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