First assignment....and it's NOT Nauvoo.

From Mom/editor - because we saw a photo of Christine in Nauvoo, Ill just days after she arrived in Iowa, I mistakenly assumed that's where she'd been assigned.....Nope, she's assigned nearby, and was able to visit for a special event.  I became overly excited....my mistake.  I was just glad to see her in the field!  On to the good stuff......................... 

So I landed in Des Moines on Wednesday mid-afternoon. All was fairly well, though I was baffled by the size of the airport - this is their capitol, their largest city by far (Des Moines' population is 207,000+ and City of Santa Clarita is 209,000+), and it was comparable to maybe Van Nuys airport? Tiny tiny. We rode in on a puddle jumper of maybe about 90 people. I'm a little biased I guess. Go big or go home. Our luggage ended up having to be driven to the mission home, as half of it didn't actually ride with the plane I guess? Couldn't fit all the luggage on such a tiny plane I guess. The mission home is different from the mission office apparently, and we slept there for the night. Transfers were in the morning the next day, in Iowa City; 2 hour drive. It's like the Lord likes me motion sick? But we managed to finagle it so I could ride up front and not die. Transfers took forever, and everyone was excited. I guess it would be if you made friends and since you can't write people in your own mission for the most part, this is the only time we could connect with people we've worked with before. So the new kids (including her, I'll guess) of course didn't get why everyone was laughing and giggling every time a new transfer was announced. My new companion is Sister Boone (I forgot my camera at home, so no pictures until next Monday I'm afraid! Sorry!), and we're assigned to Burlington, Iowa, which is a little less than an hour from Nauvoo.

I did get to go to both the Nauvoo and British Pageants (click here to learn about the pageants), and I'd recommend them to anyone in the area; it's really good. Perhaps if you were doing a tour of the cool stuff along the pioneer route? Very spiritual, very heart touching. Definitely good to take investigators to, since its written in the way to explain a lot of the terms and things we use.

I've been to church once so far, and they're good, loving people. Apparently it's more of an accomplishment to get so many of them to church at all. It was a tiny, tiny ward (congregation). Thought I'm under the impression the number of inactives is pretty significant.

My companion is a lovely youngin from Idaho (number 14 of 16 kids) and will be going to college for the first time I think when she goes home (after training me- I will be her last companion before she leaves in mid October). Laid back, patient, very flexible, and very helpful. The Lord has blessed me with one of the most spoiled areas and one of the best trainers in the Iowa mission, apparently. Not that I have a lot to compare to, but this does seem a lot nicer than I expected. I'm not the oldest lady serving in the mission, but I'm among the oldest.

I had my first lessons on Saturday, and I definitely learned a lot more than I taught. The first two were very pleasant, very receptive, and then the third I got laid out for a couple of reasons. The investigator had some difficult questions that she wasn't responsive to the answers to (since she'd, you know, have to change some of her life choices), and there were a million little ones running everywhere interrupting constantly, so it was hard to get the spirit in the room, let alone keep it. And her less active sister kept steering the conversation to about her and why she's not active (essentially she was offended and so won't come because she won't come to places where she doesn't like people; i.e., she's letting other people dictate her spirtuality... Apparently she wasn't seeing the Sisters for a while because one of the previous ones essentially told her some of the things she was saying was a problem, and you guessed it, she was offended... but then she was mad because I wasn't being myself'... So I'm a bit of a rock and hard place there. Because the regular me would tell her what a child she's being.) So... Lots of learning.

Surprising amount of paperwork... We will have training on the iPads in September, and I'm not sure when after that the technology ends up coming, but it would be really nice to not be killing so many trees. Our Area Book is very fat (An Area Book keeps track of where they have knocked on doors, contact information, etc...they don't want to bother people too often...). A lot of reams of paper die every year to Area books. Also I like technology and keyboard much better than people's handwriting, because a lot of people here can barely read, let alone write legibly. Our phone will also get an update hopefully soon, because it's not very good at sending or recieving texts, and it's somewhat hampering. For a people who are barely literate, there's a suprising number of people who prefer to text than to talk. I've also made more phone calls in the last two days and than I have for the past month at home. But I'm comfortable with it - probably a carry over from the days where there were no cell phones and everyone knew the dial up tone.

I've had a lot of really good spiritual moments here. I'm learning to identify those moments more readily, and am realizing just how often I normally have the spirit with me, so that's part of why I've been struggling- it's there more often than not, and it's usually only gone because its been practically specifically sent away. I liked Elder Bednar's comments on it (Elder Bednar is one of the Twelve Apostles of the LDS church - it sounds as if he spoke to the new Missionaries in the Training Center.  Click here to learn more about the structure of the church leadership). He essentially says not to worry about it- if you're living righteously, and striving to have the spirit there, it'll be there. We frequently just don't know it. Little kindnesses, little promptings, frequently go unrealized for what they are- only after the fact, if at all, do you find out.

Thank you for everyone's letters! Keep writing please!