Hello!!
It's been a crazy past few days. My new companion/trainee is Sister Holcomb. She's from WA and is the first 19 year-old in the mission. This past transfer there were 9 sisters and 12 elders!! 3 English and 6 Spanish sisters. She's great and we get along very well. We're like exactly alike- both the oldest, same mannerisms (kinda weird! lol), and both are the first to go on a mission in our generation- setting the trend! She's doing awesome! I literally feel like I'm being held up and given the capacity to train. The first day was a whirlwind and I was so nervous and everything. The next day during companion study and training, it felt like I was being lifted up and wasn't nervous any more. I felt the most calming sensation that everything was going to be alright. The Lord helps qualify those He calls. It's been the most humbling experience so far. It's also been incredible to see how far I've come since I came on my mission. I hadn't noticed until I had to be the senior companion and take the lead on everything. I really do know what I'm doing and the Lord is DEFINITELY helping me. I know I wouldn't be able to do this if I didn't rely 100% on His council and guidance. I realized this transfer is A LOT of firsts: 1st transfer, 1st training, 1st being senior companion, 1st whitewash, and 1st 19 year-old companion. This transfer will be a blast!
So this area hasn't had missionaries for THREE weeks. One of the sisters in this area got really sick and had to go home. The other sister just went in another area, so this area hasn't had missionaries working in it for a long time. This area is like 10 mins away from my last area. My zone boarders the Mesa mission and our zone seems pretty nice. We're the only sisters in our zone and we live in an apartment complex, which is a lot different from living with members as I was in my other area. Our zone leaders and another set of missionaries live the apartment complex as well. We don't even live in our area and we didn't know it until Friday. We had met a man outside our first day when we were going to our car and set up an appointment with him. We had to give him to the Elders who cover the complex. Good times, good times. Our area in only a square mile and we have a car. Pretty crazy. We're thinking our car will get taken away because we really don't need it- just the last sisters since she was sick. We'll see. I actually wouldn't mind biking.
Since we're whitewashing, it's made things difficult especially since the sister's before really didn't keep the area book updated AT ALL. It hadn't been updated since Nov 2012. So we had to spend the first day cleaning the apartment (it was gross) and then we had to spend the next couple of days figuring out where we were, cleaning up the area book, and finding who were the Bishops and Ward Mission Leaders. We didn't even have updated ward lists- they were a year old... So that's been interesting. We finally got the area book organized and functioning. We haven't really been able to do missionary work, like go start contacting people since we just got a map on Saturday. We do have plans tonight and I can't wait to finally start getting back into the routine of things of contacting people to finally be able to have the area start progressing.
We were able to go to the Easter Pageant on Friday night with a ward member and her friend who wants to learn more about the church. Her friend lives in the Mesa Mission...but we'll see if we can poach her. :D THE EASTER PAGEANT WAS AMAZING! It reminded me of the Nauvoo Pageant and Hill Cumorah Pageant. The spirit was so strong- it was great to be spiritually fed through music. It's a must-see for sure.
We had a miracle happen yesterday in one of our wards. It was the first ward we attended and we were introducing ourselves to people and this member came up to us and asked if we had seen the non-member who had attended sacrament meeting? (I wanted to be like, we don't even know who's a member let alone a non-member! lol) We finally found him and he attended gospel principles. After the class, we introduced ourselves and asked if he would like to learn more. His name is Dearien and we don't know how old he is. He might be singles ward age ( I hope not! Or else we'd have to turn him over to the Elders). He said yes he'd like to learn more! Come to find out a member had invited him to church and he came! We don't know who invited him, but we set up an appointment for this Tuesday! I'm so excited and the Lord blesses us. Greenie blessings I'd say. It's great that we're both Greenie's so hopefully that means all the more blessings! We have three investigators, but we haven't been able to get a hold of them yet, so we'll see what happens with them.
This transfer will be an adventure and it already has been. It's amazing how quickly the Lord is helping me learn the area (it is only a square mile,but still with me being directionally challenged. lol) Sister Holcomb,poor thing, doesn't know how to read a map, so it's up to me. :]
I'm happy to be here and see how this area will grow and progress. The Lord knows. He knows everything and He will help us. I love the talk "His Grace is Sufficient" by Brad Willcox. It's changed my life. His grace is sufficient to carry us through life. He's always willing to help us if we chose to let Him.
Also, would you be able to do me a favor and burn some CD's for me off of lds.org. Like all of the EFY CD's and such. My music is getting really boring way fast. We can only have burned CD's from lds.org. Thank you for the Easter Package- this was the best Easter I've ever had. 7 hours of church was amazing. I truly was able to feast upon the words of Christ all day long. I love being a missionary!
LOVE YOU ALL!
Sister Collins
Mesa Temple Easter Pageant
Mesa Temple Easter Pageant
Sis. Holcomb and Sis. Collins