Survived the First Week

Monday, September 3, 2012

My Cute Fam,

A quick Happy Birthday to Dad and Jess in a couple of days!! Hope you guys have a fun joint birthday. Some of you have said you're cutting your emails shorter so I have more time to email and read everyone else's, etc. Don't even worry about it! I print them out so I can read them thoroughly later, so you can write as much as you want :)

Well, I've made it!! Ah. So crazy. It sounds like everyone already knows where my first area is. Haha. Wow, they keep you very updated! First with the MTC blog of pictures (which worries me because I have no clue what they posted on that thing) and then my mission president sending pictures and where I'm at. That's funny. Well, for those of you that haven't heard, I am in Irvine, Scotland!! It's weird- I kind of always thought I would be serving in Scotland first. I don't know why, and here I am! But I like this place a lot! It's the cutest little town on the western coast of Scotland. In fact, we're going to the beach later today. (Not that we could swim in the Atlantic or even want to. But it should be fun to go to!) The weather has been AMAZING. I am catching the end of Scotland's summer and so I'm trying to soak it all in before the cold hits. I realize it won't be like this for long. Haha. We've been in t-shirts for the most part. Super nice. It only rained one day last week.

As for my trainer/first companion, her name is Sister T.(If you haven't noticed, I delete personal names). No, she is actually not from Slovakia or Poland haha, she is just from Cottonwood Heights, so about 10 mins from our house. We get along just fine, we're not buddy buddies or anything yet, but I think we'll get there! (That's probably mostly my fault- I always take a while to warm up and be totally myself!) Anyways, she's a fun girl and pretty outgoing so that makes things nice. So ya, our personalities mesh just fine!

So luckily in Irvine, the accent is not difficult to understand at all. It's a perfect starting place in that aspect. There have only been a few people who I had no clue what they were saying! But I think they can tell by my face/response because they usually slow down and say things more drawn out and then I can understand them. But whenever they get excited and start talking faster again, I've lost them completely. It's pretty funny because the missionaries that live around our area have been serving for over a year and they all have accents!! AH, I wonder if that means I will get one too. They aren't heavy accents, but when I first met them I thought they were from England for sure. But they were all from America. Oh boy. Little nervous about that.

But anyways, my frist week has been pretty good! I guess the biggest problem that Sister T. and I have been having is complete opposite ideas of what we should be doing with our time. I realize I'm not really in a position to have a strong opinion since she's my trainer, but I haven't been feeling satisfied with how we've been spending our time. I don't really know what to do about that. I'm kind of stuck in between wanting to be doing what I came here to do and what I feel we should be doing vs. being respectful to her, as my trainer. Kind of tough. It was getting pretty bad, so I talked to her a little about it, but that didn't go so well. Sooo ya, I don't really know what to do. I'm not very happy with how we're spending our time, BUT we have had a couple of neat experiences that I want to share:

Last Thursday, we went to visit a recent convert to the church, Margaret. What a character! That's one thing I LOVE about the Irvine people. They have some of the strongest personalities I have ever seen. They crack me up! And then when they are seeing that they are making me laugh, they say even crazier things. They are such fun people here! Anyways, so we went and saw Margaret; she was baptized three months. We talked to her about how she's doing and she ended up telling us that she relapsed last week and drank on the anniversary of her husband's death because she was missing him so bad. Our hearts just sank. It was really sad to hear. And then she went on to say how much she loves the church and the happiness it has brought her and so she's so sad because she knows that she will be kicked out of the church. So, it was an amazing experience for me to be able to look her in the eye, and tell her that not only is she not going to be kicked out of the church, but she can go through the repentance process and be completely forgiven of that slip. You should've seen the look on her face! She was so relieved and grateful. It was amazing. Sister T. saw a bottle of wine on her table and offered to dump it down the sink for her. Haha loved that. Go Sister T. So Margaret agreed and knew she should and so we all stood around the sink and watched it be dumped down the drain. We then called the elders to come and give her a blessing to resist the temptation next time and talked about how she can cope without turning to wine. (I get the impression it's pretty difficult for new converts here. They know it's true, they're baptized, but then they still are coping with the previous addictions)

Which reminds me- everyone smokes and drinks here. I really don't think I've met a nonmember that doesn't do either of those. Which means we come home smelling strongly of smoke and dog usually. So lovely. Haha. I shower every night, instead of every morning because of that. But no big deal! I'll get used to it.

On Friday, we met a lady named Alison out on the streets. We stopped her and talked to her and she was very receptive and interested in hearing more. She said that her elderly mother would not allow us into their home though; she said her mom would be nasty towards us. So she asked if we could meet her on that corner the next day. Of course we accepted and so we have met with her twice and give her the lessons while we walk her dog around the block. Haha gotta love it. I was challenged by the mission president to invite someone from the streets to be baptized last week. And so with Alison, she was stating her concern about how she doesn't know if she will return to God's presence for sure, and so I saw that as a perfect opportunity and invited her to be baptized when she came to know what we were saying was true. She said she would like to be baptized if she got to that point. Our biggest obstacle with her right now is that she loves her bible too much. She can't even comprehend how there can be another book that is true. But we're working with her on it. We'll see how things go with her!

Sister T. was pretty excited about that experience. I think her last companion really discouraged her. She said with her last companion that all thy did was visit with members and less actives all day because her last companion told her that no one in Irvine listens. So unfortunately, since she's training me, we've been doing a lot of just that. But I convinced her (lovingly of course haha) for us to include finding investiagors in our day. She was hesitant but we were able to find Alison and then we went street contacting in the city and I was just praying soo so hard that we could find someone interested so Sister T. could see that there are people out there. Anyways, we were on the streets for about 2 hours and we were able to find a man named Jeremy who was interested in having us come to his house! Sister T. was hopping around like a little girl. It's just crazy to me. Sister T. is a great missionary, she is just kind of in a discouraged phase right now, but she gets out of it, she'll be amazing. I've learned that I can never ever get discouraged out here. It's a deathly weapon that I can see working on a few of the missionaries out here. But I KNOW that there are people out there who are ready. They may be harder to come across, but I know the Lord didn't call us here if He knew none of the hearts were prepared. We wouldn't have a call to Scotland/Ireland if that was the case. I'm running on adrenaline right now, but I can't ever get discouraged.

Well, the members here are amazing. I just love them! We get loads of kisses and hugs from all of them and we had stake conference on Sunday and they just spoil us with sweeties and other goods. They love missionaries. Our little home is adorable. It's pretty big! Two story house with a little backyard and everything. It's nice! I like it a lot.

Overall, I'm happy to be here! I need to go. I have one minute left and my time is gone. The work is good here. I love the work. Sister T. and I are doing great!

Love you all,

Sister Knab