Transfers

Hi All,

Well here is the news you've all been waiting for. Okay maybe not, but we've sure had a week of lots of speculation. Everyone knew there were 4 Spanish sisters coming in this transfer so there were a lot of people wondering what would happen. At about 9am this morning we got a phone call from President Beck. On transfer Monday, President only calls for one reason. He only calls if someone has been called to be a trainer. I've been called to train a missionary straight out of the MTC. I'm super nervous, but also really really excited. We'll be in a trio here in Agua Fria which will be interesting, but I think is actually a huge blessing. The work here has really really picked up and we've been needing a way to go on splits, and this makes it easy since we'll only need one more sister who can come with us. Both Hermana Aydelotte and I were very happy to hear that we would be staying here in Agua Fria. It's always really hard leaving an area, and I know I wasn't ready to leave, and Hna Aydelotte only has 6 weeks left, so she didn't want to go anywhere either. Tomorrow at 1pm I have to go to a trainers meeting, and then tomorrow evening I will meet the hermana that I get to train. I guess you'll all have to wait until next week to hear anything about her.

This week was a really good week. We've spent a lot of time teaching. We spend almost all of our days running from one appointment to the next, which has made getting out and contacting quite interesting, because we simply don't have time for it. We're working on that though, and hopefully we'll start making things work a little better. I think the thing that has been most interesting here in Agua Fria is how much time we've spent working with couples with marital problems. Of the people we visit the most about 3/4 are really struggling. Sometimes as we're over working with them I feel like the blind leading the blind. We've had some really cool experiences though, and it's been so amazing to see the changes in lives. We have one couple who we are working with where she was making plans to leave him and go back to Mexico. After a lot of work, and a whole lot of prayer things are doing better with them. And, the exciting part is that they're getting married. We're pretty excited, although the wedding won't be until at least July at this rate, which Hna Aydelotte is pretty bummed about, because she really would have loved to be there. Oh well.

(I forgot my journal and in the craziness of this morning didn't think to put a list of things to write about together like normal, so sorry if this letter is all over the place)

Friday we had a mission conference. Well, a half mission conference. There are 200 missionaries here in Phoenix, and that's just too many to cram into one conference effectively, so they split us in half, and all those outside of the valley meet in the morning and then those of us here in the valley meet in the afternoon. It was a very exciting conference. We're at count down time right now, because in 2 months we will be getting a new mission president. President Beck is determined to have the mission in the best shape it has ever been before President Taylor gets here. He's been talking to him on the phone regularly and they've decided what things we're going to focus on in the next 2 months. A lot of what is happening is President is trying to make sure everything is clean and very orderly. We got a lot of instruction about being organized in our work. We also got instruction on a new baptismal calendar we are using, which was really cool. I guess a mission down in Texas has been using it to great success, and so they are starting it here. We've not had much time to try it out, but from what I've seen I really really like it.

Saturday was also a really good day. Hna Aydelotte and I got permission to go to the temple down in Mesa. Unlike Trent, we don't have a temple in our mission (although it's only about 40 minutes outside of the mission) and so we have to get special permission to go, and then we can only go every 3 months. We had a lovely trip down with one of the sisters from the ward. I thoroughly enjoyed the time we spent there, and to my great excitement Hna Ayala and her companions had also recieved permission to go at the exact same time. I was so excited to get to see her again. She goes home tomorrow, so I probably won't see her again until after my mission. Also, I ran into two friends from college. That was a little bizzare. One lived near me my freshman year, and the other was a vocal performance major who I had taken classes with. It was like two worlds were colliding. But it was cool to see them, and I really enjoyed telling them that I am a missionary. I think that was the best part, was telling them I'm a missionary and just how much I love this.

I think that's about all for this week. Sorry I'm a little frazzled. I'm sure I'll have lots and lots to tell you about next week.

Have a wonderful week all!

Hermana Okeson

Pictures

Promised Pictures: Spanish Speaking Sisters and a few English SistersPacking Day
Sister Wells of Michigan
Molly the dog.

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.

100 Degrees in April

Hello All!

This week has been quite an interesting one. On Wednesday I started feeling like I was losing my voice, and by Thursday morning I was in the middle of quite the head cold. This makes for the first (and hopefully last) time I've ever been sick in 100 degree weather. I think Arizona has ruined me. Apparently this is the time to get sick though, as many of the people we work with have told me that right now there are lots of people who have colds... I'm still a little surprised by the idea of having a cold when it's over 90 degrees every day. It really just means we are keeping our visits very, very short right now, I'm taking lots of cold medicine, and trying to stay away from people.

Besides being sick it's been a pretty good week. Friday we had Zone conference, which was very fun. I always enjoy the extra instruction and the chance to learn, although often it is hard not to come out of those meetings feeling like there are a million things I need to do better. Each meeting has a theme, and this one focused on church attendance. I really enjoyed learning about the purpose of church attendance and how it really can bless out investigators. Each time we have Zone conference (about every 90 days, or every other transfer) it runs all morning and into the afternoon, and so a ward is asked to prepare lunch. This time my ward, Agua Fria, was asked to prepare lunch for the missionaries. Personally I think they should always ask the Mexican wards to prepare lunch for us. Lunch was really, really, really good. It was also fun, because the night before Hna Aydelotte and I were able to help with some of the prep work. We spent a little over an hour over at a member’s home rolling flautas (little tacos) with their family. It was quite the party. All the kids and grandkids were there and everyone was helping with something. When we showed up to help we were surprised to see cars lining the street, and wondered where the party was... turns out it was just that everyone was there to help with preparing the food.

Saturday was also really cool. All of this past week, and all of this week there is a huge Easter pageant going on in Mesa. It depicts the life and ministry of Christ from the New Testament, and it's incredible. This past Friday and Saturday were the two performances in Spanish. As missionaries we can go so long as we take and investigator with us. Some things had fallen through and it looked like we weren't going to be able to go, and then on Friday everything slid into place, and someone was able to pull some strings for us, and we got last minute permission. The pageant was incredible. I really, really enjoyed it. This pageant is the oldest of the church pageants, and from what it looked like to me, the biggest (although I'm not completely sure about that one). There were hundreds of performers on the stage, and the whole performance was really very impressive.

Saturday afternoon we also had a rather comical experience. As we were out tracting, we knocked into an old folks’ home. They invited us in and we were able to share a short Easter message, which was quite nice. At the end though, they requested that we sing a song for them. We sing a fair amount, and so that wasn't the hard part, the hard part was that they all spoke English. I've not sung in English in 7 months. We picked a fairly easy song that we both thought we would remember in English... not so. We didn't even make it all the way through the first verse. Afterwards as we were walking back to our car I decided to try and see what songs I do remember in English. I can't sing a single church song all the way through in English. That said, I can't sing a single church song all the way through in Spanish either, but I was still pretty surprised to see that I've switched so much over into Spanish.

Tomorrow we have a huge training for all of the sister missionaries in the mission. I'm really, really excited. It's only a two hour training, but it'll be the first time I'll actually be able to meet many of the English sisters in the mission. Almost all of the Spanish speaking sisters are in Phoenix, so I've met all of them. But most of the English sisters are outside of Phoenix, so I've not run into many of them. It should be a really good conference.

That's about it for this week. We've officially been around 100 degrees multiple days this week. Even the locals think it is a really, really warm "spring" (to me anything over 85 degrees doesn't count as spring...). We've been drinking lots and lots of water, and I'm starting to understand why my companion is glad that if she has to go home, it'll be in the beginning of June, and before it gets too much hotter. Luckily people are pretty understanding and we get lots and lots of offers for water and such, which is always a life saver.

Have a wonderful week!

Hermana Okeson

Busy Week

Hello All,

This week has flown by. This morning as I was starting to think about what I would put in my letter this week I was amazed by how much had happened. First, and probably the most trivial, I learned how to make tamale's on Saturday. We had an appointment fall through and decided to stop by a less active member who lived near the appointment. We showed up in time to eat tamale's from the first batch and to learn how to make them for the second batch. Hna Gutierrez has a friend who is going through some rough times and so they decided to make and sell tamale's every weekend to try and help raise some money. We're going back this upcoming Saturday to help make the masa (the dough part) and to learn how to make the salsa for the meat. I'm pretty excited because her tamale's are the best I've had my whole mission. YUM! (I attached pictures from the tamale's, I hope you enjoy them!)

Okay, on to more things that don't involve food. Our most memorable event this week was a lesson we had Thursday night. We've been teaching a family where all but the husband are members. There are a few things holding him up, even though he's been going to church regularly for six months, and most people think he is a member. We decided to take Presidente Lopez over for our appointment on Thursday. Saturday at Rossy's baptism I talked with him and asked him to come and he was excited to come help us out. Presidente Lopez is amazing. I love working with him, he's only been a member of the church for 14 years, but he really loves the gospel and he loves helping people out. It was really cool to have him at the lesson, he was able to relate really well to this family and to their particular difficulties. There is still a lot to work out but after being at a standstill with this family for 3 months we're finally moving forward again.

The lesson with Presidente Lopez was also interesting because to me it highlighted something that I really struggle with in Mexican culture. Mexicans talk over each other. Conversations between Mexicans can involve both talking at the same time and, as far as I can tell, it's who ever out lasts the other wins and then is able to direct the conversation for 5 more minutes. I'd known that I struggled with that part of the culture, but didn't realize how much until we took Presidente Lopez. He was really able to direct the lesson in ways we never can, because I always feel super rude talking over my investigators. I'm not exactly sure how to work on improving that one, because I feel like I need to listen to everything they have to say, but when we do that often our visits end up being far too long and also far too off topic. I'm sure I'll come home talking over everyone and have to learn how to wait my turn again...

Other news, we're still working with a whole lot of kids. They're all from families who have not been to church in a long time for various reasons. It's interesting because while we are teaching the kids, it is the parents who need the most help. That always makes for interesting lessons. In the case of one family, they are afraid to come back to church because I guess there was some huge argument before they left, and then in the case of the other the Mom keeps going back and forth on whether she thinks her son is ready to be baptized. In the case of the second we had a really good visit with Mom on Saturday night, and hopefully we can start moving forward again. Our other family we are working with has middle school and high school age kids, which is also interesting, but far easier for me to teach. I do a lot better with older kids than with the 9 year olds. Teenagers have a lot more things to work through, and often have more questions, but I have an easier time keeping their attention that I do with the younger kids we work with.

We also had a huge miracle on Saturday. I had written about a month ago about having to drop an investigator named Carmensa. Both Hna Aydelotte and I really have prayed a lot for her over the last month, with no apparent success. We stopped by again on Friday and as usual no one answered the door. I'm not sure if no one was home or what. Well, Saturday afternoon we got a phone call from the sister in our ward who we had taken to the lesson with Carmensa over a month ago (the one where we had to pray over and over again to figure out who to take). Turns out Carmensa had had some rough times and just needed a break from us. Carmensa called this Sister in our ward on Saturday and they ended up talking for a really long time and she was able to answer a lot of her questions. Long story short, Carmensa came to sacrament meeting on Sunday, and we are starting to teach her again.

I had an interesting experience on Saturday that I thought I would share. We were over meeting with a less active Sister and some how it came up that I play flute. When she asked if I had it and I explained that I had been asked not to bring it she was very vocal in her opinions of that decision and that I couldn't have my flute. What surprised me was that as she was listing off why she thought I needed it, I realized that I am really happy that I don't have it here. That was a shock. I love that I can completely focus on being a missionary and working hard. I really have nothing to distract me here, and I love that. I still struggle some times, but not nearly as much as at the beginning, and mostly I just feel peace that everything will be fine when I get home. I am loving my time here. Each day goes by so quickly, I'm always amazed as I find myself writing you all again each p-day, because it really only feels like it's been a day or two, not a whole week. I love the people we work with, and I am so happy each day. Missionary work is really, really cool.

Have a wonderful week!

Love you all,

Hermana Okeson

The Errand of Angels

Dear Friends and Family,

This week has been incredible. It has been full of really cool experiences. We've had multiple experiences where we've shown up at just the right time to help out. The first one happened on Thursday night. When we were planning on Wednesday night we felt like we needed to go by a family we've been teaching at 8pm. It was a little weird because we'd just gone over to visit them, but we decided we'd go anyways. We drove over Thursday night at 8 and knocked on the door. When they let us in the wife explained that 15 minutes earlier they had recieved a phone call from Mexico that her husbands youngest sister had just passed away from Leukemia. She was 23 and has a little boy who is 4 years old. We spent the rest of the evening with them and as we were leaving they told us that they wanted to call us when they got the call from Mexico, but didn't want to bother us becuase they figured we would be at other visits. It was so cool to see how the Lord already knew that they were going to need extra support, and I was very humbled to be able to help.

We had another similar experience Friday morning, where all of our plans for the morning fell through and we felt impressed that we needed to go check on a Sister who lives in our area. She has a lot on her plate, and we ended up being there at the perfect time to help her with some rather pressing problems. We ended up being with her for almost 3 hours that morning, and it was a huge learning experience for me. I think in those 3 hours I learned more about the importance of making wise decisions than in any other three hours of my life. I also learned about how our decisions affect others, becuase the problem we dealt with Friday morning was a result of someone else's poor choices, but it was affecting many other people, including, and especially, this Sister.

The last big experience like that happened last night. It's cool to see how as missionaries we are often the first ones to get calls when people are in need. We got a call from a young sister in the ward who had had a really really rough weekend and she asked us to come by. We moved some things around and told her that we would come by in the evening around 7:30. When we got there we were surprised when this young sisters mother answered the door looking pretty shaken up. Her daughter had left, but it was readily apparent that the weekend had been rough on her too. We stayed and chatted with her, and at the end of the visit she told us that she thought that our visit was actually for her, and not her daughter, and that she had really been needing support that day.

Experiences like these are some of the things I have grown to love as a missionary. Friday morning's was rough, and I would never choose to be in that situation again, but in each situation I was very greatful that the Lord had sent us to help. It's moments like those that I know I will always treasure, especially when we hear the people we work with say "I knew you would come". We get that a lot, and each time it makes me realize how carefully Heavenly Father is watching over each of his children.

The other really cool experience this week was on Saturday. Saturday afternoon I was able to go back to South Phoenix for Rossy Romero's baptism. To date I think that was the happiest moment of my mission. I can't begin to describe how much time and energy my companions and I poured into Rossy and her family. She was the only one to be baptized on Saturday, but I am confident that more will follow. The changes I saw on Saturday were incredible. I was so happy to be able to be there to support her. It was also fun to be able to see some of the members from the ward and also to see Hermana Ayala. I sure miss her. She's going home in four weeks, and I expect that Saturday was the last time I'll see her on my mission.

We've also had some really cool experiences with some of the families we are teaching that are progressing to baptism. We're working with a lot of families who have not been to church in a while and want to come back. Each family has kids that are over 8 and want to be baptized and so we are working to help get them ready. The Lopez family have two sons ages 9 and 13 who we are working with, and as of last Thursday are now preparing to be baptized on May 4th. We're very excited for them, and I've had a good time working with their family. The other family, the Gutierrez family, is a family we just started teaching this past week. They have a son that is 15 and reminds me a lot of Todd, and I've had a good time getting to know him. They also have a daughter who is 13. She's quite shy, so I don't know her as well yet, but we're going over on Friday for a girls night while Hno Gutierrez and Caleb are out on a camping/fishing trip. I'm pretty excited.

Okay, I think that's about all for this week. I love you all!

Hermana Okeson

Happy Monday

Dear Family and Friends,

This has been an interesting week. We've had a lot of hard things happen and lost a lot of our investigators. The hardest one for me was loosing Carmenza, she and I really liked each other from the start, and I miss teaching her. I'm hoping that if we give her some time we can start going over again. It was an interesting week because while we had a lot of hard things happen in Agua Fria, I got amazing news this weekend from Aguila. One investigator who I had taught for my whole time there got baptized last Saturday, something I was not expecting at all. When I left we thought it would be months and months before she would be ready. The other exciting news from Aguila was that Rossy and Reuben got married, and if all goes well with getting permission, I will be at Rossy's baptism on Saturday. I am so incredibly excited. It really helped put things in perspective for me after this week. We can't choose the timing. As a missionary it's amazing to me how fast I love the people I work with. After just the first visit I would do anything to help them. But sometimes they just need time. So, while it was really hard to see some of our investigators leave, I'm confident that with time we'll be able to start working with them again.

I've gotten some questions about the weather so I thought I'd answer, yeah, it's getting warm, but my companion constantly reminds me that this is nothing. Whenever I start to moan about it being warm she reminds me that I will be here this August when it hits 120. Yikes! I'm working on a pretty awesome farmers tan. I wear the same pair of shoes every day becuase the tan line is so dark that all my other shoes look funny. I also have quite the watch tan line on my wrist. For now though the heat really hasn't been that bad. We've actually cooled off a little in the last week, and I had to laugh when it was 65 one morning and I ran back into our appartment to grab a jacket. I think I may be ruined.

Mom asked a good question, and since I struggled coming up with things to write about I thought I would try and answer it.

"What is the best thing about serving at this time?"

I feel like I'm finally really getting used to being a missionary. When you first start a mission you are really excited and full of lots of energy, but you spend a lot of time not knowing what you are doing. I still don't know what I'm doing, but I've gotten more comfortable with that. I've learned that doing missionary work is a lot like Nephi going for the brass plates. He had a plan, get the plates from Laban and he started heading into Jerusalem but then he says he was "lead by the spirit not knowing before hand the things which [he] should do". Missionary work is a lot like that. We often go into appointments with a plan to teach a certain lesson and we know what we want to help our investigators do, but often we have no clue how to make it all come together. In so many lessons something will come up, a doubt or concern and then we have to be quick on our feet to answer and to follow the spirit. I've been amazed to see that as I've really worked to trust that often I find that the words aren't mine. I see that especially in my Spanish. I've been amazed over the last few weeks in particular by how much I understand. When I first started my mission I was constantly writing down words and phrases that I didn't know, I still do that now, but not nearly as much. I've seen in a few lessons in particular where my Spanish was far better than it is on it's own. There have been many times where I feel like I'm speaking English and I understand like I'm speaking English, but I know it's all in Spanish. It actually leaves me scared for after my mission. I'm scared to see how my Spanish really is when I'm not a missionary.

Other things of interest... I sang in the ward choir this past week. That was an interesting experience. It reminded me just how impatient I am about music things. I guess I still have room to grow there. Even after being away from music for 6 months I'm still just as picky as ever. :-)

I think that's about it. There's not much to write about from this week. Hopefully next week I'll have more. We're going to a museum today with some of the other Sisters, and I'm pretty excited. I'm not sure how they'll deal with my need to read everything, but we'll see how it goes.

Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Hermana Okeson

6 more weeks in Agua Fria

Hello all!

Well, the first order of business is transfer news. President didn't move any of the Spanish Sisters. We're all staying put. We have one new sister coming in this transfer and she is headed down to South Phoenix (the area where I started) and she will be part of a trio. I'm excited to have another 6 weeks to be here in Agua Fria. After the first 6 weeks in an area you start to finally get names down and know who people are, so I didn't really want to have to go start over again. Also Hna Aydelotte have gotten a lot more used to working with each other. We have very different work styles, and so the first few weeks were really rough. We've made progress though, and it'll be good to keep moving forward.

Work is starting to move forward here in Agua Fria, slowly but surely. We're working on trying to help investigators keep commitments and also to get the members more involved. We've really seen the blessings as we've tried to have members in our lessons, as they are able to support the investigators, and the members also feel better as they are able to be more actively involved in missionary work. We also finally have an investigator on date for baptism. We've been teaching Tristan, a nine year old whose mother recently came back to church for the first time in many many years, and he told us at our last visit that he wants to be baptized on his birthday, May 4th. We're pretty excited and his mom is too. We've got some things to work out, but we're glad to be moving forward with him. Our other investigators are also moving forward and we've found some new people to teach in the last week. It's also been interesting as both Hna Aydelotte and I felt that we needed to start working in an area where neither of us had worked before. It's at the northern most end of our area (we drive 6-8 miles just to get to where we start working when we work up there) and because of the distance no Spanish missionaries had worked up there in at least the last year or so. Besides running up the miles on our car, we're excited to be working in a new area and we're excited to see who we find up there.

I've shared previously that we often eat dinner with the members. My years of eating Indian curries and such have paid off, as all the Mexicans are amazed at how hot I like my food. I've eaten all sorts of salsas, and now that the members catch on that I can eat spicy they are feeding me more "normal" Mexican food. It's only come back to bite me once, and that was when I sneezed while eating something with Habenera peppers. That hurt. Most of the food they feed us usually is a variation of meat, tortillas, beans and rice. So when I eat lunch at home I've been eating lots and lots of salads to try and still get some veggies. We've also got members lined up for the next few p-days to teach us how to make different foods. One sister is going to teach us how to make tortillas, another is going to teach us how to make Postole (my favorite Mexican soup) and the Bishop's wife is going to teach us how to make empenadas (a Chilean specialty). I'm pretty excited.

Lets see, other points of interest... I'm making progress on my Chilean accent. At least while I'm with Chileans. I do a pretty good job trying to mimic the Chileans while I'm with them, but the minute I leave and start talking with Mexicans again I sound like a Mexican. Yesterday we had dinner with the Bishop's family and they are all from Chile, so I had plenty of time to practice. Also, it was fun to listen to them talk, because the Bishop is one of the oldest members of the church from Chile. He joined when he was a young man, and was a member of the first branch in Chile. I hadn't realized how young the church was down there. He also told us that now Chile has a higher percentage of LDS than any other country, with about 20 percent of the population being LDS.

Saturday night we went to the mission farewell for one of the young men in the ward. It was quite the party. The family went all out, and cooked Barbakoa, a specialty from the part of Mexico they are from. It's grilled lamb, and it was really really good. At the dinner I talked to a member of the ward who told us about his experience joining the church. The missionaries taught him for a long time, and he would mostly argue with them until one Elder finally just asked him if he just wanted to argue or if he believed any of it was true. That Elder baptized him the next Saturday.

The final cool experience from this week happened last Friday. All of our plans fell through. Our back up plans for our back up plans fell through. Nothing at all was working out, and it had been a long frustrating day. At 8 pm both Hna Aydelotte and I were tired and not sure what to do since everything we had planned had fallen through. We prayed and decided to go check on a former investigator. We went over and no one was home. Then we remembered a sister from the English ward who lives in the same area. We felt like we needed to go over. Angie is 22 and often comes out to help the missionaries. We stopped by, and as we got there she told us that her Bishop had just told her she should think about going on a mission. We spent an hour with her answering her questions. It made me think of the Sister Missionaries on Temple Square who stopped and talked to me over a year ago when I first decided to go on a mission. It was cool to feel like in some way I was giving back, I feel so incredibly grateful for those Sister Missionaries who talked to me, and it was cool to be able to offer the same help that they had offered me. (I think I wrote about it on my blog, it should show up around thanksgiving of 2009).

I love you all, have a wonderful week!

Hermana Okeson

Happy 6 Months!

Dear Friends and Family,

This week was really really cool. Well, in all but temperature. We've started hitting 90 degrees, and I'm starting to wonder exactly how I will survive this summer. I'm drinking more water each day, and have started figuring out ways to try and keep my water cold longer. We still have almost 30 more degrees to go, which to me is a little terrifying, but I'm sure I'll survive. Somehow. Also, tomorrow I hit my 6 month mark. I can't believe how fast these first six months have flown. I wasn't really paying attention until my companion made a comment last week, and then I realized that I really was coming up on 6 months.

I thought I would share a few cool experiences from this week. The first one happened last Wednesday. Each week when we do our weekly planning we do something called "windows of heaven". Effectively we set times and places where we are going to be, and then we trust that the Lord will put someone in our path who needs us. I've seen a lot of really cool things happen as we've done windows of heaven, but the coolest was this last Wednesday. My companion and I had both felt very strongly that we needed to go to a certain street and we would be there for two hours. We cover a very large area and so often we don't know what we are signing up for. That was the case this time. We ended up in an over 65 community. Usually seniors are not to happy when we knock on their doors, and have no problem letting us know. In about 20 minutes we'd covered half of the area we had decided to visit, and both Hna Aydelotte and I were really confused. We started making back up plans to go visit the near by streets, because at the rate we were going we would have finished that whole road in about 45 minutes. At about that point we knocked on the door, and not only was the person who answered the door nice to us, but she invited us in! It turns out she was a house bound member from one of the English wards, and was just thrilled that we were in her area. We chatted with her for a while and then as we were getting ready to leave she asked if we had talked to her neighbor. We told her no one was home. She then told us that her neighbor was an older Hispanic lady, who didn't speak any English. Then she told us that the children and grandchildren of this lady were member of the church, but to the best of her knowledge this woman wasn't. We're now working on finding this woman, and hopefully we'll get the chance to teach her. By the time we finished visiting with the Sister and knocking the doors on the street it was exactly two hours. That really taught me that the Lord takes care of everything, down to the amount of time we are in an area.

The other cool experience happened on Friday and Saturday. On Friday while we were planning we felt like we needed to find a member to take with us to an appointment with one of our investigators. We'd tried multiple times to take members, but for one reason or another things always fell through. As we were talking we decided that maybe it was that we were trying to take the wrong members. So we prayed. I think we prayed over 15 names. Each time we never felt right. As we had started praying I thought of a sister in the ward who I had only met a few times and didn't know very well. I didn't really pay attention because it was a sister who, as far as we knew, never went out with the missionaries. Eventually after going through what felt like every name in our ward both my companion and I started talking about this particular sister. We prayed and knew we had to invite her, even though we both were a little nervous. We called Friday night and this Sister moved everything to come with us. Not only that but she ended up having so many things in common with our investigator. She was able to help more than we've ever been able to, and it was incredible to see how the Lord really knows each of his children. It was also a bit of humble pie for Hna Aydelotte and I, as we had both thought of this sister, but chosen to ignore the prompting at first.

I've commented before on the fiesta atmosphere in the Hispanic community, and I thought I would share about the Relief Society dinner we went to on Thursday. This past week was the 155th anniversary of the organization of the Relief Society. Anything is a good reason for a party in Latino culture, and this was no different. There was a massive dinner, party games, and a pinata. It was quite the party. I've attached pictures as proof that I wasn't exaggerating. And the Relief Society got a kick out of watching the "grandota missionera" trying to hit the pinata. They do it a little differently, and instead of having so many swings or anything like that, everyone sings a song and you have until the song finishes to try and hit the pinata. This Saturday the ward is also throwing a huge pachanga (the word in Spanish/Mexican for a fiesta that is too big to be a fiesta) for an Elder who is leaving on his mission next Wednesday. I'm expecting a lot of food, two or more pinatas (one for the kids and one for the adults), and a bouncy castle... because every single event with Mexicans has to have a brinca brinca (bouncy castle). There's even one family here who owns one and keeps it in their back yard where it gets very very regular use.

Transfers are coming next week (crazy!) but I think we'll probably stay put. I'm not really expecting any changes. President likes leaving missionaries in the same area for a really long time (6-9 months for Sisters and 12-15 months for Elders) even though you probably wouldn't be able to guess that from my first few transfers. This next transfer should be a good one, and I'm quite excited. We've found a lot of really wonderful people in the last six weeks, and I'm really starting to love it here in Agua Fria.

I think that's about all for now. I appreciate all the letters and prayers.

Love you all,

Hermana Okeson

Spring in Pheonix

Dear Family and Friends,

Well, after moaning last week about it still being winter, I think spring has finally arrived. We've been sitting in the mid 70's to 80's all week and it's been really really nice. Hermana Aydelotte keeps reminding me not to be too excited because it means that in the next month or so we'll start breaking 100. Yikes! It's been an interesting week. As I said in my last letter we had a mission conference this past Wednesday. It focused on the Book of Mormon, since by that point everyone had finished their 60 day read of the Book of Mormon. It was very fascinating to listen to the different experiences and things people learned. The focus was on the fact that each person can have a very personal experience with the Book of Mormon. There were many wonderful examples given, but I thought I would share a very humorous one. President asked people to give example of key things they learned from this reading of the Book of Mormon. About half way through an Elder raised his hand and told about how one morning he was reading in 2 Nephi 27. He said he was really tired that morning, and after reading verse 4 of the chapter he fell asleep. He then said when he woke up he read verse five which reads:

"For behold, the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep. For behold, ye have closed your eyes, and ye have rejected the prophets; and your rulers, and the seers hath he covered because of your iniquity." The Book of Mormon certainly has something for every moment.

This week has been a series of missed appointments. We found lots of new investigators in the last week, and this week we had lots of lessons set up, unfortunately not all new investigators are created equal, and so many appointments fell through. This week will probably be a lot of finding and then looking for those whose appointments we missed. We did have one very cool experience this past week with a missed appointment. We showed up and no one was home, so we decided to go knock the doors on the street near by that we hadn't finished last time we were in the area. We ran into a lovely older Mexican lady who let us in and we had a really really good lesson with her. We have more set up and we'll see what happens. It's always so interesting as a missionary to see how things don't always work out how we had planned, but they do always work out for the best.

I thought I would write some cultural things for you all. It's interesting being in a bilingual mission. Trent probably also has some insights on this. There are mission wide rules that everyone is to follow, but I've begun to notice there are small changes to make allowances for cultural traditions. One example would be the parties. In the English wards they have been asked not to have parties after baptisms... in the Spanish wards we've been asked to just try to get the party moved to some one's house. Mexicans LOVE their fiestas. Just about anything is an excuse for a fiesta. The ward I'm in now loves to do group family home evenings. I got to go to my first one this past Monday. Well part of it. It started at seven and from what I heard they didn't finish until midnight. We left at 9 when the party was really getting going. It started out like a regular family home evening: prayer, songs, lesson, closing prayer, but then it was after that the party started. The family who hosted made Postole (which is my all time favorite Mexican food, it's a soup with pork, some Mexican grain that I don't know what it is in English, and then lots of Salsa with cabbage, onions, and cilantro on top) and then they all had a Karaoke in the living room. What skills they don't have in tonality they make up for in enthusiasm.

Another fun cultural thing is the dinners. Across the mission there is a rule that missionaries can't eat at a members home unless they have invited a friend. That rule is more or less ignored in the Spanish wards. Hispanics LOVE to feed you. And they love to feed you a lot or food. It's been quite fun to go over to their homes and get to know the families and spend time with them as we've enjoyed all sorts of different meals. It took some time to get used to though, because by and large the families eat before we come over and then they all just sit around the table and watch us eat. It left me feeling a little like Marie Antoinette at first, but I think I dealt better than she did. Now I've learned to just get them talking and telling stories while we eat so I don't feel so awkward. Once I figured that out I've started to really enjoy our dinner appointments. I've learned all about life in Mexico, conversion stories, and gotten tons of help picking up new words. I'm not sure how useful some of the words will be after my mission because I'm now starting to learn words that only work in certain parts of Mexico, or even better, spanglish that is widely accepted here but probably not anywhere else.

Love you all lots and have a wonderful week!

Hermana Okeson