HELLO EVERYONE! we had transfers on monday so our pday was pushed back to today. anyways, you know how I said that the first week in the mtc was the longest week of my life... well I lied. THIS WAS THE LONGEST WEEK OF MY LIFE, but also one of the most amazing ones. Where even to start. Well let's stary with my first contacting experience. So as I mentioned last week, me and my companion sister fairbanks and I are both greenies, and we're on bikes. Our first day out in the field was last tuesday. Its a nice 115 degrees (joy) and the walmart helmet that I am using is messed up, or my head is messed up of both. i dont even know. All I know is that it is awkwardly cocked to the side whenever I ride ( which is all the time) and it often slips off my head and just hangs off my neck. So we get out there with our ghetto gps and a map on the first day and go looking for an inactive member of our ward, Alan Earl. We're biking around in circles in that more than warm sun for over an hour, meanwhile dying because we've forgotten water bottles and forgotten money to buy water. We finally get to his apartment after what has seemed like a legit eternity, knock on the door and.... he's not there! At that point, I was feeling pretty discouraged. Another sister from our district had come out to help us for the day and I asked her if we should knock on his neighbor's door and see if they knew anything about him. She said that usually they don't knock on doors... I responded (probably a little too sassily) that I thought we should knock anyways. so I knock on his neighbor's door and this young woman answers. We ask her about alan earl and she says she hasn't seen him recently. there's an awkward pause and it looks like she's about to shut the door when I kind of blurt out "can we have some water?!" she says yes, and lets us inside. we say that we are missionaries for the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints. she says she knows who we are and that in fact her best friend is mormon! we then chat with her for a little longer, and you know what she says!!!!! she says "I've read the book of mormon 4 times and I know it's true." I'M NOT KIDDING. For a second, I thought I was hallucinating (probably because of extreme dehydration). We'll we were stunned and crying with joy inside and then we asked her if she would prepare for baptism, and SHE SAID YES. It was the most amazing experience. Her name is Samantha and I know that she was prepared to meet us. We've already had our first real lesson with her and she attended church with us this sunday and LOVED IT. she's going to be baptized in a couple weeks. did i mention that she is 19! and that she was our first contact. it was a miracle needless to say.
Riding on bikes all day.. in the 115 degree weather... in skirts... and biking shorts... without water.. and using a broken bike and broken helmet has been so humbling, but so good too! Sadly one of the sisters in our district who also bikes fainted the other day from exhaustion and dehyrdation, but it's all good now! I had a really embarrasing experience the other day. so we were biking back from zone conference and I was trying to fix my helmet (which I hate) because it kept sliding of my head. so I had one hand on the helmet, the other on the breaks, and I see this car pull out of the parking lot. fearing that its going to hit me, I clutch the brakes (definitely too hard) and go flying off my bike, skirt and all. I just happened to have this humiliating crash in THE ONE SPOT, SERIOUSLY THE ONLY SPOT, ON THE STREET WHERE THERE ARE A TON OF PEOPLE. They are all sitting at this outside bar and see me fall. and just stare. (I'm not even sure why they were at that bar at like 10 in the morning ayway)... then they see that i'm not really moving and come over and ask if im ok. I manage to reply that its only my pride that has been wounded. they really got a crack out of that one. Let's just say that I've learned to ride with both hands on the handle bars at all times.
I have so many other great experiences to share but thats all i have time for this week. Just know that I love you all! I'll be on again on monday at 10:30-11:45 (arizona time) so be on so i can talk to you. have a great week!
sister healy
