HEEEEYYYYYY!!!!!! (To be said in my customary "hey" voice)

Just after we got assigned our companions and areas and such, we had a lesson like half an hour after the meeting ended, at the same church.  The investigators's name is Enrique.  He's had one lesson before and apparently didn't seem that interested, but he went to church on Sunday and now he's way interested. You're never going to believe this, but I challenged him to baptism after we watched The Restoration video, and he said he wants to!  He said he wants to read the Book of Mormon first and learn more, but he's preparing to be baptized on August 17th.  Super exciting!

We're going to the zoo today!!! And Panda Express!! Best day ever. 

This week has been good! I love knocking doors, which is apparently unusual, but oh well. Too bad. I still like it. Except when it is super hot outside, which is usually. But when it cools down it is awesome.

So we've been getting some rain here. And when it rains here, it is like torrential. It is so cool. One second it will be overcast, the next it is like someone turned a fire hose on. Luckily we are car missionaries, not foot or bike missionaries. But still. Oh well.

Well, I don't have much else to say about this week. I will probably have more next week, but yeah. I'm super hungry and it is distracting me. Oh well. Too bad. 

It's been a great week though! The church is still true. Don't worry. I've been reading Hymns lately and the Lyrics to them are awesome. I also sometimes translate Spanish hymns and that is really lovely too.

So my Spanish is coming. I like it. I can understand people a lot of the time. And sometimes respond. Usually it makes sense (hopefully).

A "cute bug"

Emily and a "lovely lion"  Apparently there are lots of lions in Virginia!

Emily & Annie Fitt at the MTC Bookstore - Annie is in our ward and has her mission call to Washington State, leaving in October! 

At the mission home

So in our study room window, between the screen and the glass, we have a pet spider.  His name is Frederick.  Apparently he's been there for like a month.  He is pretty much nocturnal, so before bed you can always watch him catching and wrapping various bugs and eating them.  I woke up and watched him wrap and eat a moth thing that was like three times his size.  Beneath his web are lots of dry corpses.  In this picture he is eating a large wasp.

Hermana Pratt & Hermana Dangerfield just before leaving the MTC

A Real Missionary at Last!!

Sneak preview: I may or may not have gotten a child named after me my second day in the mission. Also I challenged someone to baptism my first day. 

So my companions are Hermana Brown and Hermana Williams. They are both really great companions and they are really good and patient trainers.  I didn't think I'd be in a trio so soon but I actually kind of like it. It is good because you get more ideas, more free rein (like, for instance, in just a normal two-person companionship, you can't teach one person of the opposite gender inside, and with three you can, so we don't have to bring a member to every lesson) and it is just overall more interesting. 

The bugs here are large. Including the bees. And wasps. I'm going to die. I've seen a lot of big wasps. Wasps like they don't have in Utah. They are huge and red and their thoraxes and their heads are all nasty and detached and they are just overall filthy creatures. And then, once or twice I've seen these ridiculously large and horrible wasps that are seriously like four or five inches long. They buzz really loud and they are like at least as big as any hummingbird. But with a vengeance for me. I haven't seen any since the first or second day though. I have no doubt they are just massing their forces, and one day I'm just going to step outside and be covered in giant bees and then I'm going to die and then maybe you'll finally believe me about how much bees hate me. Filthy creatures.

A super weird and potentially super dangerous thing - All the doors of our house require a key, not only to get into, but also to get out of. And we only have one key. There is one key that unlocks the back and side door, and one that unlocks the front door. So we're just like locked in until we unlock the doors. Don't worry, I've been mentally running through my door-breaking-down techniques. 

That's not even a joke.

Oh yeah, and we drive a car. Well, I don't drive it. But my companion drives it. There aren't really any sidewalks or crosswalks in Virginia, or even really shoulders on the roads. So it can be kind of dangerous to walk or ride bikes. I still think it would be fun, but I'm a little less eager after seeing that there is almost literally nowhere to ride them except in the road. But people here are not as crazy of drivers as we have in Utah. 

The people here are all so nice! I don't know if it is like Southern Hospitality or what, but even if they don't want to listen to us, they aren't really that mean about it. They respect us, and they respect that we are sent from God, even if they don't believe our religion. There are a lot of Jehovah's witness churches around here. I've seen like five of them, and I haven't seen any actual missionaries of theirs yet, but I've heard there are lots. And like a third of our investigators that we teach are also being or have at some point been taught by the Jehovah's witnesses. Apparently they really don't like us much. I guess it's only because we have the truth and they are jealous....

Well, I know the work is true, and it is super cool to finally be out teaching people about it! It is really cool to talk to people that either just got baptized or are about to be, or even just anyone, about the church.

AHHHH IT IS SO GREAT TO BE A MISSIONARY!!!!!!!

Hermana Pratt and President & Sister Wilson 

Newly arrived in Virginia

Hola! So our district took some pictures on our temple walk last week. I don't think Hermana Fisher is in them, or Hermana Beckstrand, because Hermana Fisher has been sick for like a week. She actually got extended a week because she's still sick. It's super unfortunate. There must be some reason she needs to stay...

Temple Day

District on Temple Day

Notice how everyone looks "normal" except our sweet Emily!

So this picture is of part of the list of side effects from the drugs the doctor gave me that are supposed to help my feet. You probably can't read it, but it says, "Psychic derangements may appear when corticosteroids are used, ranging from euphoria, insomnia, mood swings, personality changes, and severe depression to (my favorite) frank psychotic manifestations. Also, existing emotional instability or psychotic tendencies my be aggravated by corticosteroids."

So, no frank psychotic manifestations yet (for the most part) but if you hear of a missionary just going crazy, you'll know what happened. Haha jk, jk. But I thought it was funny.

Side effect sheet from foot medication

So they just reorganized our branch presidency and guess who is our first (or second, I can't remember) counselor? President Monson's nephew. He talks and moves and stuff just like President Monson, but younger. He looks kind of like him too, but he has no hair. He went to Chile on his mission, and apparently they talk really fast and really slurred there, so he totally Spanished us. Also, he quoted like a million scriptures to us in his testimony last fast Sunday, just from memory. Like long passages. It was crazy.

Yesterday was In-Field Training. It was pretty much the same stuff we've been getting for the past six weeks (work with members, listen to the investigators, find new people, get referrals, etc) but for 10 hours straight. And I was super sore the whole day because I did lunges all around our whole residence, so every time we sat down for like an hour I would be ridiculously sore again. I felt like an old person. Oh well.

I'm so excited for the field! I finally get to go teach real people! In Spanish! I'M SO EXCITED!

Down time...

Hermana Pratt & Hermana Dangerfield out in the real world at a doctor's appointment

Where does Emily gets her photogenic qualities (Ryan & Shawn????)

So this week has been an odd one. For the first half of the week, for like three or four days, Hermana Dangerfield was sick, so neither of us could go to class. That was unfortunate. It was nice to rest, but it gets extremely boring just sitting there all day. I never realized what a luxury it was to be able to just sit down and watch a movie when you're sick. And it was worse because I felt fine, so I was especially bored. But oh well.

Hermana Dangerfield's mom sent us both a package. my part had a nice note in it, some lovely stationary, some candy, and like a HUGE bag of neopolitan taffy. We brought it to class and shared it with the whole district and it still isn't gone.

We went to the health clinic 8 times in three days. 8 times. First one for Hermana Dangerfield to set her appointment, then again later for her appointment. Then I decided to set one while I was there for my foot because I've been having trouble bending my third toe for some reason. Well, I can bend it, it just hurts. So then we went back again for my appointment. The doctor told me he had no idea what was wrong with it, so he could either send me to the podiatrist or just hope it gets better on its own. And that was all Monday.

The next day Hermana Dangerfield still wasn't feeling well so we went back to the health clinic and set another appointment. While we were there one of the secretaries leaned over to another one and was like, "Have you talked to an Emily Pratt lately?" It took me a minute because I haven't heard my first name in like a month, but I was like, "Oh that's me!" and then someone made me fill out some forms and stuff and set an appointment for the next day at 1:30. We left and then later we went back again for Hermana Dangerfield's appointment. It took ages because they had to take some of her blood and stuff. It was probably about an hour just sitting in the waiting room. I was talking to some Elders and on of them had lived in Maryland, which, if you remember your geography, is right by Virginia. Hermana Dangerfield set another appointment for later that day to see the results of her blood test or whatever it was. 

We went back for Hermana Dangerfield's appointment and she was fine.

The next day we went to where the shuttle picks people up at 2:55, after hosting some new missionaries in some thousand degree weather, and went to the foot doctor. There were 8 missionaries in the clinic throughout the time we were there. He took some x-rays of my foot to see if there was a stress fracture, which there wasn't. (Apparently some other bone had been fractured a long time ago though that we never noticed. Who knew. But that wasn't the problem) He said it is probably something with the soft tissue or something. No one really knows. But he gave me a prescription and some instructions to soak it in alternating hot and cold water half an hour twice a day (when I'm supposed to do that I haven't really worked out yet, I only have some time right before bed).

Then we got back and the health clinic was about to close so we ran up there and had them fax the prescription to the BYU health clinic and got some basins to put water in. We got on another shuttle to the place where they filled my prescription and then the shuttle never came to pick us up so we just walked back.

Anyways, that was my adventure of the week. Got to leave the MTC for a while, health clinic 8 times (I may have forgotten to write about a time but oh well) and yeah.

So for the fourth of July we went to a devotional of sorts where we sang some patriotic songs very loudly and then watched 17 Miracles. It was good but super sad. Then we went outside and watched Stadium of Fire from afar. Curfew was extended til 11. It was exciting. Unfortunately we were all super tired yesterday because of it. But oh well.

Our room is really crowded right now because half of the district ahead of us got extended because they are waiting for Visas. They got reassigned to Washington. There are 12 people in our tiny little room! Probably 13 on Tuesday. Ugh.

So today is Hermana Bryan's (our other teacher) last day with us. Her brother is coming home so she is going to Las Vegas for our last week. We got her a journal and are going to write nice stuff in it for her. Our last lesson with Camila (AKA Hermana Bryan) went really well. She is getting baptized (So is Everardo) and we asked her to share her testimony with us and she did; it was really powerful. Simple, but often those are more powerful than the elaborate ones.

I am really excited to finally start teaching real investigators! I cannot wait to get out into the field. I am sick of the MTC but I'm really going to miss my district. They are just like my family. But when I get out there I'll finally be living a real life, outside of the square mile of the MTC! That's exciting. But my testimony has been growing tons and my faith and trust in God has been as well. This is a fantastic experience for me and I'm working on enjoying every minute of it. It is a big challenge, but I'm learning so much and growing so fast! I never knew how much I could cram into my head in such a short amount of time without exploding. The only explanation is divine help.

I love the Gospel and I love teaching it! I can't wait to finally be teaching real people that actually don't know the truth. My Spanish is getting way better, I can understand pretty much the things that people say, and get a point across pretty well.

AHHH this is so exciting! I have to go though. Bye, love you all!