April 16, 2011

Hola!

So news: EVERYTHING stayed the same this transfer, same apartment, companion, assignment (Guest Services), roommates, zone, p-day. Everything. This is new for me and I don't know what to think about it. Usually something changes that breaks up the transfers but with nothing changing I am worried that it will feel forever long (permanent). Oh well, it all goes by fast and I really like Guest Services so I can't complain.

However, I hate transfers because of the "goodbyes" but that is what facebook is for... after the mission, of course. Lots of Sisters came back from Outbound as well so it is nice to see them. With transfers in Guest Services comes a lot of announcements that we have to page out (yes, if you didn't catch that before, we are still in the dark ages aka "90s with pages". Church headquarters should at least equal the latest and greatest in technology. Lies. Anyway back to my story). Then they all have to respond and when they don't we "999" them (meaning emergency or really, really important) and they respond within two-seconds.

It is also starting to get busier. We are getting lots of phone calls with people scheduling tours and motor coaches. I LOVE motor coaches! We get microphones and a large group of people. They are mostly old people who say that death will come before they will join the Mormon cult but hey, that is when the Family Search Elders across the way take over. Other than paging and tours we answer the phones; they call in for everything under the sun but the best is when they call in for more information about the Church, and maybe for us to send some missionaries over. It is the best! One guy, Howard, called in saying that he had done a lot of research on this Church and his findings have led him to Jeff Decker who is a guy with a movie and profile on mormon.org. When I asked why he needed to speak with him he said that it was confidential and could only be discussed with Jeff. We will call Howard back to make sure missionaries got in touch with him.

So I am a homeless person or better stated, desperate-need-of-the-atonement-in-my-life-person MAGNET! Seriously I didn't realize how much they find me until Sister Despain brought it up after our 10th homeless person (we have bodyguards Mom, don't worry) My companion says that she never has spoken with so many depressing people. All my phone calls are to drug addicts and people in the depths of despair. WHY ME? I have no idea how to help them and mostly I just tell them off for being lazy. We have a prayer list going for all the people we meet and it is very long. I am sure Sister Despain will be happy to leave me so she can talk to normal people again.

We do talk to nice people too. There was this family that came to the Square and we took them on a tour. They said that they came to Utah and they haven't seen one Mormon yet! Yes, they were upset about this. We told them that Mormons look like normal people and have jobs. They were shocked. They thought that we wear name tags everyday, wear pioneer clothes and only come into the city when we are desperate. I nearly died laughing but I kept my composure and we proceeded to tell them about Prophets and the Book of Mormon. They loved the thought that a Prophet could be here again so we showed them President Monson's conference talk and they were mesmerized, until their 15-month-old daughter started screaming bloody murder. Seriously Satan?! But they referred! It was so cool. They went from polygamy-hunting tourists to potential investigators! Yay, Holy Ghost!

Funny Story: So Sister Despain and I took this tour of people from the KOA campgrounds so they didn't know each other. At the tour's end they wanted to go to the Organ Recital so we took them over there. I helped an elderly lady confined to a wheelchair through the handicapped entrance and said goodbye. I looked around and I couldn't see my companion, Sister Despain! I started walking around the Tabernacle and as the seconds passed I was freaking out more and more. Thoughts of "Where is she? What will happen if people see me? What am I supposed to do alone? I have to find someone to be with right now! There is a senior couple; maybe I can be with them! What if President sees me!?" Then on the east side of the TAB out pops Sister Despain who had taken the rest of the tour group to the quiet room to watch the recital. We ran to each other with our arms out and yelled, "There you are!!" Tender. We started laughing when we described our similar thoughts of companion-seperation-anxiety. Life is going to be scary in nine months; I can feel it.

We have set new goals for this transfer which will blow the mission out of the water! We can do it... with a lot of faith and help. Some changes are happening to our mission. They are going to pay us monthly now rather than every 3 weeks with less money. No big deal but the Sisters who can't budget are freaking out. They are also assigning my zone the 8 a.m. motor coaches. Gah! So we have to take our study time two other hours during the day. That's a problem for us because we have Square time for 2 hours and if we take an hour of study time there that only leaves one hour. I told my district leader that our Square time is sacred so we received special permission to do our own thing — hallelujah. We are still working out the kinks because studying in Guest Services is very unproductive. Anyway I'm sure this is a boring letter but this week we have been so busy scheduling. It will all calm down next week!