Saturday, August 24, 2013

Weeks 2-3 08/19/2013: More Emails from Sister Noakes! August 19, 2013

Okay so first things first: I'M IN GRAND JUNCTION!! Yep that's my first area. Grand Junction 1st ward. My companion/trainer is Sister Jensen and she's great!! But more on that later.

So we flew into Denver last Monday (wow, only a week ago haha) and then we went to the mission office and did lunch and trainings and interviews with President and Sister Murdock. While they were interviewing me President Murdock said "You're going to a place that ... that needs a lot of missionary work." And boy oh boy does it! We have like, no investigators right now haha. But it's okay! We're trying to connect with members in our ward and get them to give us names and stuff so we can actually teach lessons! We have spent a lot of time driving around the area (it's about 5 square miles), knocking on a lot of member's doors and getting no response, and trying to teach less actives/inactives as well. But no one seems to be home or have time for us a lot of the time. It's a bit discouraging but I'm definitely learning to rely on my Heavenly Father and my Savior. Which is good, I really need that.

So after the crazyness of Monday we had transfer meeting on Tuesday. Transfer meetings are always right after p day soooo whenever I get transferred you won't know until the next week where I am... but you're right, no news is good news! So anyways, at the transfer meeting in Denver I got told my companion/trainer was "over the mountain" so she wasn't there. If you're "out west" you have a mini transfer meeting closer to your area instead of driving 4 or more hours to Denver or "metro". The missionaries are split half and half between the two areas. Anyways, after I got told my companion was out west I knew I would be too haha. I already had a sneaking suspicion hahaha. So then I got told I was going to be serving in Grand Junction and then they packed up all our stuff and off we drove! The transfer train stopped in Rifle first, dropped about half of us who were being transferred off, then went on to GJ. We got to their transfer meeting, they announced all the new companionships and areas they would be serving in, and then we were off to work! Well we got lunch first haha. Oh so right after I met Sister Jensen, she handed me the keys and said "You get to drive." SAY WHAT? Hahaha. But she doesn't have a license so naturally I got to. But I'm a good driver.

Sister Jensen has been out for 6 months and turned 20 a couple of months ago. She's from North Carolina and I had to laugh because apparently I just like my companions to be from NC! She's great, she's been teaching me a lot and has really helped me not be so discouraged with how the work (or lack thereof sometimes) is going. But I miss you guys a lot and that's hard. But I also LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!! Everyday I think about how much I love you guys and how grateful I am for everything you've done for me. You don't have to worry about me. You entrusted me to the Lord for 18 months and He will take good care of both me and you. Alma 19:23 talks about how because Mosiah entrusted his son Ammon to the Lord, Ammon wasn't harmed. It made me cry because I know you have done the same. So even if the work isn't going as well as I would like or if I'm getting discouraged, I know that everything will be okay because we all have faith and trust in our Heavenly Father.

I've been reading my patriarchal blessing a lot and have started making annotations of it in my study journal. Have you read it yet? I want to hear your thoughts!!

Uh so about the letters you wrote. Keep 'em comin', but we can't get into our mailbox right now. So I'll send off some handwritten letters today too, sorry if they don't respond to what you wrote hahaha. We're working on getting the mailbox fixed but it may be another week or more. However you should definitely keep sending me stuff!! I want an overflowing mailbox when we finally get the darn thing to open hahahaha. Oh and I guess my address is important. It's 1240 Bookcliff Ave #6, Grand Junction, CO 81501

ALSO if you send a package, you should send still send it to the mission office BUT ONLY SEND IT USPS. USPS does free forwarding so it will get to me quickly, but if you do UPS or FedEx, they have to wait til someone from Denver drives out to GJ and remembers the packages haha. So that may be a while. But I would really appreciate my coat soon (it's hot but I still want it just in case. You never know. Just the big blue one would be okay. Maybe stick it in one of the space bags I left?) Also I want my Vocal Point CD! oh and I wouldn't worry too much about the whole CD player thing. If you already got one that's fine, but we mostly listen to music in the car anyways. I don't have many opportunities to use the ipod.

So yeah, our area is small and not a lot is going on at the moment. We share the ward with a companionship of elders, Elder Reese and Elder Austin, so that makes work even more difficult because there's not a lot to do anyways and we have two sets of missionaries in a 5 square mile area! Our zone leaders called today and said they were going to look into expanding our area a bit. Which would be nice hahaha. But I'm getting to know this little section of GJ reaallly well. Oh and Elder Austin is the Elder Austin who was in my MTC district. Fun fun.

Oh hey did I mention that I love you guys?? BECAUSE I LOVE YOU A LOT!!!! Hahaha I cry every time I type that. I'm a wimp.

So yeah, I LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU AND LOVE LOVE LOVE YOU. I'm gonna go respond to your other emails now. If I think of some good stories I'll be sure to share. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!! And I can tell that you guys are praying for me and I can feel your love all the time. I hope you know I'm praying for you every day and that I constantly think about how much I love you all.
Oh and I can't send pictures on this computer apparently SORRY. I'll figure something out.

LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE YOU!!!!!!!

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