Letter from 6-18-13

 Funny random things: Sis. Anderson was sent a GIANT bag of Star Bursts from
her mom, but she knew she/we would never be able to eat them all. So on the way
to one of our Lincoln trips, we passed a homeless guy on the corner, and all the
sisters in the car were like "we gotta give him something! What do we have!" Sis
Anderson yells "give him this! [the bag of Starbursts]" So we did, and the look
on his face was priceless as we drove away, LOL!

Then I had another blonde moment when we had dinner again at the Sumsions. They
have a super tiny kitchen, so Sis. Anderson was washing dishes while Sis.
Sumsion and one of her kids were making rice crispy treats. I couldn't fit in
there with them, so I was just hanging out chatting in the doorway. Then I see
Sis. Sumsion's son put a wet bowl in the microwave, and the first thing I ask is
"you dry your dishes in the microwave?" And Sis. Sumsion, thinking I was
kidding, was like "yes, we do." And so I was just standing there with my jaw
dropped, like "that's such a cool idea! Why didn't I think of that!?" Sis.
Anderson had to explain to me that her son was melting butter and that Sis.
Sumsion was kidding, after which they both fell over laughing at my expense. It
was a pretty funny blond moment, though. :)

Some cool things are now starting to happen in Holdrege! We have one
investigator, Jeff, who now wants to quit smoking. We were having a hard time
getting the No Smoke Program, so while we were waiting for the branch president
to get a hold of it, we visited him again. We had to tell him "no, we don't have
the program yet," to which he responded "Well hurry up! I'm running out of lungs
over here!" Quote of the week. :)

We also had our first investigator agree to be baptized! Her name is Kelsie.
Sis. Anderson had had a strong impression to visit her while she was on
exchanges with Sis. Vance, but they hadn't been able to find her. Later she and
I did, and she had taken a BOM. But when we tried to follow up, she'd kept
avoiding us. Sis. Anderson was ready to give up on her, and she had planned on
just giving her a pamphlet and dropping her when she invited us in (on a 110 F
day) and let us teach her the whole first lesson, and also told us she'd come to
church! It's so exciting!

So it's official, I LOVE Sister Anderson, I LOVE Holdrege, I LOVE the branch
members, and I LOVE the people!

Which is probably why I've been transferred.

Yep, it's the most bizarre thing. I'm still in the middle of training, and Sis.
Anderson was sure that she was staying in Holdrege. She was right, she is
staying in Holdrege, but I have been transferred to Omaha/Bellevue/Papillion in
the Cottonwood ward, which is where Sis. Anderson was supposed to go in 6 weeks.
Sis. Harrison is my new companion/follow-up trainer. I've pretty much just
switched places with Sis. Rassmussen, the sister I met on Facebook before the
MTC. Apparently this entire transfer has been really weird all around.

On the bright side, in addition to serving in the Cottonwood ward, I'm also
serving at (Mom, you'll love this), the Mormon Trail Center (aka the Winter
Quarters visitor center)! So now I give tours about the pioneers 6 hours every
week! I've now learned more about the pioneers in the past couple of days than I
have my whole life, and I still don't know enough. I will admit, my first lone
tour (because it's so busy in the summer, we can't give tours as companionships)
was awful, and worse, President Weston had been there within earshot. *shakes
head* It's still super fun, though. It's kind of like giving tours for the spook
alley...but completely different. :\

Another weird thing is that all of the "new" sisters at the trail center are
NEW, like, fresh from the MTC. I'm the only "new" sister at the trail center
that had been called somewhere else previously. In fact, I was companion-less
for the whole 6 hour drive here, which was weird. It was just me and 8 elders
(including the assistants) in the van. I'm not sure if that was legal. So
anyways, I kind of feel like the ugly duckling/fish out of water, especially
when everyone was so excited when they saw the transfer van because they thought
it was Sis Anderson, the prodigal son's return, but they only got me. Oh well,
the trail center is too cool for me to care. :)

It's so weird here now. It's totally different from Holdrege, being in a big
city and all. In fact, LOL, I've only now noticed that I've started talking like
this: "How be you? I wanna get me some of that!" etc. You know, rural speak. So
now I'm having to work on talking like a sophisticated person again. :)