July 4, 2011 - I got into AZ last Tuesday, we met President Ellsworth and his wife right passed security, and also the AP's (assistants to the president.) ... I had no idea who anyone was or where we were, but it was good. I was just excited to get my real companion and area the next day!
My trainer's name is Sister Hoyt, from northern Utah, and she is awesome. :) She is kinda crazy like me, which is nice, cause then I don't feel like a weirdo. ... She helps me to see ways I can help people--she's really good at serving others and paying attention to what they are needing. I kinda space out sometimes, hanging out somewhere in all my thoughts, totally oblivious to things going on. I've been working on that.
Arizona is BROWN. Like, everything. The houses are the color of the dirt. The rocks are the color of the dirt. Thankfully, though, the sky is blue and some of the living plants have some greenish tints to them. :) ... The tall cacti, swigwaro (or something), are SO GOOFY LOOKING. Haha, but they are kinda cool too. They are just different than I expected, I think I've seen too many cartoons. Oh! I totally saw a road runner the other day, that was pretty exciting. In my area, there are actually living things. We see bunnies, and lizards, and desert rodents, and birds everywhere, which is great. :) I love it. The heat really isn't so bad, I mean it's hot, but definitely better than I expected. We have a car in my area too, which I think helps in that regard. AC every now and then makes a load of difference. As a VC sister, we're a bit spoiled I think, just because we have to be able to get the the VC, and our areas aren't necessarily by it.
People go other places here during summer just cause it's so stinkin' hot. We were at dinner with a family in one of our wards yesterday, and asked about their neighborhood...apparently, it's empty most of the year, because a bunch of Canadians bought homes here for the winter months. Ha! It's nuts.
Anyhow, we are over four wards, which is a little overwhelming. Poor Sister Hoyt, she's constantly reminding me who people are. It's hard though, because we only have half of our time to devote to the area, and four wards to cover. Some of the wards we have a lot of good work going on, but 2 of the wards are dwindling. We've been trying to figure out a good way to get members more involved.
July 12, 2011 -
This weekend has been wonderful! After having essentially no time in our area this week, Saturday we actually caught people at home and were able to talk to them....it's been hard to get a hold of people, so that was wonderful. Then Sunday, one of our new investigators came to church! She is super busy with a new business she's starting, but she had her family cover for her at work so that she could meet with us and come to church. She really enjoyed it and is looking forward to coming with us again and learning more. Now all we have to do is get her family interested and involved as well. We've been praying a ton that they will and that she will be able to make the time to see us with her family--a miracle is needed here, but that's no problem. We had a few little miracles just yesterday.
We were looking through our area book (has the history of all teh people they've taught before, who we're teaching now, etc. so that if we're transferred out, the new missionaries in the area know what's going on.) and found a former investigator that was interested, but was bad timing with things in her family. That was a while back, so we stopped by to give it a try...she wasn't home. So we walked to another family, which ended up being much further away than expected. By the time we eventually made it back to the car, she was just getting home and stopped to talk to us. She wants to meet with us next week, and we've got an appointment. She seemed really happy and excited to see us. We've been praying to find more people to teach, and we did! The timing was incredible...MIRACLE. It was wonderful.
I guess you could say I'm getting used to the heat....only 105 ish today, and that really feels nice and cool. Haha, kind of crazy. The air is what's hot though, like an oven. You can fan yourself and it makes it worse, all this hot air blowing on you. But, it's nice. and the cacti are starting to look a little more normal. :)
July 18, 2011 -
I totally forgot to talk about the dust storm they had here....I actually didn't see much of it. I was in the call center (a little room with no windows) at the VC, calling referrals we had received, when another sister ran in and was like, "the monsoons have started! Come look!" We went outside....it was a little different than the monsoons. Haha, a bit too dusty and dry. Our car was caked with it afterwards though, and the water in the fountain at the temple was brown until they cleaned it a few days later. I haven't really seen any pictures of it, but I've heard they were pretty incredible! It was huge, and you can the dust storm on a picture from some satellite in space, which I think is pretty cool. But as I didn't actually see the column of dust coming towards me, I don't count it as experiencing one. One day, one day.
July 26, 2011 -
Grass does exist. I've almost forgotten about it. :P People don't realy seem to like grass here, or at least their water bill. I've never seen so many rocks in my life! And such green grass is a little shocking. :)
I had something called Bahama Bucks, which apparently is pretty famous down here. It was good! Blue Bell vanilla ice cream on the bottom, shaved ice on top, with a snow cone flavor mixed with cream pored on the top. Yummm....I got the "creme brule" flavor....they had a buttload to choose from! They even had Pickle Juice....sick. Though, who knows? Maybe that would be better than I think. It's nice, the owner is LDS, so gives missionaries half-off. :) There are some definite advantages to serving in a place that has lots of members...... ;)
Saw my third scorpion this last week.....that's pretty unusual to see so many so soon. It's been about one a week now, so I'm expecting one any day now. They're pretty nasty critters....totally evil looking things. I think they're worse than sharks. Sick, sick.
Yesterday we had a lesson with a recent convert family. They are doing pretty good, but it was a really good lesson/appointment too. It was one of the first times I've actually taught a lesson lesson (the first time was last Thursday.....oh yeah, he's our newest investigator! Going to be baptized August 13th, and is really excited to learn more. ... it was nice feeling like God is using me for his purposes. :)
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