December and Pictures

12/9/13

Alright folks, I've got quite the update. 

Two weeks ago Monday, a few hours after emailing, we got a call from the Zone Leaders, which never happens. They told us, surprise, we were switching areas with the elders in the area below us. They had gotten into a wreck with their car (totaled it) and the husband of the member couple they were living with got a job that required them to be away a lot and since there always has to be a third person of your own sex when you're alone with someone of the opposite sex, they couldn't live there anymore. So we switched with them. Our new area is called Venus- when I first came out to Mansfield, I thought Venus was a nickname because it's so far out in the middle of nowhere. Nope, it's actually called Venus. It's a unique situation, too, because Venus covers the bottom half of two ward boundaries (the hope is to create a branch down there) so we go to two wards every sunday (5 hours of church) and two ward councils. Our area is way out in the boonies and 90% of the houses are trailer home. We live in the nicest double-wide I've ever seen. The people here are so genuine though! Sometimes they'll just open the door and invite you in without question. 

So last Monday, I went to a drive-through zoo! Yeah, a drive-through zoo! We petted and fed the animals out of our hands. There were a ton of antelopes and whatever but then we got to the good stuff- giraffes and zebras. The zebras were not shy about letting you know when they wanted to be fed again. They would gnaw on the car door handles and shove their heads in the car. :) The giraffe was the most gentle of all the animals we got to feed. :)

This weekend Texas got a huuuuge ice storm. Apparently this only happens like once in every 7-10 years. But it's literally JUST ICE. We walked out of the house the morning after and everything is crystallized and covered in what looks like a one-inch-thick layer of clear lacquer. When I kicked a plant or grass, it just shattered. We weren't allowed to drive our car (especially because Texas can't deal with stuff like this- no plows or salt on the roads) so we had to walk to be able to proselyte. We could only stay out for about two-hour intervals because the cold was so intense. And since the roads were solid ice, it was hard to walk. Sister Nelson and I invented a new shuffling/skating gait that was actually pretty efficient. We got up to jogging speeds with half the effort! 

We also got transfer calls this morning. Sister Nelson will be transferred out to Waco and my new companion, Sister Gentry, will be coming on Wednesday! 

12/16/13

Alright, friends, I am super stoked about these next six weeks. Wanna know why? NEW COMPANION! She's a thumbs up. Her name is Sister Gentry and she has been out for 10 months (double my experience), was a Sister Trainer Leader (equivalent to Zone Leaders in the chain of command) for the past three transfers, opened an area that had been closed since 2008, and in a past area, her assignment was to take a branch and make it into a ward. So basically she's perfect for Venus and we're gonna rock it out. Venus has so much potential. 

It's very convenient that we just switched places with the elders because we can call them if we have questions about a certain investigator or if we get lost or something, and vice versa. If Venus had a candle scent, it would be sulfur and cigarettes.

We were knocking around on a street (I don't know if a lot of these streets can actually be called streets. More like back roads.) her second night here and at the very last house, a man opens the door with a cigarette in his hand and says he's LDS. What! Yeah so he's inactive and his records had been lost. The elders before us had found two more of those kinds of people. Apparently Venus is the place where inactives go to get away from the church. Well surprise! We're here and we're gonna get you. ;)

Well, that's all, folks. More exciting stuff to come. Every day is an adventure. 

Peace out.

November 19th

You hear missionaries say all the time "It's hard having doors slammed in your face". Psh whatever, people don't actually do that. BUT THIS TIME IT DID! We go up to a door and a woman answers and I go:

"Hi ma'am! We're missionaries and we go around sharing messages about Jesus Christ--" (this usually gets people because Texas loves Jesus)

"Thanks." and she literally slammed the door. I think before my mission that would've hurt my feel-bads but there's something about being a missionary that makes rude people hilarious.

Sister Nelson and I were planning one night (we plan every minute of the next day the night before) and we both felt like we should go to this certain street. That next evening, we had taught THREE lessons and gotten THREE new investigators within about ten houses. The spirit is real, the church is true.

We were tracting a cul-de-sac one night when I saw this cute little black and white cat. He would be rolling on the ground, pretending like he wanted me to pet him, until I got to be about three feet away, then he would get up and sprint. The cycle happened several times. Sister Nelson finally caught him and gave him to me and the cat started throwing a fit. Whatever, cat. I held on for a minute then let him go. After that, he would just follow us everywhere. He sat on each driveway while we went up to the doors. I named him Bojangles.

Okay I feel like all my stories come from tracting. Anyway. We knock on a door and a man comes out and we're talking to him about how we have a living prophet. He goes "No. Prophets stopped with Jesus." And by the end of the conversation, he's like "Yeah! We need a prophet nowadays!" And we're going back to teach him soon. :)

One last tracting story! We knocked on the first house on the street and a man in his 50s answers. We're talking casually and after a little while, I introduce myself (that's usually how it goes- introductions in the middle or end) and when I put out my hand for him to shake it, he keeps his hand behind his back and says "Sorry, gotta be safe when people come to your door" and in that moment I realized he had a gun behind his back. HOLY COW. Yeah , so good thing we got on his good side. :) He later put it down and showed us his garden. He's a gun-carrying horticulturist... only in Texas.

This is Sister Checkett's bathroom. Texas represent!!

My Halloween packages!

                                                                                  A cute black cat

All the goodies I got for Halloween!

November 11th

My friend who I hired to update my blog for me is falling behind on the posts. So today there will be 2 posts, the first (this one) from November 11th, and the second from November 19th. Also, please note the change in my mailing address! Write me!

Something cool I learned recently! So, in 1 Nephi 13:40, it's Nephi having that vision. The verse describes the purpose of the Book of Mormon! The purposes are: 

1- To establish the truth of the Bible

2- Fill in the "plain and precious" things that were lost from the apostasy

3- To testify that Jesus is the Christ.

Cool right?!

A couple weeks ago we saw a street with a few brick mailboxes completely destroyed. Like, to smithereens. (a car had run them over. the story varies between a distracted driver and a diabetic who passed out) I suggested that we go to those houses and offer service to fix their mailboxes. Lo and behold, the first door we knock on is a woman named Ruth. She has fraternal twin one-year-old girls. Guess who lives four houses down? A woman in our ward who has fraternal twin one-year-old twin girls! What! So we tell them about each other and this week we brought Sister Checketts (the woman in our ward) to Ruth's house to help them get to know each other. We taught kind of the first lesson but I decided to forgo reciting the First Vision because, hello, there were four screaming one year olds there. It was quite the play date.

This week we also met with a real member referral! A REAL one! Usually our member referrals are "my neighbors are Baptist, go talk to them". This one was "my friend is interested in the Book of Mormon and she wants to meet with the missionaries". AHHH! So we did and she (her name is Beatrice) is great! She is totally going to read it, pray about it, and come to church. Those are the three signs of a truly progressing investigator.

Also this week we got to meet with someone who we never ever get to. His name is Matthew. He loves everything that we teach him, he just never has time to meet with us. 

And one last person- Tracy. She has a long story, but to make it short she's had a rough life. We were talking to her on her driveway for a while but she shooed us away before her husband got home because "he would be too happy to see me talking to missionaries". hahaha. 

Adios, amigos!

~ Sister Munro

Story Time!

Howdy y'all!

(They actually say that here. I still can't get over it.)

I think most of this update will be stories.

#1 We knocked on a door and a woman answered. 

"Hi ma'am!"

"..."

"How are you?"

"..." (looking terrified)

"Is everything okay?"

"..." (slowly shutting the door)

"Well here's a card... go on mormon.org..."

"..."

"Have a good day..."

"..."

"Bye."

and she shuts the door and I walked away from officially the most awkward door approach ever. hahahaha. 

#2 On the same street, we knocked on a door and it took a little while, but we heard someone fumbling with the lock. I think it took a full 45 seconds for the person to open the door. It was a little old (she'll be 90 in December) black woman who immediately said "come on in, ladies, I'm just working on a project". Okay! hahaha it's not very often that we get invited in immediately. We helped her put together a desk drawer that had broken. The desk belonged to her father (so probably a 150 year old desk!). She was the funniest 90 year old I've ever met and she loves us! After talking for a little while she goes "I wanna go to y'alls church! After I get my new teeth of course." She's getting dentures soon and wants to look good for church. :) So she'll probably come to church with us later in November or December. We taught her the first lesson (the restoration- aka the losing of the priesthood, Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon) and because she's a bit hard of hearing, I had to yell the First Vision for her. That was interesting :)

#3 We're teaching an 8 year old (her parents are not members, but her step dad is) the fourth lesson (commandments) and we get to the last commandment, which is obeying the law of the land. We ask, "Khloe, what country do we live in?" She goes, "Texas." hahahahaha. Texas pride.

#4 I got TWO packages for Halloween. TWO! One was from my mom and one from my aunt Cheryl (thank you!!). The only problem was, my companion and I had resolved to eat healthy just a few days before. Guess what was in the packages? A stash of my favorite candies like you would not believe. So our diet will start later. :)

More stories next time! I always run out of computer time. :)

But one more thing. I'm starting a project where I take pictures with any animal that lets me catch it, which usually is cats. I have a total of 11 pictures now! 9 of them are cats, two are dogs. It's a lot of fun. :)

My first couple weeks in TEXAS!!!

Hello Texas!

So I land in the airport 20 minutes early and my mission president is nowhere in sight. I panicked just a little because I don't have a companion (I'm gonna be one of those weird RMs who can't be alone) and I'm in a new airport. So I just went ahead and picked up my luggage from the carousel and the next thing I know, I see a young elder and a senior missionary (that was a comforting sight after being in Nauvoo with 200 senior missionaries so for so long) are walking towards me. The older elder turned out to be the first or second counselor to the mission president (who is 45! I think I've mentioned that before) and the younger one had just been picked up fresh from the MTC and was deaf! We signed the whole way to the mission office- which was like 10 minutes.

I met my new companion, Sister Nelson- she's 19 as well and she came to Texas the day I went into the MTC, so we're only a few weeks apart in mission age.

I was assigned to the Mansfield 2nd ward area. You would not believe the size of the houses here. Sister Nelson says houses are cheaper than land so people build huge houses on little lots.

My first two or three days were out of the ordinary. But, then again, every time I do something new, it's out of the ordinary. IE- the temple was closed in the MTC, we arrived in Nauvoo in the middle of the summer, etc. I've heard the phrase "This isn't how it normally is" 80 bajillion times. :) Anyway so my first few days were full of meetings and conferences and whatnot. Finally we got to have a normal proselyting day. Going around knocking on doors is nerve-wracking! Except for the fact that everyone here loves Jesus. I mean everyone. Everyone loves Jesus and the Bible. It's part of the Bible belt and there are dozens of different mega-churches everywhere. You know what dozens of megachurches means? Dozens of pastors.

Sister Nelson and I were tracting and we ran into a pastor. When the words "I'm a pastor for ____ church" came out of his mouth, it was like... well, imagine on those Mario games when you run into a boss and the intimidating music starts playing? Pastors are the bosses of Texas. He started on the defensive but 45 minutes later we left his doorstep on good terms.

Have I mentioned that I love Texas?

So I'm in the Mansfield area and man oh man the problem is not finding people to teach, it's that people are over-busy all. the. time. Nobody ever has time to meet with us, and they have legitimate excuses too! There's a woman named Tamara who is super interested and said that God sent us to her, but she's a 7th grade english teacher AND coaches three sports AND is a mom. Another guy named Marcus is really interested as well (said he totally felt the spirit while reading the Book of Mormon and believes it's from God) but he's a business man and is building a hotel. People... Overscheduling is real.

Funny story for this week:

(knock on door, woman answers while looking down at her phone)

Sister Nelson: "Hi ma'am, we're missionaries for-"

Lady: (looks up) "Oh no. Yall them Jehovah Witnesses."

Me: "Nope, we're Mormons!"
Lady. "Oh NO. Nope. Not interested." (closes door)

Til next week, yall!

~ Ashley

(PS my first name is so foreign to me now)

I'm Famous!!

Look! I'm in a picture with Elder Oaks! :D

Here's the link to the article this picture was taken for:

http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/mormon-apostle-illinois-law

Apples and horses and lipstick, OH MY!

This will be a picture post! :D

I took a carriage ride on one of my previous Preparation
days and I braided the horses' forelocks. They loved it.

Sister Etherington got some divalicious hot pink lipstick.
So naturally, this followed.

The biggest apple of my life.

Regular apple vs Big Bertha

When we don't have any tours, I make the senior
sisters take pictures of me in my pioneer dress.

Sister Searle and I after a long day of serving in the sites.