Well I'll be darned! That there's a buckeye tree!!!

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Gday! (Which is actually how you say hello in Danish?)

This week has been exciting, stressful, patience-building & of all things -- enlightening!

Thursday: So let me just talk for two seconds about last Thursday - our Pday. Everything that COULD have gone wrong, did. It was crazy! Doctors visits were canceled at last minute, people were late, our van window wouldn't go up so we had to call Fleet -- but the cell phone in the van was dead! Brilliant. Then we had to take 5,000 left turns to get to a place 100 ft away? Then the garage door opener didn't work. Then we had an hour cut off our regular time (which was already an hour shorter than usual) because of the protest. So we grocery shopped for 20 min (like speed shoppers on TV!!!) and were disappointed to realize we didn't have enough time to hit up Cafe Rio. The End

Friday: AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I got wonderful delicious morsels from Sisters Martschenko & Winkle! I didn't get to see them because they came by on Thursday & I was home (Pday) but luckily they ran into Sister Malala who brought me the cookies & mini M&Ms :) TOTALLY MADE MY DAY! The cookies were ridiculously good - I would absolutely LOVE the recipe! I did manage to share them with my companion, who also loved them. They lasted about 3 days -- THEY WERE SO GOOD!

Hahahahaha ok, don't quite know how this went down -- but Sis Williams (Scotland) said she converted someone to Islam over chat?!?!?! Probably just a troller but it was still hilarious when she told us! When we were driving around on Pday we saw a "little person" riding a razor scooter across the street. The new phrase Sister Williams says is, "mIDget on a scooter!" (the emphasis on the ID of midget...in case you didn't get that) so she says that whenever there's something kind of random or unusual we see. It's one of those You-had-to-be-there kinda things.

We went out to lunch at Blue Lemon with Sisters Williams & Gilbert. If you've never been - go! We got a Lemon Grilled Chicken BLT & it was amazing. We were ordering our food when they started playing "Lasso" by Phoenix over the intercom. I almost collapsed! Hahahaha I got so trunky for about 3.2 seconds -- then I was back :)

Attention: Ladies & Gentlemen! Let it be known that Sister Ainsley Despain can officially do the South American "RM finger slap" thing!!! You know the "oh snap!" or "wow that was really hot" or "wow! I can't believe that just happened!" reaction thing that Jeff & Dad do? THAT! I am just so proud!

Saturday: It's absolutely fantastic! Me & Sister Garbett are like friends with Sisters Williams & Gilbert?!?!?!? It's SO GREAT! Because here's the thing, you don't have to be friends with anyone! Right? You can get along & say hey on the Square and all but the four of us schedule outings together & go over to each other's apartments for dinner or cookies. It's so funny - we'll just randomly say, "It's like we're....friends...or something?!?" They came over for dinner before District Meeting, it's so fun - we get some time to just be girls :)

During the DM I told everyone the story President Smith (MTC) told us about his super enthusiastic cowboy companion who would jump out of bed every morning, run into the bathroom, look at himself in the mirror & say, "Elder So &So, You are a handsome guy! You are a great missionary. And today is going to be a wonderful day!"

They loved it. It is now officially known as "The Elder Cowboy Story". After I told it, everyone was laughing & Sis Terry (England) said, "I have an immense sense of respect for Sister Despain right now!" I told them that they should try it -- because it really DOES work! It's amazing!

My companion, the wonderful, the lovely, the so-much-like-me-it's-freaky, Sister Garbett goes home at the end of next transfer & so I told her about Brother Lee's book, I'm Home! Now What? She really really really wants a copy :) So I told her I'd have Mom send me one! I think it's just what she needs! So nice to have wonderfully helpful connections like knowing the author of a book about how to live as a super-recent Returned Missionary!

Sunday: We took two Hispanic families through "God's Plan" in the NVC. And one family referred!!!!!!! We were thrilled. I didn't mention that I spoke a little Spanish, which turned out to be a big help because at the end, they talked amongst themselves in Spanish about whether or not they wanted missionaries to come visit. And so once they decided - they told us in English what we already knew! It was great!

We talked with one of our investigators, Jessica 1 (because now we have two Jessica G's -- so we've resorted to numbers) and Sister Garbett committed her to BAPTISM!!!! It was so exciting to hear her say it. Just like in Preach My Gospel, "When you come to know that these things are true, will you follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized by someone holding the priesthood authority of God?" And then to hear a "yes" on the other end??? SO EXCITING!!!!

Monday: Monday was a bit of a weird day for me. Mostly because it really sunk in that I'm going to be here -- on a mission -- for 18 months (give or take a few).

Jessica 1 told us during our phone call that she wanted to live the Law of Chastity!!! We haven't even taught her about it yet! She's so great, it's been interesting because she has a low self-esteem so she has made some choices she isn't proud of but she really, really wants to change. Which is perfect. We make sure we tell her that we love talking to her & that we know she is a wonderful, amazing daughter of God. We can already hear the change in her voice, she is much happier.

Sister Garbett & I decided we're going to make T-SHIRTS!!! On the front it will say MamaGarbett or lilGarbett & then on the back ALL of our inside jokes. We've got about eleventy billion of them. Everyone says we look alike & even SOUND alike! So...we took that wonderful new knowledge & recorded to Elder Jones(the guy Sis G has been writing to her whole mission) & then we played it back -- and at some parts even WE couldn't tell who was talking! WEIRD!!!

Tuesday: We did service at Heritage Park (where the “This is the Place” monument is). I know -- AWESOME, right? I got to sweep the first floor school room in the Chapel; which was replicated in 1998. When some of us finished & met back up, Sister Sanders(AZ) had to go & tell a supposed visitor that we were there for service & jokingly mentioned that we needed more work! Ya! Turns out the lady she was talking to was actually in charge of some things around there?! Perfect! hahahaha it was so funny because we were done with service, heading up the hill to check out the hospital (which was run only by women doctors who only saw women & children patients!) when we got roped into more service. Priceless. The kinda-cool part about all this? We got to clean a train!!!! Not ride...clean...oh ya...it was exciting! We were talking with our supervisor & asked how much it would be for us to go through the haunted Heritage Park next week - he made a call - we're getting in FREE! Totally pays off to do service ;)

We had about 30 min before we had to be back home so we hopped in our super-cool specially designed MiniVans & raced over to CAFE RIO! So so so so so so so so so so so so delicious! I love the Pork Salad - es mi favorito!

Speaking of which, I got the Spanish script for tours! Once I study enough - I can pass off & get paged for Spanish tours!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wednesday: All the 1st Transfer Sisters had a meeting with President & the Aps (who are sister missionaries) to talk about our study of The Living Christ. It was an uplifting meeting to say the least. Everyone had great comments. It was kinda weird having us all together again without our new companions - it was like being back in the MTC! Only.....not! We got a copy of it about 2 weeks ago & were told to "mark it up!" So I did! And I annotated it & cited some things & made my very own footnotes. Yes, I'm an English major :) It was beautiful. It's kind of funny, about 3/4 of the way through someone's comment President Holmes will say "Thank You" not like a "Thank you, you can stop talking now." But he thinks they're done because they pause - when they're not. It's entertaining. But I got to finish my entire comment with no interruption! I was so pleased. And after I finished my hopefully brief & clear comments he said," Thank you. My goodness, what a wonderful observation. We've got a bunch of smarty-pants!!!" I felt just a teensy bit proud.

After our discussion, we went on a little tour of TMSQ with President so he could give us pointers on lessons [everyone else calls them Tours - they just don't know we're teaching them about the gospel :) we're so clever]. Sister Moore told me a story about one of her visitors: So we had this husband & wife from Minnesota. They were taking in everything we were telling them but they had just put up that "wall", ya know? So we could NOT figure out how to get through to them! We were walking by the two Buckeye trees by the South when the wife [in her enthusiastic Minnesotan accent] goes, "Well I'll be darned! That there's a BUCKeye tree! -- who knew they'd gone & built a BuckEye tree all the way out here it Utah, of all places?!?" At that point I just couldn't hold it in - I busted up laughing! We had a wonderful conversation about the tree & the pioneers and they referred!!!"

Only on Temple Square :)

Our time with President lasted about FOUR hours. Which means I was without Sister Garbett for that whole time! Once we were FINALLY reunited, it was amazing how much I missed her! I mean, not amazing -- I just realized how much I like having her around. We have so much fun together! We work hard & get a lot done and the best part is that we maintain our personalities throughout it all! One night this week, I was telling her how "Your mom!" is about the UNfunniest joke known to man. At that point we started saying all of our inside jokes with "your mom" in front of it. Since it made absolutely NO sense whatsoever -- it was hilarious and we then proceeded to take 3 minutes to walk up five steps because we were laughing so hard. It's yet another one of those you-had-to-be-there kinda things.

So all in all everything is going fantastically here on Temple Square, where the wax figurines freak me out a little, it's normal to stand/walk for 12 hrs a day & where the lovely BuckEye trees amaze even the hardest of Minnesota visitors.

Hope all is well at home!

All my love,
Sister Ainsley