July 30, 2014

It's almost August, can you believe it?! I hit my 13 month mark the other day. Less than five months to go. We got the official word that Sister Allred, Sister Etherington, and I are leaving Nauvoo September 23rd. There is no official word on the day I come home but President Gibbons says it will be the week before Christmas, and missionaries usually come home on Thursdays, so I'm guessing December 18th. I'm not trunky I promise!

So, during pageant season, all the family cast members have a cast meeting every day before their performance and we always have two sisters to sit on the stand during the meeting. Literally our job is to sit there and represent the missionaries of Nauvoo. So it's our turn and, I mean, we've done this before so it's not even a worry. We sit down on the stand and I make the mistake of chatting it up pre-meeting with a member of the pageant presidency who happens to be conducting the meeting. He announces the program and while doing so, says "I'd like to recognize the sister missionaries on the stand. After hearing from so-and-so, they will come up and bear their testimonies." AW GEEZ. So we did- it was actually a joint testimony, with both of us at the microphone- and it was great. :)

One of the most embarrassing moments of my life happened this week. We were in the Riser Boot Shop and during one particular tour I could not stop laughing. Oh my gracious I have not laughed so hard for no reason, ever. SO EMBARRASSING. ahahahaha. I eventually got it under control. But the worst part was that the people in the tour did NOT think it was funny. Oops.

I spoke in church! We were assigned the topic of conversion. I always score great topics. I was the first speaker and my opening line was "Hello!... I said, Hello!" It's a famous line from the Nauvoo pageant. The talk as a whole went over well, if I do say so myself.

There have been SO MANY deaf people lately! Not that I'm complaining but wow! Literally sometimes I speak in ASL grammar.

Well, folks, the work is going great, I love my mission, and I love the gospel.

The church is true and I love you!

Ashley

July 23, 2014

Well family and friends and possible strangers that read my blog, I apologize. I know I am a terrible blog writer and an even worse journal-writer. Next week I will have PICTURES! Well here are the big pieces of news:

- We met a wonderful couple and their son- they seem to love the gospel so far! They came to both pageants and loved it. They're back in Texas now, with Book of Mormons and pamphlets to read. I am so excited for them!

- Deaf people at pageant last night! And guess who one of those people was? Melissa Leitheiser! Yeah the Leithiesers from the Ogden deaf branch were here! That was cool. And the other deaf couple knows my parents. I think every deaf person in the US knows "the Munros". Well last night at pageant, it started POURING. I mean, POURING. Both Sister Allred and I were interpreting and we were like "ruh roh". Then, THEN, three teenage boys, of their own free will and choice, took off their jackets and held them over us until one of the boys got some ponchos for both of us. BLESS THEIR HEARTS.

Ta ta for now!

Ashley

July 17, 2014

This past week and a half has been the craziest and most exciting of my mission. No lie. No day was just a regular day.

Sunday, we were in Carthage and my grandpa and aunt Cheryl came! I got to give them a tour. 

On Monday, we were in the Heber C. Kimball (he is a baller, in case you didn't know. He's a star in both pageants and was just overall a great guy) home and my parents arrived! I knew I would probably see them for the first time in a year while wearing a pioneer dress in someone else's house. I was actually toward the end of giving a tour when I heard my mom's voice downstairs and I panicked just a bit and told the group "Um my mom is here" and ran downstairs. Sister Etherington brought them down just in time to see the reunion. It was tender. I got to give them a tour (half sign language and half english, it was interesting) and then we shut down our site for a while to go have interviews with President Gibbons. We walked into the VC in our pioneer dresses and of course who else would be there but a gaggle of Iowa Des Moines elders? Judge not, elders. 

Tuesday- PAGEANT BEGAN!!! 3100 people came the first night. Holy COW right? Oh it was like coming home again. I love the pageant. We are at the country fair from 7:00 to 8:30, when the pageant begins, then we come back later (usually around (9:45 to 10:00 depending on if it's the British or Nauvoo pageant) to post-greet. People just had an exceptionally spiritual experience so we go back to talk to them. We're usually out very late and get to bed around 11:30. 

Wednesday- It was the first official showing of the British pageant in America! Here's the deal with the British pageant. Last year was it's first performance in England and Elder Holland saw it and said "Every member of the Church has to see this" so it came to Nauvoo! It details the missionaries leaving from Nauvoo and going to the British Isles. It's really incredible and we don't know when it will ever be back in Nauvoo. Apparently it will travel around until it gets a permanent home. 

Also on Wednesday, President Gibbons' non-member friends were here and we were assigned to just be their guides and take them around and do whatever they wanted. Sweet, right? So we did a wagon ride and watched Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration with them. They had a lot of questions about the church, which we were surprised about. I thought if we could get one gospel topic in, that would be great. But seriously they didn't want to talk about anything else! So they watched the British pageant with President and Sister Gibbons that night and we gave them each personalized Book of Mormons afterward, which they greatly appreciated. Us and President are keeping in contact with them and seeing if they would be willing to progress.

Thursday- We were in the Riser Boot shop and gave TWENTY-FOUR tours. Yeah. 24. Let me tell you, I know all the ins and outs of making a shoe now. That evening was also transfers and (drumroll) Sister Etherington and I are staying together! Yay!

Okay so more on this next week. Too much excitement and too little time!

Ashley

July 1, 2014

Last prep day, Sister Etherington and I went to a quaint little antiques store way out of the way and hidden over by the river in Nauvoo. She LOVED it. I am amused by antique stores but not for very long. She bought several pieces of jewelry (one of which I covet every time she wears it... but it's okay because I borrow it sometimes:)) and I got a little Arizona keychain for Sister Hughes, another ASL sister whose birthday it was that day. (She's from Arizona. Surprise.)

On Wednesday, we were on a YS2 schedule (I think there are a lot of things that I leave unexplained. We are called the YSMs = Young Sister Missionaries. Then there's the YPMs = Young Performing Missionaries. We pronounce it yippums. When we're in the visitor's center, we can be on one of three schedules, YS1, YS2, and YS3. A 1 is 9 to 3, 2 is 9-12 and 3-6, and a 3 is 12-6. If any of that makes sense) which is the split schedule, so for the second half, we went to iDig Nauvoo again to help the Community of Christ with their archelogical dig of the Lucy and Joseph Smith Sr house. They stuck us in a spot where we found almost NOTHING. Nooooothing. Just a lot of brick pieces and mud. But it was still fun to be in pants.

That night we had a sisters' activity where we talked about desires and about Christ. Honestly I don't remember much of it but wow I got a lot of revelation. It was sweet! Also, you know you're a missionary when an 'activity' is talking about the gospel.

Thursday was my ONE YEAR MARK!!! We got Annie's- the best custard in Nauvoo- that evening to celebrate.

Friday was the 27th- the 170th commemoration of Joseph Smith's Martyrdom. There was a big program put on at 5:00, the time of the martyrdom, starting with us singing A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief, which was the song that Joseph asked John Taylor to sing the night before. The YPMs did their vignette, which is always really powerful. They quote peoples' reactions to hearing of the martyrdom, including Lucy and Emma. At the end they recite the Standard of Truth. I've seen it about six times and it gets me every time. Then President Gibbons spoke. What stuck with me is that the Lord didn't send them here (to Nauvoo, or to any other place they were) to build a city, they were to build faith. And boy did those pioneers have faith.

After the jail closed, we took a tour and sang and had a testimony meeting in the Martyrdom room. I've done that a few times and it's always really powerful.

Saturday, a deaf couple named Deanna and Eric Scott came to Nauvoo! I know them from when I was a wee tyke in the Washington DC deaf branch, and they're friends of my parents. Sister Allred and I interpreted for them all day, which was sweet. They arrived around 11 and we were scrambling getting everything ready and figured out. We needed a very specific type of lamp so they would be able to see us in the dark theater when we would be interpreting a play later in the day. We were running around, calling all the sites we could think of that might have this specific type of lamp. We were riding the elevator down to the VC floor and Sister Allred and I were talking about how she was wearing my shirt and it was neat that that shirt fits so many types of bodies. Then she says "Yeah and the collar is higher on my because my boobs are bigger" JUST as the elevator door is opening. Who else would be standing right there except a YPM elder? We were shocked and he started laughing- not because of what was said, but because he thought he scared us. Oh it was sooo funny.

Then we went on our way trying to find this lamp. Sister Allred thinks it'll be in the Post Office site. So we go- nada. She's walking down to the different shops and I'm watching from 20 feet away in the car as she is rejected from three sites. She gets back in the car and we pray, asking for direction as we have like 20 minutes left and nowhere to go. I thought we should go to the Lucy Mack Smith home, so we're on our way and we pass the Log School house. I was like, wait a second. I thought it might be a prompting so we ran in and lo and behold there was nothing. Then a senior sister who was serving there asked what we were looking for and I half-heartedly explained and she immediately said "Oh, go to the Family Living Center! They have that lamp for the shawl-weaving!" Sister Allred and I, it was like it was out of a movie, we looked at each other and both said "Thanks! Gotta go!" and literally ran out of there. It was a prompting! We found the lamp and all was grand.

For a little while before that day, then including the day and a half we were interpreting, I was thinking about getting my interpreting license. That would be sweet. Then of course, who else do I meet on Sunday while serving at the John Taylor home but a professional interpreter who is telling me allllll about how being an interpreter is the best. So, it's in the cards. I'm not giving up being an equine sports medicine vet, that's for sure, but interpreting can definitely get me through school and it's a sweet skill to have.

That's all, folks! Til next week!

Also, we're doing a theme week leading up to Pageant. Today is twin day. Every companionship is almost perfectly the same! It's awesome! 

June 17, 2014

I started out last week by announcing at our Sunday-night sisters' family prayer (we have it every night- we sing a song, tell of miracles throughout the day, then we spin a hat to see who prays, then everyone compliments the person who prays) that we were entering my Birth Week and that everyone must participate :) It worked well because everyone was very aware of when my birthday was. 

That Tuesday (when I said I was going to a Mennonite town to shop), we went to Cantril, Iowa to the Dutchman. It's this great Mennonite store with everything your heart could desire. The senior couple who took us told us to get whatever and however much we wanted. So we are pretty set for the next little while. :) We then went to a Mennonite cheese factory- oh man they make good cheese.

Wednesday, we found a baby bird outside the Visitor's Center! Oh so cute. That morning, we went to the YPM's district meeting and did some fun roleplays with them- practicing how to change casual conversations to gospel ones in 45 second. We did questions like "What color is your toothbrush?" and "Do you say fireflies or lightning bugs?" and "How do you feel wearing a pioneer dress all day?". It was quite funny. 

AND THEN IT WAS MY BIRTHDAY. My companions from the MTC (I'm "real" companions with one of them, and I room with the other) made me french toast and eggs in the morning, then I got to take the sacrament (spiritually reborn on the birthday! yeah!), then they announced my birthday in Sunday School so I got to ham it up, we took a mission picture, I served in Carthage, some seniors brought over Hawaiian haystacks, then we went to district meeting where a couple made me a totes awesome cake and gave me balloons, and that evening, a some sisters and I learned some dance moves (which I will never be able to implement). Scatter some cards and "happy birthday"s and such throughout the day, plus being a missionary, it was PRIME.

I have a lot of pictures to send for next week's blog!

June 10, 2014

I know I don't share enough spiritual stories (literally, it is because they happen so often that I can't write them all) but here is one! Cool story about the Women's Garden. A youth group came in from Richfield, Utah, and Sister Etherington and I started talking to a group of 6 girls. We invited them on a tour of the Women's Garden and they readily accepted. We talked to them a lot about becoming that "virtuous woman" that the scriptures talk about- and about how that foundation that they are building right now will support them throughout the rest of their lives. We got to the Courtship for Eternity statue and I felt prompted to share my philosophy on marriage- that it is not "he completes me". They are not half of anything. They are lovely, upstanding, whole daughters of God and that they should look for other lovely, upstanding, whole sons of God. We talked to them about one more statue and explained to them that if they continued to the end of the garden and looked back, they would see the Savior standing there, and he had been there the whole time. We let them have that moment by themselves and we went inside. A few minutes later, they came back in the Visitor's Center to find us and half of them were in tears, they said they felt the Spirit so strongly. We got a picture with them. It was so sweet!
A couple days later, we were assigned to Pioneer Pastimes, which is where we play games that the pioneers once played, and I met a girl whose aunt and uncle were in my ward in Texas! Cool coincidence.  That same day, it started pouring so badly that we had to shut it down and a sweet family helped us pack up very quickly so we all could get out of there. We got quite wet.
A group from BYU called the Living Legends came. They do Native American, Polynesian, and Latin American cultural dances- it's amazing! Their performance is centered around the pride cycle in the Book of Mormon. The Polynesians have a unique yell (and each one of them is different, ie Tongan, Samoan, Tahitian, etc) and Sister Maile was doing it during the Polynesian dances- it was so cool. The night after we got home from seeing them, she taught all of us how to shake our hips like they do, but of course we're all a little too white to do it right. Living Legends also did a sociable for us and sang. It was interesting- looking at all the women in the group, I could see which ones had been on missions and which ones hadn't. The ones that had, had something "more" about them. It was verrrrry interesting. 

Yesterday, we did service- cleaning the motel rooms that the pageant casts stay in. Sister Etherington and I weeded for three hours. The seniors we were working with fed us Casey's (a gas station that is famous for it's pizza, seriously, it is so good) pizza a root beer floats. I can count on one hand how many times I've had a root beer float in my life, which is a shame because they are dang good.

June 3, 2014

We had transfers and boy was I wrong- in a very very good way! I thought I would stay with Sister Maile in the basement of the Hatch house. We all went to the Seventies Hall for transfers and President announced the new companionships. When he got to me, he started talking about Teaching Center (previously named Call Center), the significance of it, etc, and I have got major ants in the pants at this point. Get on with it! Then he announces that Sister Etherington and I are companions!!! Get OUT. She was my companion in the MTC and now that we're "real" companions, we'll get to hit our year mark together. And my twentieth birthday (which is on the 15th ahem). The picture is on our first full day being companions and we were walking home from the Visitor's Center. Believe it or not that was at like 8:30 at night.

On Sunday, we went to Carthage (how it normally works is the Carthage sisters will come up to Nauvoo to serve in either the VC or sites and some of the Nauvoo sisters will go to Carthage and some will stay in Nauvoo. A lot of things in this mission are complicated so I hope I explain and represent them correctly) for the fourth week in a row and it just so happened that it was the very first Sunday that the YPMs were performing their Carthage vignette. It talks about the events after the martyrdom. They did it three times in a row so everyone could see it and I cried my eyes out all three times. Good Ghandi it was so spiritual. After the second time, Sister Etherington mentioned to me how she wished a non-member would come to see this. And who else but a non-member comes for the last performance? A young guy named Dan happened to be running by the jail and thought he would stop and come in- just in time for the vignette. After it, he enthusiastically agreed to coming on a tour with us- it was great! We gave him a Book of Mormon afterward and we got his phone number. He said he didn't want to be converted (he's a strong Catholic) and we explained that our purpose as missionaries is to, first and foremost, strengthen peoples' faith in Jesus Christ. He was chill with that.

Sister Etherington and I work so well together. Sunday (at Carthage) and Monday (at the Visitor's Center) we've just been busting our tails and seeing miracles right and left. I'm so stoked for the rest of the transfer!!

PS this cat used to come to our house in the mornings and go running with us. Seriously. His name is Alfredo because of his color. He disappeared a while ago and we found him on our walk home!