I was so busy contacting people in the airport that I almost missed by flight :) No worries, I made it safe & sound. President and Sister Young are very generous. They picked me up and took me to President Lowry's house to have lunch with some of the missionaries serving in Eugene. This was a particularly strange experience because of the 20 of us there, only 5 of us were girls!!! I love Oregon, it reminds me a lot of home – very green.
Something that President Lowry told me has really stuck with me. “You know, some people call this rain. That's a misnomer – this is liquid sunshine!!!” It does rain quite a bit but Sister Britton has a second raincoat she's letting me borrow. She is a wonderful companion; she is very sweet, a powerful teacher & fun to be around. We bought matching fuzzy-warm turquoise blankets...to increase our unity :)
We are serving in the YSA Ward here in Corvallis, it's really fun to spend time around kids our own age. School policy doesn't allow us to proselyte on campus – so that's our goal for this transfer: get on campus! It's called “Project: MissionaryWorkIsAwesome”. Next week we will be the first speakers at a program called “Why I Serve”. This will get the word out to the students about why we do what we do – we're hoping this will open some doors!
I know that God knows me personally because I have seen how my mission areas are where I am supposed to be. We're teaching a wonderful young woman from Mexico. Her English is very good but we saw an amazing difference in her when I started teaching her in Spanish. She set her baptismal date for October 29th and I am super excited to guide her to that day. Another girl we're teaching has her date set for this Saturday the 15th. We're also teaching her friend who wants to wait a little longer & make sure she has a solid testimony. Can you blame her? She's solid – she just doesn't want to be rushed. And yes, there is a trend – S. Britton & I teach the 18-30 yr old girls in the area while our Zone Leaders (who also serve in the YSA ward) teach the boys.
There is a culture that follows most YSA Wards – including ours, it's so interesting! As a missionary, we have our own club of coolness & we have to watch out for each other. Some kids in the ward don't know where lines are with missionaries...we have much larger bubbles than most people :)
The Sisters back at TMSQ told me not to worry about Outbound, that I already know how to do everything – we just do it a little differently! And it's so true! Tracting is exactly like doing RC phone calls; the only difference is that you're in person. No big deal – love it!
We focused this week on a new approach at dinner appointments. Instead of talking about whatever during the meal & then having a separate “spiritual” time, we combined it! We focus the meal conversation on more spiritual things. Saturday night's appointment was the IDEAL evening. We told the girls why we chose to go on a mission, we comforted the Mother's concern about her less-active son and they even told us about a neighbor family they would love to have the missionaries teach. That's how it's supposed to go!!!
I absolutely love being here, it's a wonderful place to be. It's all true.
Lots of love,
Sister A. Despain
P.S. What's the opposite of a chicken?
>>> A cow...I'll explain later :)
