MY FAMILY!
Our bus left the MTC at 3:30
in the morning. It was like being on a ship, it was rocking and swaying
the whole time. The girl in front of me got sick and threw up a couple
times on our way to the airport. I stood in line for the phone for over
an hour waiting for my turn to call home, there were so many
missionaries there! So when it was my turn and no one answered, I
figured I would try and find time during my lay over. I did get a window
seat on the way to Georgia, so that was cool. Then when we got to
Georgia... I COULDN'T FIND A PHONE! They had removed their pay phones!
So one of the workers there noticed how upset I was and offered to let
me use his cell phone. So that was great. Even though I only got to talk
to you for about 5 minutes I was super happy about that. It was crazy
hard to say good bye though, because I knew it would be a very long time
until I would get to hear your voice again.
1/12/15
I can't believe it's only been a week since I got to e-mail you last.
It feels like I've been away from home for an eternity. So much has
happened in this last week that it doesn't even really seem real. So
I'll try and tell you about it step by step to help myself remember and
to try and get you all the information.
Tuesday: I didn't get to bed until 11:30 the night before, and woke up at 2:00
in the morning. The reason we were up so late was because a girl 3
doors down from us either jumped or fell off the top bunk in her room
and smashed her head into the wall. She was knocked out and her head was
bleeding pretty good. Her room mates were screaming and crying, running
up and down the halls screaming for help and knocking on doors. So I
went over to see what I could do. We ended up having to call security
into the building to help her. She ended up being okay, though they
never clarified with us if she had done it on purpose or by accident.
The MTC really effects you and a lot of people don't seem to be able to
handle it. So many missionaries who came in at the same time as me ended
up going home instead of going on their missions... sad.
I had a seat
next to the aisle from Georgia to Virginia. I got to watch Sister Lowry
give the man next to her some of the missionary discussions... she's
amazing. I was sitting next to all Elders, so I didn't have a chance to
teach anyone. When we arrived at the airport my mission president and
his wife were there waiting for us. We all gathered our luggage and
right as we were starting to leave he says, "Oh I forgot to tell all of
you to prepare an overnight bag, you will not be allowed to take your
luggage to your hotel." So I had to hurry and threw some stuff together,
and ended up forgetting my tooth brush and a fresh change of clothes,
so that sucked. They fed us dinner at the church that night, and had
some of their missionaries teach us lessons. No one listened to the
lessons because we were far too overwhelmed and tired. We were so happy
when we finally got to go to our hotel. The hotel beds were AMAZING!
Wednesday: Getting out of those awesome beds that morning was super
hard. I was still groggy from the day before. (You all know how I am
with dramamine) We were picked up and taken back over to the church. The
same missionaries from the night before taught us even more lessons
(that we also didn't care about) and then finally we were taken to the
chapel where we would be assigned an area and a companion. I was so
nervous to find out where I would be going and who I would be with, that
I paid no attention when my old companion and room mates were assigned
to theirs. I ended up being assigned to the Smithfield VA area. My new
companion's name is Sister Villegas. (The "L" are silent.) She has been
out for almost 5 months. I am the first missionary that she will be
training, so she was super nervous. She took me to our apartment and
let me drop off my things. But we didn't stick around, she took me right
out to meet and teach people.
Honestly everything since then has been a crazy blur. I have not been
adjusting well to missionary life at all. there has been some good
things that have happened though. We went out to an apartment to knock
on doors, and as we were walking past one, a big black guy (there are a
lot of black people here) was chilling on his balcony three flights up.
He yelled out to us, "HEY! Are you coming to my door!?" We decided to go
knock on his door. He was super nice, and listened to us explain the
Book of Mormon. He kept yelling stuff like "Praise the Lord" the whole
time we were talking. He really liked us and told us to come back again
and teach him more, then he gave us the names and addresses of three of
his friends that he thought would like to hear from us too. We had time
to visit one, and she was an older lady, she also liked what we had to
say, and invited us to come back and teach her again.
So that was all pretty cool. Not every one here is that nice though. We
have some investigators that really don't seem that interested in
learning from us, I think they are more interested in having company.
Some of them don't even like letting us teach because they are so busy
trying to convert us to their religion. So it's been weird. Almost every
door that we knock on that we didn't have a scheduled appointment with
will answer their door holding a gun, so that's pretty terrifying.
The members here are pretty weird. They sign up to feed us dinner, but
apparently they cancel a lot. And when they don't, the dinners are Super
awkward. They will sit there quietly and stare at us. They will also
whisper about us loud enough that we can hear, but they wont talk
directly to us. One family even kept talking about how hard it is for
her to make food for her family and she couldn't understand why her
husband kept signing them up to feed us,,, so that was pretty weird.
There was one family though that was more normal and was pretty nice.
Their whole family have served missions, so they understand how weird it
can be, and it was just so much more enjoyable to eat with them.
My companion can't cook at all, so we have agreed that I will cook and she will wash dishes. So that was pretty cool.
The missionaries have some weird sayings here though. Like my trainer
is called my mom, and I am her baby. Then her trainer is called my
grandma. And when a missionary goes home and that missionary is your
companion they say that you are killing them, or if they've gone home
then you say that you have killed them. Super weird.
It is
pretty muggy here. Everything is super green, so it looks like summer
outside, but it isn't. The warmest it's been since I've been here was
about 42 ish degrees. Mostly it's been in the mid 30s though. Today was
the first time that it has rained since I've been here. And it made the
air so thick that you swear your lungs are filling with water when you
breath. My companion was laughing at me and told me to wait for summer,
at that point in time I guess it will feel like we're swimming through
the air... ugh.
This area is crazy. The town I'm in is
supposed to be the safest town in my mission, but they were telling me
that just a few months ago two elders got shot about 30 minutes from
where I live, and one of them died! Last night our neighbors got into a
huge fight, people kept driving up to their door and screaming at them,
and would eventually go away, but that went on for forever. So let's
hope I don't get shot :).
I love you all and hope you're all doing okay.
Sister (Amanda) MacKay
