Freezing in AZ

Hello All,

Yes, you read the subject correctly... we've been FREEZING here in Arizona. I remember when I first started my mission, I used to tease my trainers for wearing so many layers in weather that I knew wasn't that cold. I used to get quite a laugh as I would see them pile layer after layer on, while I would just grab a jacket. Well, after a summer of riding a bike in 120 degree weather, I now understand. I AM SO COLD ALL OF THE TIME! It got down into the 60's this weekend and I thought I was going to freeze to my bike. I don't think I've ever felt this cold. It's pretty embarrassing. I don't really want to tell people I'm from Michigan any more, mostly because I don't think they'll believe me when they see me decked out in so many layers.

This week has been a good one. Monday was Halloween... and in true missionary fashion, it was super boring. We were grounded for the evening. However we made it interesting... Hna Wells had been wanting to dye her hair for a while, and she wanted to go for a strawberry blond color... so we decided Halloween was the perfect time to do it. So, as we went shopping we also picked up some hair dye. It was a pretty nice looking red. Well, as we mixed it up, and I started putting it on her hair, it got redder and redder. But that's okay, because the color of the dye isn't exactly the color that comes out. So no worries. By the end of Halloween Hna Wells could have passed for Strawberry Shortcake (the doll, not the dessert). We got a pretty good laugh. That's what happens when you put an art major and a music major together... some one's hair comes out in funky colors. Tuesday morning we rushed to the store and got a second dye to color over it... so now she's a dark brownish red. Not what we were going for, but it looks good. All in all it was quite the adventure.

Now for missionary work things. We've been so busy this week. I keep telling myself that we'll have this area figured out in the next week, and then new things come out of the wood work. This week we spent most of our time doing visits as assigned by the Bishop. It's actually been super helpful, because it's helped us get to know the members better. We ran all over the area trying to meet people... it translated into lots of biking. We also went on exchanges with the Encanto sisters. I went with Hna Jeanfreau (the sister Hna Wells trained) while Hna Wells went with Hna Graves (the sister I trained). It was cool because for the first time I got to do a repeat in an exchange. I went on exchanges with Hna Jeanfreau 3 transfers ago, so it was fun to see how she has grown and changed as a missionary.

The ward also had a baptism that was quite the event last night. We showed up at a meeting Sunday morning, and the Bishop asked one of the sets of Elders if they were ready for their baptism in the evening... they said no because this Hno was being baptized the next week... well, he was baptized last night. Turns out the Bishop had talked to this Hno and had got him to agree to be baptized on Sunday... and instead of telling the Elders the Hno had told them that he had a surprise for them on Sunday. Pretty comical. I got to play flute for the baptism for a special musical number. It was fun to get the flute out and play some. We played an arrangement that Dad and I have played many times of "Did you think to pray". It went well for zero practice time. There was a mix up and so I had to play it from memory... I was really glad we had chosen something I had played so many times because even though it's now been a year since I really have sat down and played, I could still play that one from memory.

Okay, I think that's all for this week. I'm out of time. Sorry it's a short letter.

Love you all!

Hermana Okeson

Biking and more biking!

Hello All,

I remember during the summer saying that I couldn't wait for it to cool off, and that I hoped that when it did I would get sent to a bike area. Well, technically this isn't a bike area, but it might as well be. We bike everywhere! Pretty much the only time we use the car is to drive from our apartment and to park near our last appointment of the night. Then we pull the bikes of the bike rack and we ride everywhere all day. I think I have spent more time on the bike in the last week than I ever could have imagined. It's lots of fun! We get to meet a lot of people out on the street every day, and I'm really enjoying talking with everyone. It's also nice because this is a more Hispanic area, so well over half of the contacts we do on the street are in Spanish. I like feeling like I am speaking more Spanish, and I am enjoying the chance to dust off some of the Spanish vocab and skills I hadn't needed while I was up in Peoria.

Mom asked if we feel like we know the area better... that would be a yes and no. There are still people we have not met. We've met the majority of the people the previous missionaries were teaching, but there are still some that we cannot seem to get in contact with. It's pretty tricky. All we have with some of them is just an address. No phone number, no hints as to when they are home, no record of how much they were taught or if they were just contacts off of the street... so it makes for a lot of guess work on our part. We finally were able to meet with one family after one of the sisters in the ward gave us a suggestion as to when to find them home. That said, the members have been super helpful. There are a lot of people in the ward who are very involved in missionary work and we are never lacking for people offering to come out with us. That's really, really nice. We've had multiple members point out to us people who they know who might be interested, and we've also had lots of people who remember former investigators, and they've told us to go stop by. We are sitting on a pretty big list of people we're still trying to meet.

We've also had some entertaining moments as we've tried to chase down regular members of the ward. We were given a ward roster last Sunday, and set out to try and meet as many of the members who lived in our area as we could. We've discovered that some of the addresses need updating. My personal favorite was we went by one house for dinner with the family. We biked up and saw a kid playing out in the yard. We asked him if this was his house, and told him to tell his family we were here for dinner. Turns out the family who we were having dinner with had moved. Super awkward. We were already locking our bikes to the basketball net when this guy comes out and goes, "I think the people you are having dinner with moved..." We've now taken to checking addresses before our dinner appointments.

Being back in this area really does remind me of serving in Aguila. Once again you see cowboys out riding their horses down the street, and I've been chased a few times on my bike by dogs. One guy sicked his dogs on us as we were riding by, rude! We've also done some off roading through the cotton fields here, we just take the paths that the tractor would use. It saves us some biking distance, but sure makes for a bumpy ride.

I'll try to have pictures for next week. I keep forgetting to take my camera with me. I've got to work on that again. It's all that biking, you try to take as little stuff as possible, because you don't want to carry it all day.

Love you all lots!

Hermana Okeson

Somos las Hermanas de Michuacan!

Hi All!!!

Well, here is the news you've all been waiting for. *drum roll* I've been transfered to La Joya, in South West Phoenix. We have part of our area in Tullison, and part of our area in what I think is Phoenix itself. I'm with Hermana Wells. I don't know if you remember but five months ago (or so) we went on exchanges out in Wickenburg together. We're the two sister missionaries in the mission both from Michigan. Hence the title of this e-mail. Michuacan is a state in Mexico, and it's always fun to joke and say I'm from there, so now we say we both are. Actually, we started of with me trying to tell people I was from China because we both didn't want to say we were from the same state, but when people find out I don't speak any Chinese they don't believe me. Now I've dropped back to saying that I'm from Michican... and sometimes I add that my family doesn't live there any more and see if anyone takes the bait.

Now for some news about the area, we're both new here... until Wednesday morning there were Elders serving in the area we cover. It's a pretty interesting experience getting moved into a new area. We've certainly been busy. The first big "project" of coming here was cleaning up where we live. I remember Mom talking about getting moved into an apartment at the end of her mission where Elder's had lived, and now I understand what she meant about all the cleaning they had to do. Thursday morning I was up at 5am (I couldn't sleep...) and cleaned from 5 am until about 2 in the afternoon. Friday we got up early again and cleaned for a few hours, and then this morning we finished the last of the deep cleaning by about 10 am. To say the least it way pretty gross. But, now it's all clean, and we quite like the apartment.

The area we work in reminds me a lot of my first area down in Aguila. I really am loving it here, and it's fun because the ward is super excited to have sister missionaries again. There were sisters here about a year ago, but they got pulled out to open a different area. That's pretty normal for the Spanish sisters areas, There's about 10 or so Spanish Wards across the mission (by my best count) and 6 companionships of Spanish sisters, so they tend to rotate us through the different areas every so often. We are teaching a lot of people here. We've been here for 5 days now and we're still trying to meet everyone. It's really going to keep us busy, and we're trying not to drop the ball anywhere.

Now for a little about my companion, it turns out we have a lot more in common than just being from the same state. We'll start at the begining... Our dad's have the same career (chemical engineer), we were born in the same hospital, we both went to the same university (BYU), we were both in the same college in the university (School of Fine Arts), we've both been on the mission for around a year, and when we get home we'll both go back to BYU to finish school. There are a few other things that I'm sure I'm forgetting, but it's pretty funny to see how much we have in common. Hna Wells served the first part of her mission in El Salvador, but had to come home because of health complications. So last December she came here to finish her mission. I was a little surprised when we got put together, mostly because we are some of the "oldest" sisters on the mission. But I'm super excited. She's a really good missionary, and I'm excited to serve with her.

I'm not sure what else to tell you all about. It's really just been a lot of trying to get ourselves pulled together and to figure out what is going on. We're really really busy and absolutly loving it. President told me at transfers what he is planning for my last 4 transfers and I'm pretty happy with what he is planning on. So I guess that means there are probably no more surprises in store for me, but I think I'll keep you all in the dark so that atleast someone is surprised. I will tell you though that Hna Wells will finish her mission here with me in La Joya (she goes home in January). We're super excited to spend all of the holidays together and to work like crazy here. This is one of the busiest areas for the Spanish work in this whole mission, so we've got a lot to do, and really big shoes to fill. We both love being out and working, so this should be fun. It's also fun because this is a bike area... except at night. We've been told to use our bikes until it gets really dark and then to use the car. I've done so much biking in the last few days and it is so fun. We run into so many people out on the street, and the majority of them speak Spanish! I've done more Spanish contacting in the last week than I think I did in my entire time in Agua Fria. I'm also back in an all Spanish district, so we get do to everything in Spanish... and my entire district all serves in La Joya. This is one of the wards in the mission that has 3 sets of missionaries. It's a lot of fun being with the other missionaries and working with them, and there's a lot of combined effort here between the different sets of missionaries.

I think that's about it for the exciting news of the week. There will probably be more next week as we get to know the people here in the area. We'll see what we find. This is going to be a super busy transfer!

Love you lots!

Hermana Okeson

TRANSFERRED!

Hi All,

Well, as you guessed, I'm being transferred. 8 months here. That's a long time. I'm not surprised. I was pretty sure that I was going. Now the question is where I am going. Honestly, I have no clue. I'm excited to go start again in a new area. It's always hard but fun. I feel like in my time here I accomplished what I needed to do, and that the Lord is happy with me and my work. Especially with having Leonila's baptism, I feel like I finished the last of what I was sent here to do. I really feel like I was here for her.

Well, this week was long, but good. We did a lot of finding, especially because pretty much all of our apointments canceled on us. That is where you really learn the value of your back up plans. We had some that put us in the right place at the right time. The coolest happened on Friday. We had set an apointment to visit a family, and then they had to cancel on us last minute. We decided to go visit one of the less actives in the ward, Gloria. We showed up over there and didn't find her, but did find her sister and neice sitting outside. They were coming to stay while Gloria went to Mexico for the weekend. There had been a mix-up and the keys Gloria had left with a neighbor didn't get to her sister. The cool thing was that we showed up and were able to help get the keys, talk to them, and now she wants missionaries to come visit her at her home. I had worked with this sister just 4 months ago, and she wan't interested. But after that chance to serve her and help her out, she was more willing to listen and excited to have missionaries come to her home and share more with her family.

Sorry, I have a feeling this is going to be a pretty spacey letter... my mind is spinning wondering where I will be sent. The rumor is they are opening a new sisters area this transfer... I'm really hoping that I get to go there. I think opening an area would be really fun. But who knows. There are some other areas that are also options, I guess I'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out exactly where I'm going.

I thought I would look back on my time here in this area... This has certainly been a growing experience for me to serve here. I've learned a lot. Especially as I've worked with a lot of different people over a long period of time. I've also seen a lot of results and a lot of blessings here. I watched on Sunday as an Hermano who I've worked some with recieved his first calling in years... when I first came he never came to church, but slowly he's come back and I was so happy to see him finally reach this point. Also I've seen a lot of the same progress with Oscar Carrillo and his family. I'll be excited to come back for his daughter's baptism in a few weeks.

I've also learned a lot here about diligence. I'm not going to lie. It's been pretty hard at times. Missions aren't easy. I've had a lot of things that have not gone as I would have hoped, and I've had a lot of dissapointments, but I've also seen a lot of joy and happiness here. I can honestly say that I love the people I've worked with. Serving here has taken everything I have, but it's been worth it. I'm excited to go somewhere new and to do the same thing, and to really work hard and give all that I have.

I've also learned a lot from my current companion, Hna Alvarez. I'm really going to miss that girl. She's taught me a lot about how to work with people, and how to really love those we serve. She's so good at looking for those who are forgotten and reminding them that they are loved. I've learned a lot from her about the value of slowing down a little to take a little more time with someone, and that we don't have to run at 100mph all the time. I've learned that it is okay to take a few minutes for yourself when you are exhausted (I thought it was super funny that Trent mentioned the same thing in his letter... I think both of us have some of the same perfectionist and workaholic attitudes as missionaries). Anyhow, this has been a good area for me, and I know I'll miss it. But I'm also excited to see what the Lord has in store for me.

Thanks for the letters and all of the support. I really appreciate those of you who have taken the time to write me. I'll try to get a few letters out this week, but I have a feeling that I'll end up using most of my p-day time to pack. So, if you don't here from me this week, it's because I spent my p-day trying to cram 8 months worth of life into the back of our car... yikes!

I love you all!

Hermana Okeson

Lots and Lots of Biking

Hello All,

Well, last week was one of the best of my mission, and so in true rollercoaster style, this was one of the not so good ones. That's okay though, that means this week will go better. The exciting news of the week was that I got the flute in the mail. I was pretty excited. I've had a chance to play a little since getting it, and am I ever rusty! That's okay though. No one here knows what I sounded like before, so they have nothing to compare to. Mostly it's just that everything moves a little slower than it used to, but I'm really not worried for when I get home. I played some this morning and just felt like when the time comes things will come back just fine. That was comforting. Now I'm working on finding a pianist, because I would love to play a musical number in the ward I've been serving in. I feel like I need to redeem myself here... they've only ever heard me play hymns on the piano in sacrament meeting, so I feel like a bit of a faker when I tell them that I studied music performance before the mission. (It comes up pretty quickly that I am studying the flute not the piano.)

This week was rough mostly because everything managed to fall through on us which meant we got to do a lot of finding. Finding is good. We have spent the better part of the last week on bike and riding through different parts of our area. On Thursday we actually found an area that I had never been to that seems fairly Hispanic. We're pretty excited to go back there and to do some finding. It's also been nice to be out on bike because the weather right now is perfect! We've sat at about 75 degrees every day, after a summer of 110+ only 75 degrees feels so good. The locals here also agree, and it's been evident by the fact that there are now people out on the streets. In the dead of summer the only people out on the streets were the crazies and the missionaries.

We're now gearing up for another baptism here at the end of the month. We're pretty excited. Her name is Yizelle and she's 14. Her family hasn't been to church in a long time but we're working at getting them back. They made it to church on Sunday which was a huge step forward. She's a whole lot of fun to work with. We're hoping that after she gets baptized her older brother will change his mind and decide to be baptized too. They're a fun family to work with, and we're enjoying getting to work with them. It's actually pretty funny... before I came to this area all of the baptisms were in the southern end of the area... since I've gotten here all the baptisms we have seen have been way in the northern part of our area. I'm not sure what that means... but it's been interesting to see how far north we work in comparison to all of the previous missionaries who have served in this area. It's actually nice... because the southern area is pretty burnt over... so it's good to go places where people are more willing to listen at least for a few minutes.

Mom asked about my goals for the last part of my mission... I really just want to work really hard. Multiple people in their e-mails commented on how they liked the conference talk by Elder Arden of the 70 about time management. I really liked it too... I think we Okesons are all the same... Anyhow, I really did enjoy it and thinking about how we use our time. It really does fly by, especially as the end of the mission comes faster and faster. Next week I start my 9th transfer (sisters serve for 12 transfers). Like Trent, I've become one of the decidedly "old" missionaries. Also like Trent said, it's nice to have been out for a long time because you get very comfortable with the routine of missionary work. You know how things go and how they are supposed to work. I like having the routine down, but getting caught in the routine can lead to time wasting. It's also interesting to work those sorts of things out with a companion. Everyone brings different things to this work... I've heard that my reputation in the mission is as a really, really hard working missionary, which I like... But like I said, we all bring different things. It's interesting to look back at the things I have learned from each of my companions. Hna Alvarez, my current companion, is really a social character... and so I've learned a lot about working with people from her. She loves being in the thick of things and talking to lots of people. I like being a grunt... I like doing the work but would pretty happily stay doing my work in my area off on the side somewhere. So, I've been pushed out of my element quite a bit over these last two transfers, which is probably good.

Other things for the end of my mission... I really want to figure out how to really polish my Spanish. It really makes a difference being able to really communicate with people on their own terms and in their own language. Most of the time I do pretty good, but every so often there are a few verb tenses that still manage to really trip me up. I can understand them and follow what is going on when they are used, but using them myself is still a little tricky. I'm also working on reading the entire Bible in Spanish. I'm trying to keep up with those reading for Seminary; only I'm on a little bit of a faster track because I have to finish the New Testament too. I think I will finish everything a little after Christmas if all goes well. It's really cool reading the scriptures in another language because different things stand out. I really like that. I have some favorite verses in Spanish that just aren't the same in English. I'm also looking forward to being able to tell some of the cranky people on the street who accuse me of having never read the Bible, that I in fact have... and I've done it in two languages. :-)

We have transfers next week; it'll be interesting to see what happens. I'm almost positive I'm staying here again... at this rate I think I could end up serving my entire mission here. I'm just hoping that if President wants to transfer me that he doesn't wait until the end of this next transfer, I think it would be hard to get transferred to a new area right before Christmas. But who knows. That does mean, that my letter next week will be sent on Tuesday, and not on Monday. There are no new sisters coming in who speak Spanish until January, so things should be fairly stable until then... I would expect a few small changes here or there, but that the really big move for Spanish sisters will probably come again right after Christmas.

Okay, I'm out of time. I love you all. Thanks for the letters and the support!

Love,

Hermana Okeson

A Really Good Week!

Hello All,

This has easily been one of the best weeks of my mission. We'll see if I can fit everything in that I want to. We started off the week with exchanges. I've always quite liked exchanges, I enjoy the chance to get ideas from another missionary, and to work with someone new for a day. This time around I worked with Hna Overy, she is in her 2nd transfer and we spent the majority of the day working on Spanish. It really made me realize what a blessing it was to come out already speaking my mission language. I still had a lot to learn, but for the most part I could communicate and get a general grasp of what was going on. I was able to work with her a lot on methods for learning a language, and trying to help her progress with that. It also made me realize just how much I pull music habits into everything I do. I realized as I was walking her through some ideas of how to study Spanish, that I approach my daily Spanish studies like a practice session... I got a good laugh at that one. Some habits are pretty strong I guess.

Thursday and Friday zipped by, as we were working to get everything ready for Leonila's baptism, and also trying to get as many people to conference as we could. Leonila's baptism was incredible. It was easily the best moment of my mission thus far. I've spent 6 months working with her and watched her go through a lot, and so seeing her finally take this step was so cool. The Spirit in her baptism was incredible, and I loved being there. It was also fun because Mary, one of our other recent converts gave the talk on the Holy Ghost. When we told her earlier in the week that Leonila wanted her to speak, she was pretty nervous. We went over and spent some time helping her put together her talk, and it went really really well. It was so cool to see her progression and to listen to her talk about her conversion. Also, Hna Graves came to the baptism! I was so excited to see her. Unfortunatly, things were crazy and we really didn't get to talk too much. It was cool in the little time that I did get to see her to see how she has progressed as a missionary. She was a really good missionary when I had the chance to serve with her, and she has only improved.

General Conference was really good for me. I needed so many of the talks. Mom asked in her e-mail about changes that I have noticed as I have served, and it was interesting because I had reflected a lot on that over the course of this conference weekend. I thought a lot about how 1 year ago as I watched conference I was terrified. I had only been a missionary for a few weeks and I was so nervous about everything that was coming. I was nervous about the time commitment, my Spanish, my future companions and just about anything else I could think of. As I looked back over the last year, I was really hit by a huge sense of gratitude. I feel so incredibly blessed. I feel like here on my mission I have gained far more than I have been able to give. I think one of the biggest blessings from my mission is a love of the scriptures. I enjoyed studying the scriptures before my mission, but now I really love it. I've gained so much as I've studied daily, and I know it's a habit that will really bless me for the rest of my life. I've learned a lot about patience as a missionary. I thought I was a pretty patient person before my mission, but looking back I really wasn't. I've had a lot of experiences here as a missionary where I've had to learn a lot about being patient, both with myself and with others. I've also learned a lot about service and charity. One of the coolest things about being a missionary is that you feel the most incredible sense of love for the people you serve. I would do anything for these people. It's hard for me to imagine my life with out them, they've made such a huge impact on me. Even some of the people I've only met or worked with briefly have helped me grow. I feel a lot more committed to serving for the rest of my life. Before my mission I was willing to serve... in the right situations. Now I have learned that it really doesn't matter where or how we serve, but that we do it and we give all that we can. I've realized as a missionary just how blessed I am. There is nothing like seeing people who don't have the same oportunities and blessings as I do to remind me how much the Lord has blessed me in my life.

That leads me to one of the biggest things I learned at General Conference. I've been pretty worried of late about what will happen in 6 months when I go home. I'd not worried about that since the begining of my mission, but people are starting to ask me in the ward (because I've been here a really long time, and so they think I'm headed out pretty soon... no matter how often I remind them I've still got a while). As I watched conference and thought back on all of the blessings I have seen in my life, I realized that those blessings won't stop when I go home. I realized that I will be blessed for this time and service, and that all I have to do is give everything I can for these 6 months, and that God will take care of everything for me. There is an Elder I have served with who is a pianist hoping to study music when he goes home... I've watched as he's been less than obedient about piano and music on his mission... and I've thought a little about that. I may be pretty (okay, really, really) rusty on the flute when I get home, because even with a flute here I won't actually be able to really practice, but I'm glad that I will be able to turn to my Heavenly Father and tell Him that I did what was asked of me, and know that I will be blessed.

The last really good event was taking Oscar and Ariana to the temple Sunday evening. I have been working with Oscar for about 4 or 5 months now. When I first started working with him, he really wasn't interested in coming back to church. But we kept coming by, and working with him and trying to answer his questions. After conference he caught me and thanked me for the months of persistance. He told me he finally got his answer at General Conference and really felt like he was in the right place. He was really excited and a completely different person when we went to the Temple with him and his daughter. He was showing her stuff, and talking to her about how much he loved all of these things. We were able to have a good talk about the blessings of the temple, and it was cool to watch Ariana (she's 8) look around and say "I think Mom would have liked this". Her mother passed away from cancer 2 years ago, and while we were at the temple, I know she really felt her Mom's presence there. It was really special to be able to be there with her and her father, and to reflect on all of the blessings of the temple in my life and the life of my family. It's really an incredible thing to know that our families can be together forever, and that death isn't the end.

Well, this has been a pretty long letter. I've had a lot to reflect on, and you all managed to get some of it. I love you all. Thank you for your prayers, letters and support. I really appreciate that.

Love,

Hermana Okeson

Ps. For a funny moment of the week, I learned why Grandpa Okeson's #1 running goal is to not fall. I took my first really big fall while running this week. I was sprinting and hit a crack in the pavement and flew throught the air only to skid on the right side of my body across the pavement. I'm pretty beat up, but no worse for the wear. I do have an impressivly black and purple knee... it's huge and a little stiff. Sorry, no pictures of that one. It looked pretty impressive though, I caught some pretty good air before I hit the ground. :)

Slow start, fast finish.

Hello Everyone!

This week started soooooooooo slow. We had a pretty rough start to the week. Most of our appointments fell through, and I think I spoke too soon about it cooling off, because it was really hot again. Luckily by the time we hit Thursday things picked up and the end of the week was both successful and speedy. That was nice. Our most exciting news is that Leonila is being baptized this Saturday! We are so excited for her, and she is so thrilled. I've spent six months working with her, and it's been an incredible experience. So, after the afternoon session of General Conference on Saturday, we'll be having a baptismal service. What a way to start October! I'm pretty thrilled.

Thursday we had interviews. Last time we had interviews it was the first time we got to meet the Taylors. It was a little weird to realize that they have been here for 3 months now. As I was thinking about it, I realized how grateful I am that I have been able to work with 2 different presidents. It is so cool to see how personalities may be different, and styles may be different, but this work goes on irregardless. Interviews went well, with the most exciting news being that I now have permission to get my hands on a flute. I'm pretty excited. I'm excited to be able to play flute for the holidays. Playing flute at Christmas is one of my favorite things, and so I'm excited to have that chance this year. I really missed that last year.

We've had some cool experiences this week where the Lord has really blessed us. Multiple times we've felt prompted to stop by people we wouldn't have normally visited and found people to teach through them. We've been focusing a lot on not only getting to know the Spanish speaking members in this area, but also some of the English speakers. That is quite the task, because there are a lot of English speaking members of the church in this area. Hna Alvarez and I decided that we have an advantage because we are sister missionaries. We're such a rare novelty that the members are just excited to meet us and see that we exist, so it's pretty easy to meet them and share a short message. We had one visit this week where we stopped by a family, and their five year old girl came up and asked us if we were really sister missionaries, we told her yes and she said something to the effect of, "Oh, I've never seen real live sister missionaries before". We got a good laugh from that one.

The other really memorable event from this week was going to the Relief Society session from General Conference. I'll admit, I've never been much for this session. I'd always looked at it and thought it was for the "old women" and that it was boring. I worked really hard before this Saturday to come with an open heart and be ready to learn. The talk that really stood out to me was by President Utchdorf. In part of his talk he made a comparison to the book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a book I loved as a kid. I think that was God's way of telling me to listen up. :) In his comparison he talked about how at the beginning of the book Mr. Wonka announced to the world that 5 chocolate bars would have a Golden Ticket- a ticket to a lifetime supply of chocolate and all sorts of wonderful things. The world then began to buy tons and tons of chocolate, only to open each on and throw the chocolate away when no Golden Ticket was found. President Utchdorf then talked about how often we spend too much time looking for a Golden Ticket, and forget to savor the chocolate along the way. That really stood out to me. As a missionary we work at a pretty fast pace, and the time really flies by. We spend a lot of time looking for "golden investigators" and "golden contacts" and "golden referrals" and golden this and golden that... and after listening to the talk I realized that in all this search for the "goldens" sometimes we forget to savor the chocolate along the way. A mission is really, really, really hard. You face a lot of challenges and discouragement on a daily and sometimes hourly level. Some days you come home and only have the energy to crawl into bed and pray that you can get up the next day and do it all again. That said, a mission is also the best experience of my life. Between all the hard events you get these amazing moments that make everything worth it. President Utchdorf reminded me that I need to work harder to savor these moments, because they are passing, oh so very quickly. The numbers, and the hours, and the miles traveled will all melt into the past, but the memories of the people served and met will be things I can keep forever. That's pretty cool. So, with 6 months left to serve, I want to savor more. I know the routine, I've done this for a year now. But I don't want to get caught in the routine and miss seeing and savoring the "chocolate" along the way.

This next week is going to be pretty busy. Wednesday we have exchanges. I'll be here in Agua Fria, and Hna Alvarez is headed out to Wickenburg. Saturday we have Leonila's baptism, and then Sunday we will be going down to Mesa to see the visitors center with another family we've been working with. It will be a very full, and exciting week.

I love you all, thanks for your prayers, and letters, and support!

Love,

Hermana Okeson

Now for some pictures from Nicole. With nice weather, the two Hermanas decided to sleep out side. :)

I am sure that you all have wondered what Hermana does on her p-day. Wonder no longer. :)
Finally a trip to a sandwich joint. Hna Alvarez's dad runs some sandwich shops down in Florida. We found one in our area. This was my first visit. (Think Subway and your about on the right line. . . they're called Fire House Subs. It was pretty good.)

I'm a Mormon!

Hello Everyone!

It's been an interesting week. For some reason this transfer has been dragging by. I'm hoping it will pick up near the end... we'll see. The exciting news is that this week we had the opportunity to go to a training meeting for the "I'm a Mormon" campaign starting here on the 3rd of October. I am sooooooooooo excited. It will run for exactly the last 6 months of my mission, and I feel like this is a huge blessing to be able to be a part of this for the last part of my time as a missionary. The meeting was lead by Brother Tracy Watson, the director of all proselyting efforts for the church. It was so cool to get to work with him. He spent the first hour and a half just helping us to be better missionaries. He was full of lots of good ideas, and I was taking notes like crazy. Then after a short break we started the training for the media campaign. For the next 6 months there will be short commercials on all the main TV channels, billboard adds, Internet adds, and lots more. This will be a huge help to the work in this area. The only thing I'm disappointed about is that they don't have everything up and running in Spanish. So, our focus is going to be the teenagers, because they all speak English. We're still expecting a lot of traffic in the Spanish work, and we're trying to get into as many homes as we can before October 3rd to help families understand what will be happening. We've done a few trainings over the last few days and they have all gone well. It will be exciting to see how things go starting in October.

For other exciting events this week, we had the opportunity to run a Tuesday night activity for the youth this week. It went really well. The focus was on helping them answer questions about the church and their beliefs. We split them up into teams and they had to race and take little 3 question multiple choice/ fill in the blank tests, and with each one they couldn't go on to the next station until they had all the answers right. That left them doing lots of searching in the scriptures, and some clever kids started pulling out cell phones and going to the Internet! I got a good laugh about that, as we saw some of them googling some of the harder questions. The goal was to be the fastest group to finish, and there were good prizes for the winners (movie tickets, Coldstone ice cream gift cards, and other goodies). They really got into the activity, and it proved to be a good kick off for working with the youth to help get them ready for the media campaign. This same campaign was run in 10 other cities across the US last year, and the results showed that about 50% of adult members of the church were asked by someone about the adds, but 100% of the youth were asked. So we've got lots to do to help them be as ready as possible to answer questions from friends.

Besides that the week has been a lot of finding and working with the members. We've had some really good experiences as we've spent more time working with member families, and getting to know them better. We had one really cool experience where one person walked with us over to meet his neighbors. That was super cool! Also, this week was nice because we had Stake Conference. It made me think back to last Stake Conference and where I was... It's amazing what can happen in 6 months. I've been pretty frustrated lately with this area and the work here, but then as I thought back over the last 6 months I could really see lots of progress and while things still aren't where I would like them to be, it was good to know that at least we have moved forward. I really enjoyed the meetings, and it was really good for some of the people we are working with. We're hoping and praying for some big miracles this week. We'll see what happens.

Well, I think that's about all. We're keeping busy here, and that is good. It's been a bit of a rough run, but I'm really hoping that this week will be a turning point for us here in Agua Fria. We'll see. Oh, and I almost forgot, I celebrated my year mark this week. That was weird. It doesn't feel that long, but I guess I really have been a missionary for a year now. I feel so blessed to have had this opportunity to serve. Last night Mary was asking me about why I chose serving a mission over some of my other options, and I was so glad that I could honestly tell her that coming here was the best decision I could have ever made. I have loved serving, even in some of the really hard times. A mission is a really big roller coaster, lots of ups and downs and it moves so fast that if you blink you might miss it, because it moves at 100 miles an hour.

I love you all lots! Thanks for all of your support!

Love,

Hermana Okeson

Feliz Dia de Independencia

Hello All,

It's been an interesting week. I've been promising to send pictures for a while, so this letter may be more pictures than actual writing. But I thought you all would enjoy them. The first, and most exciting event was the ward party on Saturday. It was to celebrate Mexican Independance Day. Everyone thinks about Mexicans and parties and they think of Cinco de Mayo. Well, from personal experience, Cinco de Mayo has nothing on Mexican Independance Day. Hna Alvarez surprised the ward and showed up in Mexican outfits. That was pretty fun. There was tons of food, music, and dancing. It was quite the party. We were excited because there were a lot of investigators there, which was really good. People enjoy these parties, and the ward is now looking at doing them more often, which is a great help to us here with the missionary work. The best part of the whole night though was the skit put on by the Elder's Quorum. If you all understood Spanish I would forward you the video we got of it. It was super funny. Besides a few different skits, there were also lots of traditional and not so traditional dances done. My favorite was watching the sisters in the Relief Society do the cool looking Mexican dance with the really long swirly skirts.

This week, a lot like Trent's week, has been one focused on finding. We've started changing our tactics though. Now we're going and visiting members in the English wards and asking them if they know their neighbors, and if any speak Spanish. Some give us really good suggestions, and others tell us that they think one of four houses on the other side of the street is a hispanic home. We'll take what we can get. It's working pretty well though. We've been meeting a lot more people, and so we're hoping that soon we will have more people to teach.

Some of the other exciting news of the week is that we are pretty sure fall is here! It's been under 100 degrees twice this past week, and the rest of the time it really didn't get much over 105. We spent lots of time out on bike, and it's been so nice! It's amazing how from this side of the summer 95 degrees feels amazing, while 4 months ago I thought I was going to die. I guess it's all about perspective.

One more thing before I end for today. The mail system for the mission has been changed. The office no longer forwards mail. My Mom has my home address, and so if you want to write me try to get the address from her. If you do choose to send me a letter through the mission office, it could take up to 3 weeks to make it from the office to me. That also means, if you are writing me to the home address that about a week before transfers you should hold off sending letters or just send those directly to the mission office. Our next transfer week is the week of October 17th.

Okay, I think that's all for this week. Sorry it's not been much. It was a pretty long week with not much out of the ordinary. Hopefully something exciting will happen over the next week so I have some fun stuff to write to all of you.

Love you lots!

Hermana Okeson

6 More Weeks

Hi All!

As you may have guessed from the subject line, I'm staying here in Agua Fria for another transfer. I'm not particularly surprised. I didn't think I was leaving. I'm both happy and sad. I've really gotten attached to the people here in Agua Fria and I'm enjoying working with them, but I was partially looking forward to maybe having the chance to go start somewhere new. I guess it'll happen some other transfer. It'll be good to see some of the follow up on the work here in this area. I've got pretty high hopes for this next transfer, but we're going to need some miracles. This transfer has been a pretty rough run for the work. I've never seen quite so much turn over as I have this past six weeks. It's both good and bad. I enjoy finding and teaching new people, but it's hard when nothing seems to stick. We'll see where things go over the next transfer.

I thought I would share a funny story from the week. I've had some trouble for a little while with one of my toes... it's gross so don't worry about the details. But, I got permission to go in and see a podiatrist to get it looked at. As he was looking at my toe I started to feel a little warm and light headed, but I thought I would be okay... My next memory is as I'm lying down with my feet over my head and my companion telling me to breathe. I guess I was a little more light headed than I thought. I was out. And then I felt pretty sick for the rest of the day. Whoops. I've decided my toe doesn't hurt anymore. :)

Now for some exciting news. We found out a few weeks ago that Phoenix has been chosen as one of 9 cities across the US where the church will be doing a large media campaign. The whole campaign is focused towards the newly redesigned Mormon.org website. There will be TV adds, billboards, and all sorts of other adds all over the mission. All of this starts in October, and in two weeks as a mission we are going to be getting trained on exactly how everything will work. We're pretty excited. Now, I have an invitation for anyone who is interested. Go check out Mormon.org! I love using the new website, and for those of you who are LDS make a profile on there. I would love to be able to tell people to go look up people I know and read their thoughts. So, go check it out, and then if you can and would like to, make a profile! (I'm working on getting one together... as missionaries we've been asked to make one. Mine's not up yet.)

Okay, I think that's pretty much it for right now. Things are moving along slowly but surely. It's starting to get really nice here in Arizona and once again we are starting to see people out and about on the streets. All summer long the only people outside were the crazies and the missionaries... now there's some not so crazies out too. With the cooler weather Hna Alvarez and I have been on bikes a lot more, which has been really nice. I enjoy being out and meeting so many people.

Okay, I think that's about it for this week. Have a great week!

Love you all!

Hermana Okeson

PS. Nicole has a new mailing address. Let me know if you need the address. :) Effie