Week 4:Tears, Teaching and Tacoma

  Leaving the MTC was a tearful experience, when you spend 16 hours a day with people learning the gospel, it's hard not to love them! The experiences I had with my district will always be sacred to me. 8M room 323 will always be a sacred place to me, where I came closer to my Savior. I loved my MTC experience and the amazing people who became my family there.

Saying good-bye to dear friends

    At 3:50 Tuesday morning, I waved a hazy-eyed farewell to the MTC, and boarded a bus. The bus took me to front-runner, which took me to trax, which dropped me off at the airport. My bags came in at 48 and 49 pounds just barely under the weight limit! #proudestmoment Then we booked it to the terminal and had a few minutes to talk to our families! I love my family! They're the best! I was so glad I got to talk to them for a few minutes before I got on a plane to Washington!

    When we landed in Seattle I met my Mission President and his wife, President and Sister Blatter (pronounced Blotter). They are basically awesome, so nice and loving! The APs were nice enough to pull my bags for me, which was awesome because they were heavy enough to make blisters on my fingers. 

New missionaries at the Potomac

Potomac

    We loaded all of our stuff into the mission van and headed out. When we got to the transfer spot we met Elder and Sister Buist the mission nurse and housing coordinator. Crazy story about the Buists, they actually live in South Jordan, in the Highland Stake, so they know a lot of my friends, which is cool. President Blatter showed us the missionary board where they have all the missionaries' pictures up so he can move them around for transfers and such. He asked if we recognized anyone up there and I was kind of shocked that I did! I pointed out "That's Andrew Pipe! I mean Elder Pipe! I went to high school with him!" President turned and looked at me with a shocked look on his face, "Interesting..." was all he said. I didn't know what to think of that so I simply ignored it.

   After what seemed like hours of meetings, it was finally time to find out where we would each be going. Sister Belliston was sent to Squim and it was sad to say goodbye for a while to her! After Elder Heaton got assigned to Lakewood, and Sister Larsen got assigned to go northward, I stood "center stage" to get my assignment.... "Sister Monson will be trained in Lincoln, Tacoma Ward, by Sister BIRD!" I heard as Sister Bird rushed at me with a hug. I had no idea where Lincoln was... Still can't really tell you where I am to be honest.

   Sister Bird is amazing! It's sometimes like we are the same person because we think so much alike. She has been out for six months and has been in Centrailia the whole time. So neither of us knew exactly where Lincoln was or how to get there. So we took an unexpected detour... an hour and a half long detour. But eventually we found it!

Sister Monson and Sister Bird

   Almost as soon as we found our area, we had to turn around and head to the ward potluck. The minute we walked in the ward got super excited! This ward has had a set of elders and a set of sisters for a long time, but because of a shortage of sisters they have been missing them for almost 3 months. So, needless to say, we were welcomed with open arms. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the elders for our area, and who could it be But Elder Andrew Pipe? It's crazy how I knew only one person in the whole mission and now we're in the same area!

Sister on the move

Study time

Happy Sister Missionaries

Mustache water bottles

   The ward here is awesome, their boundaries just changed a little while ago, so they're kind of getting used to each other, but they're awesome.

    Because neither Sister Bird nor I know anyone here, we have no investigators, so we spend a lot of time knocking on doors and contacting people. We remind ourselves constantly that we just need to have the faith to find and we will!

    Because Sister Bird, Elder Pipe and I all just got into the area we were asked to share our conversion story in church yesterday. It was so much easier than when I gave my farewell talk! Mostly because I barely know any of these people!

My inspiration wall

   That's basically my week! I am so glad to be here in Tacoma, and to be helping people come to the knowledge of the truth! I love this gospel!

selfie as I write home