I'm am now in IDAHO! I flew in Tuesday morning and the Mission President and his wife picked us up. There were 14 new missionaries on my plane! Only 3 new Sisters though! We went to the mission office first. The office is literally right next door to the Boise Temple! The temple is still being remodeled on the outside, but sometime this fall it will be done and us Sister Missionaries get to be tour guides for the open house! I'm SO excited for that! We'll get to meet SO many people and answer some of their questions about the temple. After we did some training stuff and ate lunch we went out and did missionary work! They put us with a temporary trainer and we went out with them for a few hours. We went to try to visit some people, but they weren't home so then we tried tracting a street and we saw ZERO people. So then we learned that all of that was not what we needed to be doing and we tried tracting an apartment complex. We learned that that was where we needed to be. We met a lot of interesting people who I can't wait to visit again. We met a Catholic Priest who wants to meet with us to learn more about our church. He was really nice. We also met a woman who grew up in the LDS church but is now inactive and gay. She still prays every day and believes in Jesus Christ but she doesn't agree with some doctrines of the church. We were able to tell her that the church does understand that being gay is something that is difficult to control and that there are support groups for members who are gay. We prayed with her before we left. She was grateful that we were there and told us we could come back any time. We also met the 2 sons of a less-active woman. Their mom had just given them mohawks and died one of them blue and they looked AWESOME. One of the sons had already been baptized and he asked for some of our pamplets to give to his mom. He remembered when he received the gift of the Holy Ghost after he was baptized and he said that he had felt sick before the confirmation but after he felt better and he recognized that that was the Holy Ghost making him feel good. I love tracting now because we get the chance to invite the Spirit into people's homes and doing so could be an answer to their prayer, or could just make their day a little brighter, or we can also serve them in any way we can. I know that through missionaries people can feel God's love for them and feel how much we love them as we strive to see them the way that God sees them.
After that we had dinner at the Mission Home (pork sandwiches) and then had a testimony meeting where we all shared what we know to be true about the God's plan for us and how we know it. We also shared why we are serving missions. I'm serving a mission because so many people don't know that God loves them and that Christ died for them. I want everyone to know those things so that they never have to feel lonely because they really aren't.
Then I stayed in Kuna, Idaho with some of the sisters. Then in the morning we went back to the Mission office for breakfast and some training. Then at 11:30 we got out trainers (companions)! My companion is Sister Chatterton and she is from NEW ZEALAND!! (Margo will think that's cool!) She's the coolest and I love her! She's the one that I went tracting with on Tuesday! She has the best accent evah (that's how she says it) and I find myself mimicking her in my head and outloud sometimes! haha It's awesome. Also, she doesn't have a license so I am the designated driver! It's weird because I'm younger! But yesterday we met with a few great people. First we visited Anthony who is preparing to be baptized. We shared 3 Nephi 8-11 from the Book of Mormon with him. It's about when Christ came to the Americas and what he said to the people. Anthony had a lot of great questions and he told us a lot about what was going on in his life. It was so awesome because I'm used to role-playing in the MTC and the pretend investigators never gave us much to work with. Then we visited an 11 year old girl named Taryn whose mom is less-active. Taryn's mom won't let her be baptized unless she reads her Book of Mormon and prays every day for 3 weeks straight. Taryn has done it for one week so far and I know that she can do the next two weeks. She is a special girl and she knows that God loves her and wants her to be baptized. We had dinner at a member's home last night - The Price's. The members feed us every night Tuesday through Sunday! It's amazing! They are SO nice! We are over six wards in the Meridan South Stake. (Nathan, what stake are you in? Either way I'm still really close to where you live. haha). Each ward has a night that they feed us and different members sign up. The Price's have 3 sons and a daughter. Sister Chatterton taught about the 10 commandments and she taught the kids these cool hand signs you can use to member the commandments. I will help her teach next time now that I know the hand signs! haha It was awesome to spend time with them though. Then we visited the Blowers who are also less-active in the church. They are really sweet people and it was nice to get to know them better. We shared the "Reflections of Christ" video with them (you can look it up on YouTube - it's to the song Come Thou Fount). They liked how simple it was and the spirit was totally there.
Shout Outs!
-Happy Late Birthday Amber!!
-Happy Late Birthday Maddie St. Andre!
-Happy Father's day to all the fathers out there!
-Anyone else, if I missed your birthday, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
-Oh, SERGIO! I never saw you at the MTC! SO SAD! Where were you??? I'm sorry I never found you! But you're awesome and I'll write you if you e-mail me you address. Are you still in CP?
-MIKEN I LOVE YOU! (Random, I know)
-Carissa thanks for the letter!
-Nathan thanks for the letter!
-Elder T, I didn't get your letter that you send 2 Mondays ago to the MTC. Hopefully it gets to me! The mailman doesn't like me! haha
Love you all!! Thanks for all the support! I'm so taken care of here so all I really need is letters! We live in a member's finished basement and it is so nice! It is so wonderful of them to let us live there!
Much Love from Meridian!
-Sister Bishaw
Pictures:
1. Dork Dot (red dot = new missionary)! Waiting for my companion to get some immunizations at the MTC!
2. First full day in the MTC! So excited!
3. THE BEST DISTRICT EVER!
4. Beautiful companions!
5. Favorite picture. Just being goofs!
5. Classic map picture!
6. Sister Chatterton is the one with the long dark hair who is to my left. Sister Lee is from Korea and she has dark hair and bangs. And Sister Cline is the tall one and she is companions with Sis. Lee.
7. All the new missionaries with their trainers and the mission prez and wife in the middle! 20% of the mission right there! There are 200 missionaries and 20 of those are Sisters.
8. Mission Prez and wife.
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