Getting Used to This: 2/3/14

OKAY! I'm doing a poll. You HAVE to reply to this email. You just have to answer in yes/no format to the question without looking it up. (marah.golding@myldsmail.net)

1) Do you know what Spaying is

2) Do you know what a heffer (possibly heifer)  is?

Because I didn't and they made fun of me at dinner!

Here's the letter

I think I'm finally in the swing of things. I've stopped thinking of day as hard or easy days. It's just what we do and they are just days. Well, I mean they are good days! This week has been good.

So Tuesday was our "Special mission training" and it would have been the whole mission if we went 9+hours so it was just a third of our mission. We thought it was going to be the Ipads/Iphone training. It wasn't :(

unimportant side note: I gave the AP (assistant to the president) a really hard time about pronouncing my name wrong for introducing me at the new missionary orientation the first day. It came to bite me in the butt. We were doing role plays and even though I was covering my name tag with my hair the AP remembered my name and we got called up to be the missionaries in the role play in front of a whole third of the mission! It ended really good. At the end one of the missionaries went really loudly "BAM!" and they mostly had really nice compliments. 

Throughout the training, the mission president was pulling companionship out for interviews. As the companions walk back in from their interviews many of them were in tears. So we were like shoot.... what is happening.

So we get pulled in. We were scared and...... the president loves us. Minus a few questions he just couldn't stop praising us! He told us some of the stuff that lead to the area being shut down and said "I knew I had to send in two strong sisters to reopen the area" 

In my head I was flattered but also like "um, you knew me for two minutes max before you assigned me here"

He then told us that Wells is historically the hardest area in the mission and that the mission average for lessons taught per week is 17 and we have been meeting and excelling the average!

I mean.. not to toot my own horn, but it was just really nice to hear.

Other Funny Stories:

Gypsies: We went to visit an inactive member in "Metropolis". We pull up at this ranch unsure if it's the right place as always. And three dogs come up to the door. I turn to Sister woods and say "woah there are a lot of dogs! One, two,three...." as I count more and more dogs run up to the car. Some big, some small. By the end there were 15 dogs surrounding our car and more in sight! Sister woods cracks open the door and I scream "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" and she replies "I'm seeing if they are going to bite!" as she sticks out her arm because.. you know.. who needs and left hand anyway. Then they start licking her. they were all nice. some even jumped in the car and we had to guide them out. When all the dogs had gone to sister woods side, I got out on my side and started walking to the shed/house door. Sister wood eventually escapes the dogs and walks up with me. We knock. No one answers. 

We knew it was the first ranch on the left, but there were three houses on the ranch! So I say "let's go try another door." "But theres a fence and a river/steam in the way. How do we get there. I walk over and say "oh! look there's an opening!" sister Wood comes up to the break in the fence and says "uhmm.. I don't think we are suppose to be over here" I reply "no look! there's a bridge"

So picture this: we stole through this open field and over this rickety run down log bridge with about 12 dogs in tow.

As we walk up to the more friendly house an older Indian woman opens the door (before we get there) with the harshest confused look on her face says "who are you? what do you want!" and we just reply with big smiles "Hi! We are the new sister missionaries. We are going around meeting everyone in the ward!" she replies still a little confused "oh. I thought yall were GYPSIES! You can come in for a few minutes I guess..." So we walk in. She obviously wants us to leave a quick blurb and get out. Then Sister Wood asked if she played the grand piano that was in the front room. She harshly replies "no! do you?" Sister wood is an amazing pianist and replies "yes." Eva cuts her off and says "well. play"

Sister Wood builds talks up her abilities and then starts playing chopsticks to which me and eva stiffle our laughs but then she transitions into "white Water Chopsticks"

As the music filled the room. Evas face was full of amazement and wonder. She was filled with joy. By the end of the musical number Eva was on the phone with her son (who lived in the house we originally knocked on) "Snuffy! you have to come over. These ladies came traipsin' though the feild--I was scared because I thought they were Gypsies-- but they came in and one of them plays the pianer. You have to come over!"

Next thing we know. Her nonmember son, a less active guy we had been trying to get ahold of a few days earlier, and Eva who had turned missionaries away for years and us were talking in her house for two hours!

Paul: We get a voicemail from paul when we leave metrropolis (because we don't get cell service in metropolis) asking us to meet with him the next day. We assume it's our investigator! So we call him back all familiar like (really embarrassed looking back) and at the end of the conversation he goes "do you guys need the address?". Me and sister wood look at each other. We've been to his house before.... Sister wood replies "umm....Sure?". He gives us the address. He's a nonmember and he found our number because he heard we were in town and is trying to quit smoking to be baptized! So that happened!

I Make A Fool of Myself: So it was dinner with a Less active family. It started off bad. I went up to the son. HE LOOKED YOUNG! I SWEAR! and I knew the elementary and middle school were combined, but he was equidistant to wells and ruby valley so I asked "Do you go to the Wells elementary?"  He just looks at me with these puppy dog eyes and says "I go to the wells high school...." I felt so so so bad. Then we do have a good dinner and gospel discussion and at the end we ask for service... like always. The husband jokes with us "oh, you could come up to the ranch and help us on the 7th with spaying heffers. I rely What's that? They laugh. I go "but I'm serious!" and they explain what spaying is. I'm still confused so Sister wood just says... "i'll explain in the car." When I found out I said... "oh. I don't want to do that service" Sister Wood replies "me neither!" But if something happens in this town it gets spread around. People have been laughing about spaying heffers since Saturday night to now.

Not a Funny Story: We went to visit this lady who isn't a member and not interested but shes very lonely and calls us her only friends--she's one of our laundry mat lesson friends!-- so we love her and check up on her once a week. Yesterday Sister wood and I felt prompted to see her-which was weird because we were going to see her tomorrow. As we get pull up we see a girl enter one of the motel rooms, when we get out of the car we hear a crash and a cry "nooooo!" and a door desperately being flung open. I jump back in the car. Sister wood motions me to get out. So Jennifer comes outside (because she has a dangerous dog and she smokes) and we talk for a bit. We hear yelling down a few rooms. Jennifer blows it off as a fight with number 14 and 12. we talk for a few seconds then we hear "PLease! PLease stop!" and then we hear the girl being thrown against the wall and window and then a fist breaking the noise barrier and hitting human flesh. Jennifer goes "now that's domestic violence!" We hear more punching and throwing. I look at Jennifer and say "you need to get back inside and we need to leave and call the cops". We drive past the open door leaving. The man is standing in the door way. His eyes are black. and he starts yelling at us as we pull away. We call a cop. They went back to beating each other. Both had to be taken away in an ambulance. 

Without us being outside to overhear that.... I mean it was scary. But it is obvious that the Lord watches over his children and he put us there to call those cops and save that girl. It's made me sick to think that the only thing that was separating us from that much violence was a plexi-glass window and a motel curtain, a few feet, and an open door. I know the Lord was protecting us as well as that girl. As sister Wood said, "I've never prayed that hard for someone I didn't even know". We are both a little shaken, but we know our work is important and we are going to continue to be out in the right places at the right time.