Crazy Week

Hello All!

Well, this past week makes for the craziest week of my mission. Easily. Everything will make more sense if I start at the beginning. About two weeks ago we got a phone call warning us that we would be moving apartments, we figured it would happen at transfers the first week of May, and so we didn't think too much of it. Monday we had a normal p-day that was mainly me sleeping a lot, as I was still trying to fight off a cold. When we got home from running errands I slept until we had to leave again for lessons in the evening. It helped a lot and I felt much better.

Tuesday we had the Sisters meeting, which was wonderful. There are about 30 sister missionaries here in the mission, and it was fun to have everyone together. Well, it was fun to see all the Spanish sisters... there's not much mixing between languages, especially because we have a few Spanish sisters who are far more comfortable in Spanish than English, and we really don't see much of the English sisters as most of them serve outside of Phoenix, and most of us serve here in Phoenix. It was a really good meeting and both President and Sister Beck spoke and I enjoyed listening to them.

After the meeting is when the fun really started for the week. We got a phone call right after the meeting from Elder Cherry, the housing coordinator for the mission. He told us that a new home had been located for us and that we needed to get over there as soon as possible because we would need to move in before the 30th. We were told we were moving in with an older sister, who lives at the very bottom corner of our area. Minus the location (now we drive a good half hour every day to get to anywhere) we were very excited and scheduled to go meet her on Wednesday morning. The rest of Tuesday was pretty normal, with lots of appointments and such. The work in this area has really really picked up and so we are teaching a lot, which I love.

Wednesday rolled around and at 10:00am as we were starting to study Spanish we got another phone call from Elder Cherry, telling us that we now needed to be moved in my Sunday night at the latest. That left us just a little stressed, as we had exchanges scheduled for Friday and so it meant we would probably have to move on Thursday. We canceled everything for two days (well, almost everything, we made it to two appointments on Wednesday), and after meeting the sister we would be living with we went back to the apartment to pack. The Elders in our area were going to move into our old apartment, and they are English Elders, so everything Spanish had to go. Spanish missionaries had lived in our apartment for years and years and years. We had to go through everything, especially because our new living arrangement is very very small. We spent all day going through documents and supplies and packing and cleaning. I attached a picture to show my handiwork and to give you all an idea of how much stuff we were working with... and what's in the picture is only part of it.

Thursday we had meetings we couldn't move and so after the meetings the Zone Leaders followed us home, we packed everything in their truck and drove the 20 minutes to our new home. Then at 4pm we frantically began to unpack, because by 6pm we had to leave to go on exchanges, because the area that I was going to was over an hour away. We got mostly unpacked before we left, but there were still some loose ends to finish up when I got back Friday night.

Friday I spent the day working in Wickenburg. Wickenburg is a town right out of the Old West cowboy movies. I think I saw more people in cowboy hats and boots than ever in my life, and there was cactus and tumbleweed everywhere. It was quite the change as I've spent my whole time here in Arizona in the city.

Friday I also made an interesting discovery. I discovered that somewhere in all the moving and packing and unpacking and everything else, that I had somehow managed to hurt my foot. More specifically my second toe on my left foot. I never realized just how much one uses their second toe. I have no clue what I did or how it happened, all I know is it hurts a lot to walk, and running, jumping or anything else is completely out of the question. I feel completely ridiculous. Who hurts their second toe on their left foot? And more specifically, what do you do for a hurt toe? I suspect I would just get told to stay off of it and so I've decided to just tough it out and see what happens. It was feeling better yesterday and so I tried to test my luck this morning for morning exercise and discovered that in fact it still hurts quite a lot. Oh well.

Besides the random hurt toe, I had a marvelous time in Wickenburg. I spent the day working with Hna Wells, the other Spanish sister missionary here from Michigan. She's from the Ann Arbour area, and also went to BYU. She's a studio art major, and about as far along as me in her program, so we decided that we've probably run into each other somewhere in the HFAC since we both were hermits there in our pre-mission lives. Small world. She's been here in Arizona for 4 months but has 6 months before that. She started her mission in El Salvador, got sick, came home to get better, and got sent here to finish her mission. It was fun to meet the people she is teaching out in Wickenburg, and we had some really lovely lessons.

Saturday, all things considered, was actually a fairly normal day. We finished getting settled in and unpacked and finally got everything organized. We also got to have lunch with the Sister we are living with and got to know her a little better, which was nice. Also, we got to know our new roommate. I attached a picture. Her name is Molly, and she is quite thrilled to have more people to pet her. Are you jealous Morgan?

Sunday was also more or less normal. We spent a good deal of time calling everyone and their dog on Saturday to invite them to church. We figured with it being Easter and all more people would want to come. Silly us, we forgot that in Mexican culture any excuse to party is a good excuse to party, and I got many replies of "We can't make it tomorrow, it's Easter." ??? The first time it happened both Hna Aydelotte and I were a little stunned.

We managed to have lots of people in church anyways, most of whom were there for the first time, which we were very very excited about. It meant that I spent most of church running like crazy (who ever said Sunday is always a day of rest never had a Sunday as a missionary) especially because Hna Aydelotte was playing piano for most of church, and also got pulled into the Primary to help out with the music. That meant that I spent most of the time running between people trying to make sure everyone had someone to sit with, and that I had talked to everyone we needed to. Hna Aydelotte and I have the goal to greet everyone every Sunday, so that alone keeps us busy, but then add anything else, and I come out of church feeling completely exhausted.

Trent talked in his letter about transfers, and so I thought I would comment on them as they are coming next week. We have a lot of Spanish sisters going home, and so there are all sorts of rumors about what will happen to the Spanish sisters next week. Everyone is convinced that a new area will be opened, and also that some sister will go there to flush-train (meaning go into an area that she's never served in with a companion who is fresh from the MTC and needs to be shown how everything goes). The current rumor is that we are getting 4 new sisters, which would be awesome, but means that there will be a lot of changes. Now you can all sit on the edge of your seats for another week and wonder what will happen. Of course at most next week I can tell you if I'm staying or going, because I won't know anything else until Tuesday after I've already written... but surprises are good, right?

Also, with the move there was a little mix up with the mail, so if anyone got mail returned to them, don't worry, keep writing to the same address you've written to. I think most of it made it to us, but someone may have slipped through.

I think that's just about all for this week. It was a crazy week, but also a good week. There are a lot of really really good things happening here in Agua Fria, and with transfers coming both Hna Aydelotte and I are nervous that one of us won't get to be here to see everything fall together. We'll see what happens next week.

Have a wonderful week. I love you all lots!
Hermana Okeson


PS. I will post the pictures Nicole sent next week when I am back on my own computer.