Word of Wisdom is pro-veggies and says to eat meat sparingly, so I want to live that more fully. 

We had a sweet lesson with a less-active woman named Maggie. She believes in the Trinity, which is what we talked about in this lesson. We showed her 4 or 5 scriptures from the Bible that show that God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are separate. With each scripture, she got more and more open to the idea that God could be a person instead of a fog, and that they could all actually be separate. We read about Stephen in the book of Acts, who saw God with Jesus on his right hand. I said, "This is talking about two separate people that Stephen saw. And how could God have a right hand if he doesn't have a body?" Then Sister Etherington asked, "What would it mean to you if God did have a body?" After a long pause, Maggie says, "I guess that would mean that life has a lot more meaning to it than I thought." Halleluiah! The spirit was very strong, it was a sweet moment. 

Sister Etherington's family is here! They arrived Saturday and we gave them a tour of Carthage yesterday. We realized, leaving the Jail, that it was probably our last tour of Carthage as missionaries. So, if I've counted correctly, I've given 97 tours of Carthage Jail. :) I love that place.

Love, 
Ashley

Maggie, the less-active, wrote us an email shortly after her lesson. Another miracle!

We went to dinner with President and Sister Jones (he was the 1st counselor, going home this week), they are in my top 5 favorite senior couples here.

The Clements, some senior missionaries, invited us over one night so Sister Etherington could practice a piece that Elder Clement wrote. Sister Clement and I chilled out.

Sept 1, 2014

It has been one sweet week!

So we have teamsters here- senior elders who run all the equine and oxen based activities, ie the wagon, carriage, and oxen rides. We have these huuuuge Percherons and Belgians. They are so beautiful. Anyway so recently we've been participating every now and then in the teamsters' early morning meeting (this is like 6:30) before they go out to the barn. Sister Etherington and I went one morning and holy cow (excuse the pun) my soul was stirred. We both felt, in planning the night before, that we should talk about light, specifically the Light of Christ. It was very good. They then offered for us to watch them bring in all the horses, to which I of course said a resounding yes. So the way they do it is they all (about 25 of these senior elders) stand at the fence line and just yell nonsense and all the horses emerge from the trees across these huge fields and all come running in. Oh, my soul. They all know exactly where to go. Some line up at their place at a trough and others go into the barn. The barn is this little tiny thing and they don't actually have real stalls- they are more like stations with short risers between each one so the elders can stand on it and harness the horses. The barn cat was, of course, standoffish.

That same day, I got a surprise package from my parents, containing my fav-or-ite candy from New York. Heavenly. That pound was gone within two days, just in time for my 'vegan week'. I'm really trying to live the Word of Wisdom more fully. There's a senior sister here, Sister Salcido, who is a master herbalist raw vegan and she teaches us 'the way of the vegan'. Anyway I used to think it was all a crock and that the food I ate wasn't so bad. But there seem to be so many benefits to eating the way God made us to eat (which does not necessarily exclude meat and animal products- all things in moderation) so I'm gonna give it a go. Sister Etherington is all about clean eating so she's my coach. I think she's been trying to get me to do this for three transfers now. :)

Also that same day, we had a phone appointment with an older man named Galen. We met him at a play that the Pageant cast puts on on Sunday, and we were not originally going to be there to pre-greet for it. Good thing we did though, because there was a deaf woman who was going to just go without interpretation- and because I stayed, Sister E of course had to stay too. So she gets talking to Galen, gives him a Book of Mormon and gets his information. We're on exchanges the next time she calls and she invites him to be baptized but he says he's already been baptized. Next time we call, we talk about the priesthood, and the need to be baptized by authority (what a spirit-led lesson!) and he understands it. Then this particular day, we teach him the Plan of Salvation. He gets it. He explains that he's been praying about being baptized and is slowly starting to get an answer. In short, we said, "Galen, if you set a goal, you are showing Heavenly Father that you are serious and want an answer. So how would you feel about setting a goal for the second week in October?" Long pause. "What do you think about that?" Pause. "Oh, I was just putting it in my calendar. You said second week of October right?" I was a little astonished. We could hear him whispering as he typed it into his iPad calendar "...baptism... goal..." So he has a date of October 11th! My favorite thing is calling the local missionaries and telling them we have an investigator for them that either is close to baptism or has a date. Surprise, missionaries!

Okay a lot happened on this one day. After this lesson with Galen, Sister E and I are working on admin stuff for Teaching Center. I come out of the office to go make a copy or something and am stopped dead in my tracks because it is so dark in the Visitor's Center! It's like 4:00 in the afternoon and looks like 8:00! A huge storm rolled in and the thunder shook the VC. Midwestern storms- there's nothing like them.

I found out that apparently the missionary department is saying that we'll arrive home sometime in early December, like the first or second week. It's coming up so quickly. I don't know how they know that because I would assume that it will depend on the transfer cycle of our next missions, but they did say it will definitely be before Christmas. :)

I called Cynthia and Mercedes this week! Mercedes was baptized just a few days before I left Texas and Cynthia is her formerly less-active daughter. Cynthia answered when I called and didn't recognize me right away, but then said in her charming hispanic accent "Oh!! Sister Munro!!" (yelling to the background) "Ma, it's Sister Munro!!" I told her my new companion, Sister Etherington, was here with me and she goes "Oh! Sister Jetterinchin!" hahahahaha. We couldn't talk for long but I will call back this week. :) They have callings in Primary!

This past Saturday was quite the day for the Nauvoo Visitor's Center! The Grape Festival ran all weekend so that is quite the attraction around here. Lots and lots of non-members came in. In fact I taught a deaf man and we gave him a Book of Mormon and got his email to follow up. Then these member brother and sister (as in, actual brother and sister) brought this probably mid-50s couple into the Visitor's Center and said to me, "These people want to learn more about Mormons" I said, "Well, I'm a Mormon! I can help!" We taught them (Philip and Shirley) the first lesson with the members there testifying the whole time (they were wonderful) and they said they believe it all, and of course it's true. It just makes sense. They wanted to be baptized but weren't ready to set a date yet. They were very excited to learn all they could about it and about an hour and a half later didn't want to leave the Visitor's Center. 

Everything is going just wonderful. I love the work!

~ Ashley