Dear Family,
Well, I am now in the mission field and doing missionary things. I will start from the beginning, which is from when I talked with Mom and Dad on Tuesday morning.
The flight to Atlanta was good, but long. All the missionaries, there were about 25, sat together in the back of the plane. One of the passengers, most likely a member, told us that he felt really safe having all of us missionaries on the plane with him and his family. The landing was rough, though. It made me a little nervous about flying into Tallahassee because I would be on a smaller plane, but everything was fine. We got to go outside to board the plane to Tallahassee! I have always enjoyed doing that. The flight to Tallahassee was shorter, thankfully, and I didn't sit next to any other missionaries. However, the man I did sit next too went right to sleep as soon as he sat down. I guess the elders who are in Tallahassee will have to find him and teach him the gospel. Once we got to the airport, we met President and Sister Summerhays and the APs, got our luggage and went to the mission home. Because Sister Carpenter and I were the only sisters, we got special privileges and rode with President and Sister Summerhays to the mission home in their car. It was nice to have that extra time to get to know them. They are very nice people. Sister Summerhays took us right up to our bedroom right when we got there and we got to take a nap until dinner. It was great, but I couldn't fall asleep in that short of time. We had dinner and then we started in with the new missionary training and interviews with President Summerhays. When I had my interview he told me that I would be going to Andalusia, Alabama and Sister Chadwick would be my new companion. I will have to admit, I was disappointed that I would be starting in Alabama. President Summerhays also informed me that Andalusia was an area where there hasn't been missionaries for over a year and only about 40-50 members out of 160+ attend each Sunday! What a way to start your mission! He said that he had confidence in me that I could handle it and that as long as I loved the people everything would be okay. He also told me that the Branch President, who is retired, had promised that if President Summerhays sent missionaries he would find investigators to teach.
Wednesday morning, we packed everything up and headed along I-10 to start dropping missionaries off at the transfer spots. There are three spots and then the missionaries go to their respective areas from those three spots. I met my companion Sis. Chadwick. She is great! I am so blessed to have such a great companion as my trainer. She is from Ririe, ID and goes to BYU. It is nice to have someone who knows what it is like to be at BYU. She actually lived in the condos across the street from Heather Heights. We get along well and have been able to learn from each other everyday. It will be a good companionship. After we met up, we loaded out car with our luggage and bikes and drove to Andalusia. We didn't know where we were going, but there was another companionship of sisters who are in the area next to us, so we followed them to their apartment and then on to our own little town. When we got to Andalusia, we got to meet up with the Branch President and set up the utilities and our rental agreement. We ran to the store to get a little bit of food and some cleaning supplies and began setting up what we could of our apartment. We had no furniture, but the Branch Presidency got us furniture and other things from an apartment that Elders in a different area had moved out of.
Thursday we still didn't know anything about members/investigators/referrals anything, so we continued to get the apartment set up and met with President Newton to discuss the branch and how to go about missionary work here. This area has started having wards and branches collect the same information about missionary work as we do and the pass it on up through stakes and area authorities until it reaches the Quorum of the Twelve. It is great to have the members involved in missionary work. It should help out greatly to find people and truly convert them to the gospel. After that we did more to get situated-got maps of Andalusia and Covington County and marked all members, found out where people who wanted referrals lived, etc. Friday we finally got out and started visiting people. It was hard because we didn't know exactly where to begin, but we got in the car and headed out. We met a very active family that night, which really lifted our spirits after we had found no one else.
Saturday we enjoyed conference. We watched it at the chapel. The chapel is very unusual. It is so tiny, even smaller than the Marysville building was! There is one central room with a couple of rooms and offices coming off of it. It is cute though and we know where all of the classrooms are after only being for a few hours. Conference was excellent! It is great to seeing continuing revelation in action as President Eyring was called to the First Presidency and Elder Cook was called into the Quorum of the Twelve. The talks Saturday were excellent as well. Everyone said that Conference was good as a missionary, but I never believed it. It was amazing to see that everything spoken about was related directly to the gospel that we are to preach to all the world. The afternoon session was amazing, and provided great stuff on missionary work. I hope all of you are doing your part to be missionaries, because I am doing all that I can! Member missionary work is one of the greatest things to help further the Lord's work. We visited more members Saturday evening.
Sunday we met with President Newton again to go over more missionary/member stuff. Conference was great again! Sunday morning there were more members and we got to meet some great families. We visited some more members and have started setting up appointments to meet with members to teach them lessons(and have dinner :) ), and help them get involved in missionary work. We also have been trying to see less-active members. That is where most of our work will be focusing right at the beginning, but we need to make sure we have that solid foundation to bring investigators into. What President Summerhays told me about love has really made a difference. Even though it isn't the strongest ward in the Church, the branch here in Andalusia has people that are trying to do their best to live the gospel and build the branch. I really admire them and love them for the effort they are putting into the work. Everyone here, member and non-member, is so nice and there isn't any reason to not love them.
There are a lot of older members here. I feel like I am in Mt. Vernon back in the day a long time ago. Heavenly Father must know that I have lived in this type of situation so I should be able to do me part to help build up the area. The town is really cute. They have the greatest homes here. Unfortunately, our apartment isn't on of the beautiful homes, but it is nice. The weather hasn't been unbearable, and it really hasn't been raining at all. They say they are in a drought, but it is a lot greener than Utah. My address here if 132 Captain's Quarters, Andalusia, AL. I can't remember my zip code. Sorry!
We have been able to go out contacting (meeting people where ever, like Wal-Mart, and then introducing ourselves and inviting them to listen to our message, etc), and it has been a good experience. I have really been forced to break out of my comfort zone and actually talk to people, but I imagine that this is a good thing. Heavenly Father has blessed me to be able to handle it and not have any problems. It is scary, but teaching the gospel has made it better.
Love, Joanna