July 1, 2013

Hey Fam!!

How are you? I'm doing great and loving PA! Yes, I have been assigned to the Doylestown area and I love it! It's a tourist town apparently, so there are a lot of cute little shops in the center of town. I guess where I'm living is considered the Borough of Doylestown. I'm not exactly sure what that means. Anyway, my area covers other little towns too (Warrington, Dublin, Chalfont, Furlong, Warrick, etc.) that are very close by but not close enough for walking, so I mainly drive all the time which is nice :) hehe. The humidity isn't as bad as I was expecting. I hear that it is supposed to get worse though... 

My comp., Sister Jensen, is from Ucon, ID. She has been out for three months so she just finished her twelve week training. She's 20 like me and will be 21 in September. She is a wonderful comp. though and I just love her. She is very kind and caring especially for my well being. 

Sister Davis with companion Sister Jensen

There is only one church building that covers my area and two wards. Sister Jensen and I cover the Doylestown ward and the Elders cover the Souderton ward. I believe that Souderton is another area, but the Elders that cover that area are part of district. There are also Spanish Elders in my district, and I'm not really sure which ward they cover if they do. Basically, the Spanish Elders can go anywhere in our zone area I believe. 

The ward members are nice. I've only had one dinner appointment so far and Sister Forsyth took us out to eat because she's trying to sell her home. We have a dinner appointment for tonight though. Sister Jensen says that we usually have quite a few dinner appointments.

Guess what?! I've seen fireflies every night! They are so cool!

Sister Davis with Sister and President Anderson

So about the mish so far... On the second flight (after our layover in Detroit), I got pretty sick. It was a smaller plane and it was quite turbulent on the way. And yes, you guessed it... I threw up.  Anyway, that was gross and I just felt wonderful walking off the plane to meet my mission president. 

New "Golden" Missionaries in Philadelphia 6/25/2013 with
President and Sister Schaefermeyer

After we were all gathered together, we drove to the mission home had cheese steaks for dinner. Then we talked about the mish and our plans for the next day. Then we went to bed. (there were like 30 goldens for this transfer. Yes, the greenies are referred to as goldens here in PA.) The next day, we went to the mission office just down the road and had a mission-wide study/conference call. Then they took us into Philly and we did some street contacting while my mission president did some interviews. Okay, I'm not gonna lie, I was very nervous to go do this and I was very grateful that I had my comp. Sister Howard with me. The first guy we came in contact with was kinda crazy haha. He had a strong belief in Christ, but he didn't agree with Joseph Smith. He talked with us for about 45 minutes and then we went to lunch. After lunch we did some more street contacting, had my interview, and then we drove back to the mission office (which is in a church building) for dinner. After dinner I got my new comp. Sister Jensen  took me up to Doylestown, PA which is a smaller town about an hour north of Philly. It is very green here and so beautiful. The houses here are like my dream houses and they're bigger than the ones in Philly. I have always loved these colonial style homes and since it's a smaller town it feels like home here :)

Okay, so my first night in Doylestown, I actually got to unpack. We didn't get to our apartment until after 8, so my comp. was so nice and let me unpack. Thursday, we had district meeting and then we tried to contact some potentials and visit less actives, but we didn't come in contact with any of them. That night, we went to Sister Zander's house and read the Sunday School lesson with her. Sister Zander is a recent convert of about two years and she just turned 73. She is such a sweet lady and I just love her. Friday, we tried to contact more potentials or less actives and didn't come in contact with them either. (Because everyone here works during the day, it's really hard to find people during the day.) So, we eventually ended up street contacting. That night we met with Barbie who is a progressing investigator and committed her to baptism! :) She hasn''t committed to a date yet, but we'll keep working with her. 

Saturday, we helped a family in our ward move into their new house. Because there is only one D-town ward, the members could move anywhere in my area and still be apart of that ward. After we finished helping this family move, we went down to Philly to meet our new mission president, President Anderson. Afterwards, we went to a very sketchy part of town to get some cheese steaks. I'm not gonna lie, I was kinda scared walking through there ha. But the cheese steaks were really good, so that's a plus :) haha. That night we decided to go visit Robbyn. The sisters before me ran into her while trying to find Barbie. So we visited with her and asked if we could come over to visit with her on Sunday. She agreed and we also invited her to pray. She accepted the invitation. Robbyn grew up in a broken home and didn't have religion until she was 26. She now has a strong belief in Christ and is one of the most Christlike people I know that isn't of our faith! She is a single mom raising two daughters. Works multiple jobs and only gets to see her girls at certain periods of time. She lives in Philly, but works at a boys home here in D-town where Barbie works/lives. (She also works at another boys home but I'm not sure where.) Anyway, she has just inspired me and I just love her. I want to help her so bad.

So Sunday, after church (which is at 9 so I have ward council at 7:30) we went to visit Robbyn. We sang a hymn with her, prayed, and visited for almost 2 hours! We followed up with her prayer commitment and she prayed Saturday night but not that morning. However, she decided to sleep on the couch that night and found a B.O.M that we gave Barbie behind some pillows. She opened it up and started to read the intro., some of the testimonies of the witnesses, and the actual book of Mormon. She was curious about what this book was and so we told her about the First Vision and how the B.O.M. came forth. We invited her to read it and she accepted! We're going to meet with her again in two weeks when she'll be working again.

After Robbyn, we tried to contact some potentials and less actives. Once again, we didn't come in contact with them, but we did find a new investigator. We went to a retirement home and the security guard called us over. He was curious about what we were doing and what religion we belonged to. He has researched all the religions except ours because of the bad things he's heard about us. He was very interested in finding out about ours though and so we gave him a card and told him about mormon.org. We also gave him a B.O.M. and he wanted to read it. We also invited him to pray before reading and he accepted! He wants to meet with us again when he works! He was such a miracle and an answer to our prayers yesterday! 

Sister Jensen told me last night that with her previous comp. the work here in this area was slow. So, I guess with me here the work is starting to pick up. I'm not doing a lot of teaching because I'm still shy ha, but I'm starting to come out of my shell. I'm trying okay! :P Sister Jensen also said that there hasn't been a baptism in this ward for over a year, so we will try really hard to keep Barbie committed. 

I'm loving my mission so far and the Lord is definitely answering my prayers :). I don't think I've ever prayed so hard in my life as I have been here in the field. I truly love these people and I want to help them come to find the happiness that the gospel brings. I'm starting to see why Heavenly Father called me to serve this mission and in this area :). I love you all so very much. I keep you in my prayers. I hope you have a wonderful week! 

Love,

Sister Davis