Welcome to Iowa!

Today was my first day in the mission! I already told you about the airport situation leaving Mexico. How I traveled to Iowa by myself, left the CCM at 2 am and the driver helped with my bags but I went through security and did everything else by myself after that. It was scary because no one spoke English until I got to Dallas. I tried to help an American family in Mexico with their bags because they didn’t speak Spanish but it was kind of a fail because I don’t really speak it either! I was just trying not to lose anything or get robbed. I thought it would be nice to get to Dallas where people speak English. I kept trying to smile at people and talk to them. I would accidently run into them and say “lo siento” or smile and say “hola” out of habit but they all thought I was a weirdo and were not having any of it. Oh well – whatever! It was kind of awkward. Anyways, I met a member of the church in Dallas! He was a cop in the canine unit. He was super cool. His partner, this 6’6” black guy, must have seen my name tag and he says to me, “you’re a preacher! Please pray for me!” And I said “I will pray for you every night!” The other guy says, “hey, you be nice to her” and then he introduced himself as Brother Cooper – second counselor of the Dallas 2^nd ward. It was so funny. I was looking at their police dog and his partner, Ed, said “ya know, the dog isn’t Mormon!” and I looked at him and said, “sure he is! All dogs are Mormon! Don’t you know all dogs go to heaven?!”  He thought that was funny and started laughing sooo hard!  It was pretty fun! I probably shouldn’t have said it and I got super nervous afterwards but it was funny! It really made my day a lot better. Brother Cooper served his mission in San Diego and he actually got married in the Nauvoo temple.

I got off the plane in Des Moines and I have never in my life been so cold! I went to get my luggage and President and Sister Badger were there and the 2 assistants to the President, Elder Cox and Elder Jakubczak, along with 2 other missionaries that had gotten there that day. They were all super nice! We went to the mission home. 2 Sisters came and picked me up and we went to Pday and, even though I didn’t have shoes, we played basketball and stuff. We went back and had dinner with the mission president and the other new elders and the senior couples, Elder and Sister Barnum and Harp. Then we had training about cars and cell phones and credit cards, etc. We had a testimony meeting and I bore mine in Spanish. I stayed the night with Hermana Mesa and Becksted.

Thursday we went to Iowa City, which is like 2 hours away. An hour past Iowa City is Davenport which is where I am at! At transfers, I got to meet my trainer/companion for the first time, Hermana Pearson! She is so sweet, so nice, so caring, and so cute! She is from Orem, Utah. After transfers, a member took us to her house and dropped us off at our car. Our apartment is so super cute. I dropped off my bags and we bundled up in some warm clothes. Let me just tell you that it is so cold here! I am freezing! I have on 3 pairs of socks, my winter boots, all of my clothing and I am pretty sure I am going to die! It is hilarious, it’s just so cold it’s funny!

We went knocking doors for the first time! I didn’t realize how aggressive you have to be. Hermana Pearson kills it! The first guy we talked to said he was Catholic and she said “that’s great so you believe in God, well we have a better church!” Ok she didn’t come out and say it like that, but pretty much! Then she gave him a card to look some stuff up. He didn’t even really come out of his front door. He barely even opened a crack. The next house was a Latino lady named Perla. She said she spoke Spanish so Hermana Pearson started going off and she let us in! Her family was all there and she even started crying as we shared the message of the Restoration and Jesus Christ. I am not sure she’s super interested but we got her name and we will call her or something.  I didn’t even think we would get into a door the first day so that was awesome! They next lady was like “what do you guys want?” and we were all “Hi, we are missionaries for the church…” She cut us off and said “not interested” but Hermana Pearson said “in what? You don’t even know what we are sharing!” She closed her door and we were apparently done talking to her. It was awesome! I was seeing everything. The next lady had just had a baby. She was not Hispanohablante (Spanish speaker) but we shared about the Restoration, Joseph Smith and I was able to bear testimony about how families can be together forever. She said she totally believes us and we even said a prayer with her. We had to give her information to the Elders because we can’t teach English speakers, but it was totally awesome! A couple more houses later, we met another Latino family that we shared the Restoration with and shared a pamphlet and stuff. It was soooo cold. It was honestly hard to move our mouths and I am not sure that the blood was not freezing in our faces! But it was also Super Awesome! We had a lesson later with a girl named Elena and her family. This was the second lesson with her and we taught about the Book of Mormon. My companion is sooo good at Spanish and I got to bear my testimony about it. Her family is so cute and I loved it. I want them to be members so bad. They had a bunch of question and stuff. Teaching is seriously so fun! I love sharing the lessons and the gospel with others. We went to Taco Bell for dinner. It was the best day of my life!! Seriously!! We came home and ate and then we had a lesson with Luis. The Arnels came and helped us with the lesson, they are the cutest couple who both speak Spanish. Ally served in Peru and Brad served in Mexico. They are super nice. Luis is the coolest investigator of all time. He has so many questions and wants to know so much! He is like 21 years old and really wants to understand everything. That lesson was pretty hard for me to understand. His accent is different and he spoke a lot faster too! But it is seriously so awesome! I am so tired! Today was a really good day. I am fluctuating emotionally but I can hardly wait to get to work tomorrow!

Thursday was good. It was a kind of weird day. We spent most of the day trying to put all my stuff in order. We exercise from 6:30 to 7 and then we have flex time and then we do comp and personal study. We left at 9:45 and went out knocking doors. It was kind of rough and we didn’t get into anyone’s house. Some scary guy that was smoking a huge cigar said we were in a cult, he even patted my comp on the shoulder and said “get out of that cult sweetie!” We left and then he asked us if we wanted to come in and warm up in his house. I was like “NO!!!” and we quickly walked away from the creeper! Another guy said he really didn’t believe in God. It broke my heart! It makes me so sad to think that he doesn’t believe that there is anything after this life! I don’t know, people were kind of mean to us today! But also, it’s awesome to just talk to a whole bunch of random people! Then we went to District meeting. They are all cool. There is a BYU basketball player in our group and he is really funny. Elder Madsen and Elder Childs are our zone leaders. They are both from St. George and graduated from Dessert Hills. Elder Clyde is also from Hurricane and he is in our district. There are 2 other Sisters in the district and they seem really cool. We had a meeting and then we had a “get to know you” and went to lunch. That ended about 2:30 and then we went out and knocked more doors. We came home and set goals, did Spanish study and planned for the week. One of our goals is to read the Book of Mormon in Spanish during our 12 weeks together- it’s like 9 pages a day but I think it is going to be amazing! Then we went grocery shopping because I don’t have any food or toilet paper! We had Chick-fil-A for dinner. I’m already gaining weight! And then we came home and just kind of put our house in order. I didn’t realize I could ever be this tired and I for sure did not know it could be this cold! It is too cold to snow, can you believe that?! The air is just so humid that when I breathe my throat freezes! It is just crazy! But I love it here! I love the cold and my frost bitten fingers and toes. I love everything about it and it’s the bomb!

Saturday we knocked a bunch of doors. We studied and exercised first. It was good. I have come to the general consensus that the houses we knock are either Hispanic or really mean white people. The white people are not very nice! They are actually super mean to us and it’s pretty hilarious. We taught a lady named Alma who said she wants to hear anything if it is about God. I am not sure she understood our message. We tried to explain that we have prophets and the priesthood and she was like “ya” but I don’t think she got it. Then we knocked on another door where the lady said “I’m Baptist honey” and then blew a puff of smoke in our face as she walked back in her door. We tried to talk to her husband as he was outside picking up cigarette butts in the yard but he was “too busy” to hear us. Hermana Pearson is so funny – she says the funniest things under her breath sometimes and it makes it all hilarious! No one else was home or wanted to talk to us. We had a lesson with Rosa who doesn’t want to come to church because someone offended her once when she was there. It was all pretty dramatic! We did have eggs for dinner – with avocado and cheese on tortillas and crockpot pork chops for lunch!  Tomorrow we are going to fast for baptisms. I am pretty tired but am totally having the best time. We saw a guy that had run out of gas and was pushing his car and so I convinced my Hermana to drop our bags and run onto oncoming traffic to help him push. My companion is so sweet. I love that my mission mom and my real mom are both Hermana Pearson/Pierson. I really do love all of this work and can’t think of anything else I would rather be doing!

Sunday was pretty good. We had church at 9:00. Our ward is pretty small and I got to meet everyone. It is a regular ward, not a Spanish branch. It is about half the size of our ward now. It was fast and testimony meeting. We sat next to a nice Latino family. I am really working on my Spanish but it is really hard because everyone speaks English and you just don’t have to do it. My companion and I are trying to speak to each other but neither one of us is fluent so we are doing the best we can! I do believe that if I work I can be fluent by the end of my mission! So we went to church and then knocked doors afterwards. We are kind of in a weird area and it was kind of a weird day. We had dinner at the Bishops house, so I go to meet him. It’s all good!