my district at the MTC with one of our teachers, Brother Scherk. Left to right is me, my companion Sister Bailey, Sister Thomas, Sister Peterson, Brother Scherk, Elder Watkins, Elder Gordon, Elder Jensen (the one from Idaho not Sam's gangster goy friend), and Elder Porter.
Guess who I saw at the MTC after one of the devotionals!!! Alyssa Knapp
me and Sister Reese after the rain storm :)
Hello Family of mine!!!
Man was I excited to email today!!!!!! Me and Sister Reese (my new companion) could hardly focus last night as we were reporting our numbers, partly because we were tired and partly because we were so excited for preparation day. (If you ever wonder why the heck I am spelling things out it is because in this mission we do not use abbreviations of any kind. I don't remember exactly why that is... The only one we are allowed to use is OTM. That stands for Oklahoma Tulsa Mission, or Only True Mission, or Open Thy Mouth. That last one is the one that I will be referring to most of the time because we use in reference to street contacting and tracting etc.)
What a treat to have two emails to read too! That was great. That story about flipping the covers in the middle of the night made me laugh so hard! I was literally sitting here in tears! Haha! And I think Gusini is a pretty good name dad. I like it.
Oh, my poor iPod! Sorry it kicked the bucket over, Sam...I guess it was just not meant to be.
Well gosh, I wish I could send some pics but I'm not sure I know how to do it with what I have. I have a feeling that I am going to need the cord to connect it to the computer. Oh wait!!...HAHA!!! I figured it out!!!! YAYAYAYAYA!! Hehe. Not that I am excited or anything. Ok so I will attach some pics with descriptions at the end of the email :)
Ok, let me start at the beginning. So after I hung up with you at the airport we boarded the plane pretty fast. I sat by a lady named Deborah (I think that was her name) and I got to have my first missionary moment. :) I talked to her about my mission, where I was going and what I would be doing, and then I told her a little bit about eternal families. I gave her a pass along card that I had in my bag with a number on the back to order a Book of Mormon. IT WAS GREAT!
The other flight from Denver to Oklahoma was uneventful.
President and Sister Shumway met us a the airport and we got our bags and loaded everything onto a trailer and then headed to the Mission Office. I couldn't believe how hot and humid it was when we stepped outside. I felt like I couldn't even breath there was so much heat and moisture in the air. I think we all started to sweat almost immediately. Good times. :) We met some people there and then had to sit and watch videos about driving safety until some other missionaries arrived from the Mexico MTC. I felt so useless just watching videos! I wanted to get up and do something!!! I had been busy and doing non stop for two weeks and now suddenly I wasn't doing anything. Drove me crazy! (pun not intended but I think it works)
Eventually we headed to the mission home where we got lots of packets and papers and REAL FOOD. That was the best part. Well, almost. I guess the nap that they let us take was the very best part. :) I was to tired. Right before they let the Sisters go up and take naps I was literally falling asleep in my chair. That nap was the best sleep I feel like I have ever gotten. It was heavenly. The food was amazing too. It's incredible how fast you get tired of cafeteria food. It tasted good the first half week or so, and then it started getting to the point where nothing sounded good. Oh well. The food they gave us at the mission home was really food and it was so good. We were all raving about it!
Apart from the food and nap :) the greatest moment was when we each got our assignments. It was like in the Santa Clause movie where he is handing out the presents for each person one at a time. We were all just sitting there in eager anticipation for when our name would be called and we would find out where we were going in the Tulsa Oklahoma Mission. And guess what?! I am in Springfield Missouri, the place Brother Criddle served!!! I was SO EXCITED! I am in a YSA ward and my trainer is Sister Reese. She is awesome and the area is awesome. We don't have a car so we either walk or get rides from members. Which is actually kind of nice because it means that almost all of our lessons are member present lessons.
The YSA ward is fun. Different but fun. There are lots of really friendly people but unfortunately there are cliques as well. Not sure what to do about that because it makes fellow-shipping new members or investigators kind of hard sometimes.
The first day in Springfield was a bit rough. We had to get up early in the morning to get to transfer point and then we drove for two hours, stopped at another transfer point, drove for another hour and then I met up with Sister Reese and we drove for another 45 minutes or so to get to our apartment. I dumped my stuff in the apartment and then we went out and OTM'd for a while. Sister Reese did one, and then it was my turn. I was pretty much able to say, "hi, how are you today" and then my mind went blank as I tried to formulate in my mind how I could relate her answer of "good' how are you" to a gospel principle. This is why we have companions! There weren't very many people out and about so we didn't OTM for too long. We headed back to the apartment and had lunch and then did weekly planning. All I can say is, WHY DID NO ONE WARN ME OF THE HORRORS OF WEEKLY PLANNING!?!?!?!?! The taco bell that we had for dinner that night didn't really improve things either. Haha. It was a bit rough, but the next day was better because we actually got to teach some lessons and meet some people. One of our investigators, R, asks a lot of questions and sometimes it is hard to keep him on track. Yesterday while teaching him the plan of salvation he started telling us about a movie he saw that the plan reminded him of. He went on to explain the entire movie in detail (which ended up having almost nothing to do with anything) with me and Sister Reese trying to listen and yet get him back on track. It was funny.
Ok, so on our second day we got caught in a down pour. It rains so hard here, and out of nowhere! I admit though I was fighting back laughter! I loved it! Plus I guess the more you tract in the rain the hotter your spouse will be. Not that it was raining hard but I think that based on that one down pour alone I can pretty much assume that my hubby will be about as good looking as the hottest guy on this planet. Not that it rained hard though ;) Me and Sister Reese took a selfy afterwards which I will send :)
Well, I think I had better call it quits. I want to save stuff to write about in my letter!
I love you all so much! Tell everyone at church hi for me, and listen to some jazz for me this week :) I have really struggled at times not to dance and those darn songs keep popping back into my head! I am trying though and I try to quickly replace Top Hat with Nearer My God to Thee or something :)
Can't wait to hear from you all! Lots of love and all that rot
Sister Cryer
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