NEW EXPERIENCES

Dear Family, Well, it's been a good preparation day so for. I thought I had lost my awesome pen case that I got in England. I was looking all over for it but couldn't find it. I thought for a minute that someone had stolen it at the airport when they searched my bags. But it's all good. I found it. Hey, so guess who I saw on my way to Springfield? Sister Rato! You remember Elder Rato who served with Elder Gibson? Well he is her brother. It was really cool! I had been planning to keep an eye out for her and everything, but I hadn't expected to see her so soon. (Sorry, this letter is probably going to be really disconnected and random.) Have I mentioned that I love President and Sister Shumway and the Mission Home? I felt right at home right away. The food they fed us was amazing. It tasted real! We had all practically starved ourselves that last week at the MTC because we just couldn't stomach the food anymore. I felt sick after dinner pretty much every night. Sorry if I have been talking about the food a lot. It was just so great to have real food again! Dinner was amazing too. We had home made rolls, baked beans and...some kind of meat. I forget what it was called. It was good old Oklahoma fare. After dinner we got our assignments. I think I told you about that in my email though. It was such a cool experience though to see all of these missionaries that I had become friends with receive their assignments from Heavenly Father through President Shumway. A word about the beds. The bunk beds upstairs where we got to take a nap were really great, but those were reserved for the Elders when we all went to bed at night. Sister Bailey and I got to spend the night in the visiting General Authority room. Oh yeah! That bed was so comfortable! I don't think I moved much at all that night. I was dead to the world. In the morning all the Elders came downstairs with parts in their hair. Yeah, that is a thing in the mission. It was crazy though how much of a difference it made. They looked like missionaries. I just had a really strange looking bug on my hand. It was red and black and somehow reminded me of a giraffe. There is a bug here, a cicada, that is SO LOUD! I thought it was a bird until someone told me what it was. There are lots of crickets here too. Speaking of local wildlife, I saw a possum on Friday!!!!! That is the first one that either Sister Reese or I have seen that wasn't dead by the side of the road. It was walking along the top of a fence by the institute building and Sister Reese was the first to see it. We were both so excited and I turned to Sister Reese and said, "Can I give you a hug?" It was awesome. I didn't have my glasses, so I didn't see it really clearly but it was still awesome. There is a place here called Andy's that has the most amazing ice-cream, frozen custard stuff. It was so good. We were out with Courtney teaching and between lessons she got us some Andy's. It's SO good. On Sunday we went to The House and had lunch with the six girls that live there and some of their boyfriends. They played a game with me (the new missionary) where they would pick a random object in the room and a gospel principle and I had to relate the two. I personally thought the game was sort of lame. Not that it didn't have possibilities, it just didn't really get off the ground. I feel like that sort of game would work better with Elders. They also gave us a really strange shake....it had strawberries, yogurt and spinach in it. It tasted kind of strange. Last night there was a pretty good windstorm. It was loud enough to wake me up and keep me up for a while. I was convinced that we were in the middle of a tornado or something, but then I reminded myself (after freaking out a little) that there hadn't been any sirens or anything. So eventually I just went to sleep again. I felt kind of weird shopping without you today, mom. Sister Reese and I bought ourselves some cookies-n-cream ice-cream for weekly planning. Hopefully that will make the process a little more bearable. So, I have been studying how to be a consecrated missionary. I am reading through the Book of Mormon with that goal in mind. I have learned a ton about what I personally can do to become a more consecrated missionary. One verse that I really loved today was 1Nephi 5:9. It talks about three things that I think will make me a more consecrated missionary. 1) Rejoice - Smile. Find joy in the work. 2) Sacrifice - Give everything to the Lord. 3) Give Thanks - Look on the positive side. Well, I should probably head. It's almost 6 o'clock and we have a dinner appointment. Love you all so much. Love Sister Cryer P.S. Just had to throw away a paper towel roll. Thinking of Jack and Gus :) (Letter dated 1 September 2014)