June 16, 2014

Hello ya'll from Salisbury, North Carolina! Yup! I am officially here now with Sister Carter. She's so great. Transfer meeting was on Tuesday. Sister P was really nervous about becoming a trainer, it is her first time. Before transfer meeting, she's like "I hate transfer meeting, it's like the reaping!" For those of you who have seen the Hunger Games, it's when they pick one person out of the crowd to go into the hunger games. I was like "Don't worry, when they call your name I will run up and say " I VOLUNTEER AS TRAINER!!" Ha ha. The meeting was really great though, President talked about our potential and what Heavenly Father sees in us. He is always such an inspiring speaker. All of the members here agree and love hearing from him.

I got a great welcome from Salisbury :) It's a great place. It's SO country! Everything is trailer parks and forest and run down houses from the 1800's as far as the eye can see. SO much different than the wealthy Waxhaw.

There are a lot of things that I love about Salisbury...

-Everyone here is actually Southern and has thick Southern accents. Maybe I'll catch one before my time is up :)

-Everyone is so nice! The ward is wonderful. There is a family, the Artensen family who used to live in South Jordan. I went to High School with their son and daughter, and Steve knows their younger daughter and I'm pretty sure Mike knows their older daughter.

- The Ward Mission Leader brought us donuts during our studies one morning. He also is kind of goofy and reminds me a lot of John.

- We have a set of Elders in our ward! It's fun to be serving with another set of missionaries.

- At church yesterday, a less active member who hasn't been to church in years came and asked us if we could teach his 9 year old daughter and wife and help him come back to church. Sweet. We're going to see them tonight!

- Okay so here one of the members is an expert on Bikes. Turns out my bike has been braking non stop while I have been riding, and the tires have been flatter than they should be. SO all of the times I was biking and thought I was a whimp and out of shape are NOT true. YAY! I can't believe I have been riding on it for that long and just thought I was a wimp. At least I haven't had to ride it too much. I have been in full car areas my whole mission, and just ride it on Saturdays. BUT good thing I got my bike fixed now, because we are in a car share area, so we only have it every other week.

- Sister Carter, my new companion took an INSTITUTE CLASS FROM DAD. Weird, right? She's from Sandy, and she's hilarious.

- There are lots of less actives in this area, and lots of people to visit and see and hopefully we'll turn them into teaching opportunities!

I listened to a wonderful talk the other day from Elder Holland from when he was a President at BYU called "The Will of the Father". It's great and I think ya'll should read it. He talks about how the very first thing that Christ tells the people in the Americas is that he has done the Father's will and been submissive in all things. And one of the very first stories in the Book of Mormon is Nephi being asked to kill Laban. He says it isn't a coincidence that story is placed so early in the Book of Mormon, but it is there to teach us the importance of obedience to the Fathers will.  And in turn, the first thing that Christ will want to know about each of us is how obedient we each have been to what Heavenly Father has asked of us. It's a great talk, and it really makes you think about where you can follow the Savior more closely. Go read it!