July 29, 2013

Hey Y'all!

Let me just say, that this has been the craziest, most insane, toughest, most emotionally draining week of my entire life. And the worst part is: I can't even really tell you much about it. Most of the stories from this week fall under one of two categories:

1. Stories I've been advised not to tell my parents until after I get home, or (Mom insert here: What????!!! If any of you out there get the details, be sure and comment below.)

2. Stories the La Verkin police have asked us not to talk about until after their undercover operation is finished dealing out justice.

So, I tell you what I can, but be aware, that there are even juicer stories that you're missing out on. :) I realize that I could have just left that part out, but I decided it added a nice degree of mystery and excitement to appearance of my normally boring missionary life. You're welcome.

Let me seeeeeeee. I guess I can tell you the rest of the story about Mr. Creeper. After we finished our emails last Monday, we went to the grocery store. After we checked out, I turned to go out the door we had come in. Guess who was standing by that door? Yep, Mr. Creeper. So we not-so-subtly turned completely around (It probably looked like I was pirouetting in the middle of the store, which would probably have looked a little less suspicious had I not been doing it with a cart full of groceries). Anyways. We turn around and go out the door on the other side of the store. Lovely Mr. Creeper follows us outside and graces us with a very intense look of disapproval. This considerate attention continues the entire time we load our groceries and doesn't even stop as we drive off.

Needless to say, we found that a little strange. But strange actions are to be expected from creepers. So on Tuesday we had dinner with a cop and his family. I stinkin' love this family, but that is besides the point. Anyway, he informed us as to why Mr. Creeper is so disappointed in us. So after we saw him creeping, we ran to some members and told them about it. Brother Cox told Sister Cox, who called the lady (who was out of town in Texas) who called the police. So, long story short, Mr. Creeper is fully aware that we are the direct cause of the police interrupting his pharmaceutical exchange. So that's good. We also found out that Mr. Creeper is only in his early 50's, even though he looks like he's at least 75. That's what meth does to you kids, so stay away from it.

So yeah. That's that. We stay away from him, he apparently stays away from us. It all works out. Transfers are coming up, and I am going to be SO SAD if they transfer me! Even though this week has been totally insane, it's made me love La Verkin so much. Guess it's not the totally boring two-stoplight town that I thought. It's a slightly more interesting two-stoplight town. Also they are building a Denny's here, so anything is possible. This (and the mexican place that's about to reopen) will be the only restaurants in this whole stinkin' town. Guess I'll learn to like Denny's.

Another story. This is a miracle story. There is this member named Katie that comes out with us sometimes. She's 16, from Arkansas, and has been a member for about a year. She moved up here a few months ago, and adopted herself into a friend's family to get away from her sucky life in Arkansas. 

So. We brought her to an appointment with Amy (one of our investigators) and were telling her what we wanted her to bear her testimony about, and what we were going to talk about, and blahblahblah. Right before we pray (we always pray before we go into a lesson...we usually need a lot of divine assistance...), I think to ask her if she's allergic to cats. I just threw it in as a kind of last second question, but she just stared at me. I was like.....crap....are you allergic to cats? And she was like "Oh, it's ok, I'll be ok." I'm sitting there like crapcrapcrap. Ummmmm, how allergic to cats are you? "Oh, I'll be ok." I kid you not, this lady has like 15 cats. Long story short, she insisted that she had faith she would be ok. So we had her say the prayer, in it she asked that she wouldn't get sick, and in we went. The lesson was 30-45 minutes long, she bore an awesome testimony at the end that had Amy crying because she was so impressed, and Katie didn't get sick at all. That girl is amazing. Miracles follow your faith. That's probably why I don't have many miracles happen directly to me. I'm way too skeptical. BUT, as Katie has proved, if you have a lot more faith than I do, you can have amazing miracles in your life. Yeah, we didn't raise anyone from the dead, but it kept Katie from dying from anaphylactic shock, so I figure that's just as good.

Oh yeah, and that appointment we had last Monday? The one that made it necessary for me to rush through my emails? We showed up and they weren't even there. Not a happy camper.

OH YEAH! I had forgotten about this one guy! We knock on his door, he comes to the door, and Sister Gregory starts talking. He interrupts her, yelling at us and is like "Will you people get a message?! We don't want any of your junk!" And slams the door.

These are the experiences that bring to light the differences between Sister Gregory and I. She's like "Oh...sorry we didn't know...." (Which was said in a soft voice to an already closed door)  Me I'm like Eh. As we're walking away I'm like "Hey! Don't walk away like your ashamed! He's just a jerk." And she's like "Well, how were we supposed to know he didn't want to talk to us?"

I'm still trying to decided if this is showing a positive side of me or a negative side of me. I get a door slammed in my face and I'm just like "Ok, screw you, you're a jerk", and I move along with my business. Maybe I should be a little more concerned with the fact that this guy's eternal salvation is at stake, and all that. But I'm not. He clearly doesn't want to talk to us, and I, quite frankly, have no desire to talk to him while he's being a jerk. :) We had just come from a house that was politely disinterested, and that was just fine. You don't have to be rude....

So Sister Gregory has decided that she finds my soft spot for old men quite amusing. Last night she used the term "fetish", which is completely inaccurate. It's not weird like that. I just think that they're adorable. Unless they're mean and yell at you....then they're less adorable. In one of the sacrament meetings we went to yesterday, there was a guy giving his mission homecoming talk (we would pick the ward that's having a stupid homecoming), and they had all the priesthood do a musical number of "Called to Serve". They all got up there, and all the adorable old men were singing up there so enthusiastically and it was just like "They went on missions, and even thought that was like 500 years ago they're still so enthusiastic about it." It was the most adorable thing ever; I thought I was going to start crying.

I've also realized that I get kind of protective of these adorable old men. For example, this former investigator we have "accidentally sprayed himself in the face with oven cleaner, called 911, and slipped and hit his elbow when he went to let the EMTs in." In the end he came out of the hospital with a burned face and a prescription for some painkillers. This whole story would be a lot more believable if 1: this guy were the kind of guy who would clean his oven, and 2: he wasn't already a prescription drug addict. He ended up having this member guy buy his prescription for him, and I was like "whatever, at least that guy gets blessings for trying to help."

But THEN, last night we went over and met that member (and his wife) and they were so sweet, and old, and nice! Even though this prescription business was a few weeks ago, I got so mad at our former investigator for clearly manipulating this poor guy into buying his prescription. I wanted to march right over to his run-down trailer and punch him in the face. Unfortunately, it was time to go home, and Sister Gregory would not have condoned such violence, so we went home. I had to content myself with yelling all about how terrible of a person our former investigator is, and that that poor family can't afford to be financing his drug habit because they have  their own mountain of medical bills. I have to keep telling myself that they'll get the blessings for innocently trying to help out, and that we'll go help them with their garden. They were so excited that we came to visit them, since they never get any company, and they didn't believe it when we said we'd come back. We promised we'd come and help her with her garden but she said "Well, that's what the boy scouts say, but then they never actually do it." I whipped out my planner right there to schedule a time, but she said they were busy for the next few days. So we'll just have to go back. They had better not transfer both of us, because if they don't leave at least one of us here, then no one will go back and visit them again.

Anyways. That was a really long, rambling, pointless story. We've been getting some rain here, so that's good. Except one time we got caught in a ridiculous downpour so then we were going around looking like poor, half-drowned rats. When I got to a mirror I had mascara literally covering half of my face, and I hardly looked like a distinguished representative of the Church. Missionary fail of the week. :)

Anyways, I gotta get going. That cop we had dinner with (and his wife, don't worry) are going to start giving us self-defense lessons on p-days, so we have to get all our stuff done before that. :) It'll be fun.

Have a good week!

Sister Peart

Hey y'all!

Hey y'all!

This has been a very crazy week. First of all, I've been dizzy all week, and that's just now going away. My mission president's wife (Sister Center) was pretty concerned because we couldn't figure out why. But it's going away, so it's all good now. :)

I think I'm going to neglect most of the week in favor of two main stories.

1: Sometimes we get texts from Church headquarters with referrals to go visit people in our area. These are the media referrals; so anytime anyone requests a visit from Mormon.org, or at a pageant, or whatever. We had gotten a text for an excommunicated man a few weeks ago, but it took us forever to be able to go see him because we have to go through the bishop first for excommunicated people. Then we got a text for a less active man with the same last name. But this time we got a home address. The first one had only given us a work address, so we'd been stopping by the business, but hadn't caught him. The home address was for Lichfield Lane, and since they both had the last name of Lichfield we figured if we found one, we'd find the other.

So we decided to go on an adventure to find them. Turns out Lichfield Lane is down in Shengri-La (spelling? no idea). Shengri-La is a random oasis valley, that has a little pond and park where people get married all the time. We went down in there, got very very lost, and had to stop to ask directions from a guy who was working in the stables. He gave us some directions to the second man's house, which main revolved around the fact that they had a fountain in front of their house and we couldn't miss it.

So we drove around in the what we thought was the area he had described and couldn't find the house. We ended up at the end of a dead end street in front of a house with a bunch of kids playing outside. They all stopped and stared at us (they obviously don't get many people there) and we proceeded to shamelessly break some mission rules.

For missionaries who have a car, it's required that the passenger missionary always get out and direct the driver whenever you back up. I was not about to get out of the car in these people's driveway, amid all those staring children, to back the car. So we just backed up (praying we wouldn't hit something and have to explain that to Elder Wooley) and ran away. 

We eventually found the house, after driving by it about 4 times. Their fountain wasn't on, so it just looked like a bush in the middle of their driveway. There were a few cars there, so we figured they were home, but nobody answered. We were pretty sure they were home, because it smelled, and looked, like they were having some sort of fire in the backyard. After some minimal snooping, we realized that there was nobody in the backyard, but there was smoke billowing out of their window. Fairly concerned, but not wanting to trespass and give any crazy people an excuse to shoot us, we went over to their neighbor's house. (By the way, there were only two houses in this part of the valley.) Their neighbors had about 5 cars outside their house, but nobody answered there either. There was this weiner dog out in the yard that took one look at us and then bolted with his tail between his legs.

Still worried, we went back and knocked on the first house again, but nobody answered. By this point the smoke had stopped, and we were pretty well convinced that there was a serial killer in there. We decided we should go tell SOMEBODY that this house was possibly on fire, so we decided to go find a neighbor that could call them.

After driving all around that whole stupid valley we realized NOBODY was home. It was starting to feel like some sort of horror movie, because this was clearly one of those not-quite-a-compound areas where everyone is related. We decided to go back to the stable and at least tell the horse guy, only HE WAS GONE!

Finally, we accepted that the only available option was to go back to the house with all the kids and tell them. When we drove up we almost died because all the kids were gone, and we were like WHAT FREAK SHOW IS THIS?! But then they popped out from around the back of the house.

As we got out they ran to the door yelling that the missionaries were coming. We were like, ok, well, they at least know who we are. Hopefully that's a good thing. As we're walking in the house we hear a lady say "I hear one of them's a Peart". That through me for a loop. Turns out that they're members and they're also Pearts.

We went in and told them about the horror story happening in their neighborhood, and the husband was like, "Oh yeah, that's my cousin, I'll text him." (Totally called that one. They're all related.) Luckily, they were members and quite nice. We talked for a little bit and established that we were, in fact related. He was like "Oh, have you hiked up to Jacob's rock?" I was surprised and asked him if he meant Jacob, The Jacob, as in Jacob Peart that crossed the plains. Apparently that was the Jacob Peart he was talking about, and apparently said Jacob came down here and carved his family tree into a rock. Pretty cool. I gave them my mom's email address so they could send her the pictures.

I let them know that I was pretty sure that my uncle had Jacob Peart's diary, and therefore we were the purer strain and they were just posers. They consented that that was apparently the case. :)

The wife's parents were also there, and apparently they knew Virginia Peart and Joe Peart because they're from Vegas. It was weird, but cool.

2: Last night we were coming home at the end of the day and as we drove by the house of a single sister in one of our wards, we saw a man standing outside of her door. We were pretty sure that it was the town creeper, so we decided to drive by again to make sure. We ended up driving by three times, which meant that we were able to be positive that it was him, and he was able to be positive that it was us. He was very clearly snooping around her house and as we drove by the third time, he put some stuff at her door and hopped on his bike. We hurried up the street to Brother Cox's house to have him call the lady and let her know.

Mr. Creeper was about caught up to us on his bike, so as soon as Brother Cox opened the door we barged right in and slammed the door. He was equally concerned, and said he'd give her a call. (Apparently she's out of town, visiting someone in Texas.) As we left we flew to the car, jumped in and locked the doors. We carefully inspected the street, praying Mr. Creeper wasn't watching us. We drove around the block before we went back to our house, since she lives right around the corner from us. When we got home, we locked all the doors and windows, and prayed that he hadn't figured out where we live. The mission is very careful to make sure people can't stalk us home, so we were hoping we hadn't blown it. We texted the elders in our district to let them know who was guilty if we showed up dead. Our district leader was the only one who didn't laugh at us. He called us and told us to let him know if we needed him to come down. The other elders all laughed at us because they're buttfaces. Clearly our district leader is the only one who has met this man. He's an old, excommunicated guy who has way to much interest in sister missionaries. He also is crazy because he's fried his brain through all of his meth use. Whenever we have to go by his trailer (one of our investigators lives across the street from him), we park where he can't see us and sprint to their house. Long story short, we barricaded ourselves in the bedroom last night and each slept with a piece of pvc pipe to be used as a beating stick if necessary. 

We made it though. :) Still alive, and no sign of Mr. Creeper.

As for actually missionary stuff, we're doing alright. Michael is doing good, and still has his baptism set for the 3rd. We get to teach him the chastity lesson tonight, so that should be fun...

OH! I almost forgot. This past friday we had a baptism! It didn't count for our numbers because he's an 8 year old in a member family, but I'm still excited. His family is pretty new to the church, so we were teaching him the lessons to get him ready. Kind of a special case, but whatever. Anyway, his name is Logan and he's super adorable. The very first lesson I ever taught on my mission was with Logan, so I was kind of excited that he was the first baptism I had too. :)  The first time I met him, he was this little 8 year old with a Mohawk and a pirate earring. But by the time he got baptized he had shaved the Mohawk and switched to a little diamond stud. He's cute. :)

Anywho, I have to go now! Have a good week everyone!

Sister Peart

Blogg

Hey everybody!

How is everything? Currently I am a little weird. I feel like I've been on drugs for a while now. Yesterday we went and taught a Sunday School class for 12-13 year olds and the real teacher gave everybody cookies. Then we went to the bathroom because we were going to stay for relief society. When I went to walk out of the stall I got super dizzy and fell against the door. Definitely almost gouged out my eye on that stupid little coat hook thing. Dangerous facilities. Anyways. After that I was dizzy the rest of the day. I originally suspected that the nice church lady had drugged us. But Sister Gregory was, and continues to be, fine, so I guess the lady is innocent. I don't know what it is though. I think dizziness usually accompanies other symptoms; like a headache, or nausea, or something. But nope. Just dizzy. Pretty much just walking around like I'm on drugs. At 7pm, we came home to use the restroom before a lesson and I walked into the wall. I didn't think Sister Gregory noticed, but when I came back into the living room she said she had texted our mission president's wife. Sister Center prescribed the couch and lots of water so I wasn't allowed to go to our lesson. :( Our neighbor Sister Miller came over and babysat me while another lady went with Sister Gregory to the lesson. While Sister Miller was talking to me (rudely interrupting my plans to watch the Testaments in Portuguese) I mentioned that something about our washer or dryer was giving some of our clothes purple cheetah print. She then proceeded to take apart our washer and clean all the parts. I sat there helpless on the couch while she then went on an intense cleaning spree of our house. She was thoroughly disapproving of all of our accommodations and kept insisting that there needed to be a YW project to come clean our house.

Backstory: when I first moved into the house I saw that the inside of our dryer looks like someone tried to have a bonfire there. Sister Gregory said it had always been like that, so I just went with it, fully expecting that we would blow up at any second.

So. Back to Sister Miller. She opened up the dryer and about died. She then called over her husband (who she said is a maintenance engineer) and had him look at it. He insisted that we not use the dryer anymore after it electrocuted him while he tried to take out the broken lightbulb. Luckily he was using some fancy insulated pliers. They left, promising they'd call our landlords.

We decided to call Elder Wooley (who takes care of stuff like this) since today is pday and we would need to do our laundry. He got mad at me, saying that it's inappropriate to involve members. He said it should only be between the church and the landlords. FIRST of all, they involved themselves. I was innocently mentioning it to the nice lady, hoping she would have some suggestions on how to remove the purple cheetah print stains. (BTW she stole all our clothes that had said cheetah print, with the promise that she'd fix them) SECONDLY, our landlords told us to go to the Millers if we had any problems/concerns because they trust them. Our landlords are out of town a lot, and the Millers are the ones that they gave the extra key to. So yeah. I got in trouble with the mission office, and I remain fully unrepentant. :) Good times. Sadly, there are no laundromats in our area, so we have to drive to to Hurricane to dry our clothes. Poop.

Lets seeeee, what else. OH! I met my favoritest investigator ever. Besides Michael (who by the way, is tentatively being baptized on August 3. :D Depending on his sort-of-family's schedule). This guy's name is Leonard. We've been planning on meeting with him for forever, but they always fall through, and FINALLY I met him the other day. This is the description I got from Sister Gregory: He's about 40, and has trouble with having faith. Also he likes Scientology.

So this is what I'm picturing: Slightly pudgy, graying/balding man who is very easily confused by things. Also a little bit crazy because he thinks Scientology is credible.

I will now tell you about our meeting, and YOU can judge whether or not Sister Gregory left out a few details....

He drives up in his weird, boxy silver car. He gets out and from a distance I'm like, "hm he's not pudgy. And he's got a tattoo on his leg, that's cool." As he gets closer I'm like "hm, make that about 10 tattoos all over his body............he looks like he's like 27...................oh a mustache. what?! is that a french pirate mustache?! omg it is....ok.................oh and he's got gauges. Frosting on the cake.

Yeah. Leonard was not what I expected. We talked about how the entire country is ruled by questionably legal drug lords who have conditioned our society to rely on unnecessary drugs. How the entire medical system exists solely to push more pills on the innocent public. About the Word of Wisdom, which he understands the scientific reasoning for more than any member. About the evolution of society's values of logic (which he said is a sure-fire way to convert atheists), and about how if you completely understand something in a perfect way, it ceases to exist. It was fascinating. Hands down the most entertaining "lesson" ever. I put "lesson" in quotation marks because it mostly consisted of him talking and me relating as many gospel principles to his crazy theories as I could. 

 

As we were leaving, I was like "Wow. Leonard is not what I expected. I love him!" Sister Gregory says she thinks that I'm good for him because I can keep up with his science. Mostly it involves sifting through the crazy to find legitimate points. Anyways. He's pretty cool.

Oh yes. One more story for the day. Earlier this week I got in the shower, started the water, and saw something frothing up in the tub. I was like "hm, maybe I didn't rinse the tub out yesterday?" Since I was already standing in the shower, and the froth looked curiously dark, I leaned disturbingly close to it so I could see what it was (obviously wasn't wearing my glasses) and realized it was ants. Tons and tons and tons of ants. Logically, I freaked out and spent the next 15 minutes rinsing every single ant out of the shower with our only mixing bowl. I guess they come out of the water fixtures. Nasty. I've since then given up showering in my shower, and abandoned it to the ants. I use Sister Gregory's instead. BUT the next day we wake up and our whole house is covered in ants. We called our landlords, who were out of town, and asked them what we should do. We continued our losing battle with the plague of ants for the next couple days and then the cockroaches joined the fight. Luckily, that day our landlords found service in their mountain retreat and called for the bug guy to come the next day. (They spray our house for free because we're missionaries. :)) The morning after they sprayed there was a single cockroach in the middle of our kitchen floor. We sprayed the crap out of it with bug killer and trapped in under a mason jar. Then we left it there for a few days until our landlord came and got rid of it. 0:) BUT that morning, when we walked outside, our ENTIRE front porch was covered with (no joke!) 20-25 cockroaches, all in various stages of death. Our back porch looked about the same, but with an additional army of dead earwigs. NastynastynastyNASTY! But at least they're dead and outside. 

Anywho, I should probably get going so we can make the long journey to the laundromat and such. Marci, Grandma, and Grandpa win the "we-love-our-missionary" award. Thanks guys!

Everyone have a good week!

Love,

Sister Peart

SISTER JENNIFER PEART

107S 1470E Suite 304

St. George, UT 84790

Just in case you forgot :)

La Verkin

Hey y'all

La Verkin is pretty sweet. It's hotter than anything, but at least it's not humid. Usually. The other day it was more humid and we were out in the sun for hours because nobody would let us inside. And we got heat exhaustion and I'm pretty sure my companion had a heat stroke. So that wasn't very fun, and was a little bit scary. But we're more careful now. :)

Best story of my life: I haven't had anybody agree to baptism since I've been here. And everyone who had already agreed dropped us. So yesterday we're talking after sunday school and somebody calls. I have the phone since Sister Gregory lets me hold it to feel like I'm important. I answer it and the lady is like "I have an investigator for you." I was pretty surprised, since that's not usually how our phone calls go, and I was just like "...oh?" And she goes "Yeah, I want you to teach him the first lesson." By this point I've got my handy dandy missionary planner and pencil out. Turns out this lady had adopted Michael's (his name is Michael) two brothers a long time ago and had stayed in touch with him. He's 20 now, and he recently moved out to live with them so he could clean up his life. He went to church with them yesterday and wanted to know who Joseph Smith was, since everyone was bearing their testimony about him. So we went over last night and taught him the first lesson. He was super receptive, and we invited him to be baptized at the end of the lesson. He looked us straight in the eye and said yes. I was so excited. BUT, I managed to give him a properly dignified smile and waited until we were in the car to freak out. :) I was just like "Wow. This is the thing you only hear stories about. But it happened! So that's exciting. :)

Also, today I waxed a car for the first time. Apparently we're supposed to do it every month or every transfer or something. Not fun. I wasn't really a fan. But our car is so stinking shiny now. So I guess that's cool.

So this week I thought I was going to die. We're driving in the car and Sister Gregory says "Ok, so we're going to visit Brother so and so." So I'm like "Ok, cool. Is he a member?"    "No."    "Ok, is he a potential investigator?"   "No. He's an anti-mormon."   So I'm sitting there a little confused. Apparently he really hates the church. So I'm like "Let me get this straight. We're voluntarily going to visit a man who we know hates us?"    "No. The ward is sending us."   Well that's great. So the ward is voluntarily sending us to the home of a man who we know hates us. Thanks y'all. I specifically remember saying (when I was bearing my testimony in that ward) that I was fresh out of the MTC and to be nice to me. Something got lost there. Luckily, he wasn't home.

Another story. People don't believe me when I say I'm getting fat. This lady gave us 9 of the biggest snickerdoodles I have seen in my life. Sister Gregory ate one, and we gave one to a lady who fed us dinner. (She's allergic to chocolate, so we took pity on her.)  One morning I'm eating a cookie and realize there's only one left. I ate them all. I decided I'd leave it for Sister Gregory, and maybe she wouldn't notice that I hate 6 out or 9. She walked out into the kitchen, looked at the plate and was like "....did you eat ALL those cookies?!"  0:) I was hungry...

Also. It's nice to have a house all to ourselves, but our laundry is super ghetto. We aren't sure whether it's the washer or dryer, but one of the two has decided to give our clothes a lovely purple cheetah print. Not a fan of it myself, so we'll have to figure out how to stop that nonsense.

During our zone conference this week the elders were talking about how every dog they meet hates them. As a missionary, I have met more dogs than I have ever seen in my life. (One time we met a big fawn great dane. I am of the opinion that we should visit that less active member more...) However, the dogs always like us. I've determined that it's because dogs are quite intelligent and know that sister missionaries are better than elders. :) All the ward members we talk to are excited to have sister missionaries instead of elders. It's kind of funny. :)

Anyways, I have to go. This is our one day we can make the big trip into town and go to walmart! Gotta take advantage of that shining opportunity. :)

Bye!

Sister Peart

July 1, 2013

Hey Y'all!

Let me just start off this email by saying that this has hands down been the craziest/most exhausting week of my entire life.  I went through four companions and two different areas in 48 hours. I had my first door slammed on me; ironically, the first door I ever knocked on. I went to three different sacrament meetings in one Sunday. I met some German tourists on a bus. I met a bunch of dogs of various sizes and even some pet chickens.

So. Monday morning: Our district left. All except Elder Whittaker, Sister Keenan and myself. Terrible. We went back to our sad empty classroom and bawled. Except Elder Whittaker....and the two random elders who had decided to use our room for a couple minutes. They just looked at us funny. We had our last lesson with Irma Pike. Sad. We had two lessons that week with Irmao Workman, which were actually quite incredibly. So, I guess it was worth not leaving on Monday.

Tuesday: More sadness because we were all alone in the world of the MTC. HOWEVER. Before the devotional we had to meet Sister Keenan's new mission president in 1M. When we went there we had to convince the security people we weren't assassins before they would let us sit on the couch and wait for him. While we were there we saw Elder Ballard, Elder Christianson, Elder Nelson, Elder Oaks, and Tod Callister. (Btw I know for a fact that I spelled at least two of those names wrong. Don't judge me, I've been out in the sun all week.) It was crazy. I'm sitting there helping her mission president do something and some walks behind me and says "Boa Noite!" I turn around to reply, see that it's Elder Nelson (he's really short) and promptly drool on myself. Not really. I caught it. But almost.

Wednesday: Got up at 2:15. Terrible time. Fell down the stairs in our residence with my 50lb suitcase. Don't worry, I'm ok. Just in case you cared. :) Made it to the bus. Slept on the bus on the way to SLC. Checked in at the airport. Went through the creep machine at security. Had to get patted down anyway. Hunted all over that stupid airport for a phone that wasn't taken. Found one that was so quiet that I'm convinced I made up half the conversation I had with my mom. Went to call my dad. Stupid calling card stopped working. Phone ate 4 of my quarters before it decided to let me call my dad. Talked to him until I ran out of quarters. Btw, pay phones are terrible. They count down the time you have left and it's so stressful you can't think of what to say. Cell phones all the way. Got to St. George. Normally they make the greenies breakfast at the mission home, but since we were getting a new president the next day, they couldn't get in the mission home. So we got orange juice and a McDonalds biscuit. Then they talked about how great the proselyting is St. George, and how the members love you and it's the 40lb mission because they feed you so much. Got a little bit excited about it. Then they should us a safety video telling us to drive safely or die. Then they gave us new companions. (Btw, this is all we did, but it still took us about 3-4 hours.) I got put in a trio with Sister Dupre and Sister Pajoul. Found out that our area wasn't actually a full-proselyting area. We work half in the Visitor's Center and a little bit in the area. I was a little disappointed about that. Also my companions were not very nice to me and ran off to talk to the elders instead of telling me what I was supposed to do. Sister Pajoul showed me around the Visitor's Center and would explain stuff to me, but she was new in that area too, so it was kind of the blind leading the blind and Sister Dupre couldn't be bothered to tell anyone what was going on. But whatever. After Thursday, when I accepted that I would just have to figure things out my own dang self, I decided I actually kind of liked the Visitor's Center. Then we got a call saying that I was being transferred. Of course. Sister Gregory's companion had received her VISA for Australia (Lucky. I try not to have extreme negative feelings towards her luck), and she was leaving, so I was going up to La Verkin to be with Sister Gregory. That was probably the best thing that had happened to me so far.

La Verkin. Small town Southern Utah. Full-proselyting. Hotter than Hades. But we get a car. :) The people here are SO much nicer than the people we talked to in St. George. In St. George I got doors slammed in my face and people were not very nice. Here they feed me all the time. Even if they aren't members. We are celebrities. :) We eat free in all of the LDS owned restaurants. I'm getting fat. Not even exaggerating. It's happening. Oh well. I'll probably get a parasite in Brasil, so I'm just preparing. Always be prepared. That's my motto. As of now.

Funny stories, now that I've gotten through a lot of the boring stuff. :)

Sister Pajoul is from France. We went to a ward 4th of July party and the chapel. They made us all stand up while they played a recording of the Pledge. (For the record, it was a weird recording that would talk about each line as they read it. It took forever.) She, of course, was the only one not standing. Sister Dupre kind of got on to her, and she was like "I'm not American!" Quite loudly. :) The bishop was cracking up. Afterwards she was appalled. Apparently in France they do NOT mix state and religion at all. She thought it was incredibly inappropriate that we were doing something related to America in the church building. It was pretty funny. When we got back to the Visitor's Center she went and talked with the other sisters from France and they looked equally shocked. They're in for a treat this week. I'm a bit disappointed I'll miss it.

This one is funny for outsiders, but I am not quite to the point of finding it more than mildly amusing. However, I know by the time I find it funny, I'll have forgotten to write about it: Sister Gregory, in an attempt to train her greenie, decided to set me up. We were on our way to an appointment, but were a little early. She stopped and was like "We're going to stop here first....you got this one?" I was like uhhhh...sure? What's their story? And she was like "Oh, the ward just wants us to stop by." I was like...vague. Ok.... So we walk up and I knock on the door and a little girl answers. She's like "Oh hey, come on in! I'll go grab my dad." I am slightly confused as to why this supposedly inactive child is so comfortable with us, but we ARE rockstars out here, so whatever. We go in and I'm even more confused. Their house could be a model home for "Perfectly Active Mormon Family", down to the stupid curly-writing wall stickers that everyone has. The girl comes back and is like "Oh, he's across the street helping the Martins move." So we go out and Sister Gregory's like "Oh! It looks like they're done! Perfect!" So we go down and talk to this guy. I go ahead and start doing my "Visiting the Less-Active" speech and Sister Gregory kind of interrupts like, "Oh, he's our ward mission leader." So I'm embarrassed that I talked to the wrong guy. Get in the car and she explains that it was all a setup. She just wanted me to practice with someone I thought was less -active. Dumb. All that accomplished was making me look stupid, having this guy laughing at me, and destroying my tender trust feelings. Whatever.

I know this has been a pretty boring email, but I have one last thing to say. St. George, and La Verkin, are sinfully hot. We were driving to church yesterday at 10:45am, and I was like "Oh, look! It's only 1...0...6...wow..." The sad part is, that actually is cool around here. It's usually us snailing around in 115-120 degree weather with no cloud cover. Good practice for Brasil I guess. My shoe tan is coming along quite nicely. :) When it's sufficiently offensive to the eyes, I will send pictures.

That's about all I have to say right at the moment. To all you sisters in Mozambique: I'm glad you didn't die on the way there. Send pictures. Also, Sister Baldwin, I require more details about the plane ride. :)

Tchau!

Sister Peart

P.S. This is my new writing address. Apparently DearElder's still work out here, so you can do those too. I won't get them as fast as I got them in the MTC, but I guess they're still free and easy. So continue writing me. :)

Sister Jennifer Peart

107S 1470E Ste. 304 

St. George, UT 84790