Whaddup!!

South Man!

Guys. I am so tired. Holy. I don't think I've ever been this tired.
You better believe that my love for diet coke came back with a vengeance this week. I spent the last two weeks of Middletown almost-sick and the city kicked my butt enough for a full fledged cold, so that's pretty awesome too.

Thursday we pretty much planned all day. I needed to learn about the people here and also about the sisters we are over. We planned our splits. We have to go on 5 splits in 6 weeks and do 5 interviews.
So... That was fun. And a little stressful. We had to get groceries too. I was formally introduced to Trader Joes! It's so awesome. But then we had to carry our groceries on the subway. Not so awesome. My arms were SO tired.

We went to dinner at our ward mission leaders house. His last name is Amiolemeh. Say that 10 times fast! His wife served in the Ogden mission and she spent a lot of time in Logan :) they have three of the cutest little boys I have ever seen.

Friday we had a district APF so I got to see some of the missionaries I am serving around. I don't actually know any of them so it's fun to get to know them. Before the APF we went to a less actives house in the projects to help her clean. The projects here are much nicer than the Bronx, so that's nice. Her apartment was something else though.
Wow. That's all I can say. She is so so so sweet though. Friday we also saw Breena who is one of our investigators with a bap date. She's really spunky and she loves the Book of Mormon :)

Saturday we took our other investigator to a baptism!! They are both teenage girls that are so amazing :) Lilliana is 16, she is the one that came to the baptism. She loved it!!! She told us that it wasn't scary at all. We told her of course it isn't scary!

Saturday we also had our first STL interview with a companionship in Harlem. One of them is a brand new missionary. I'm sure to her we seem like we have been missionaries for forever but really... We still have no idea what we are doing. I feel like I can relate to her a lot because I feel like such a NEWB here. I am so directionally challenged... I never have any idea where I am going. I don't know any of the people still. But it's fine. I'm learning :)

Sunday was so crazy. We had to pick Lilliana up for church and the train was down so we had to leave really early. Well we ended up being
15 minutes late for sacrament which was crappy for two reasons. 1: I didn't get to meet ANYONE and 2: it's hard to be spiritually prepared for the sacrament when you make it for the last verse of the sacrament hymn. But it was fine. Then after sacrament we had to teach gospel principles. What an adventure. Our class had two investigators in it... Both of whom had just walked in from the street practically. One of them was missing a few screws and kept talking about how he was coming out of being homeless... "Being homeless is NO joke" oh really?
And the other one knew so much it was like he didn't know anything at all.. You know what I mean? So we tried to teach them about the Holy Ghost with the help of two members who were visiting from France and didn't speak hardly any English.

After gospel principles we had to take Lilliana home so I also missed relief society... So I literally know like no one! We have met a few families from dinner appointments. The ward is really really young and there are a thousand screaming kids. All of the parents want us to teach the kids at dinner appointments, which sounds nice in theory but it's always insane! I haven't taught one child over the age of seven so their attention span is approximately 2.7 seconds. This ward is probably the best birth control. Ever.

Monday we had about 1000 meetings. We left our dinner calendar at the church and the temple closes at like 3 so we left our apartment at 8:30. We had a conference call with president at 9:45 which lasted an hour and then we had district meeting at 11 and then we ate lunch as a zone and then we had to meet with the zone leaders to plan our APF so we didn't do any real work until 3. :/ we met the Fords who are a less active family. Sister ford is so sweet. When we got there she was packing up food to take to some people in a nursing home, so we didn't stay too long.

Our dinner appointment was someone that sister Campbell didn't know, so it was an adventure for both of us! Turns out her husband was out of town so she invited us over for FHE :) she is SO cute. She just barely got married and now they are living in a tiny apartment that costs an astronomical amount. She was born and raised in Utah. It was such a tender mercy to meet her because I feel like the ward kind of hates us. Or is very indifferent to us at least. That's a HUGE adjustment from Middletown.

Then we went to do a less active look up. We went to an apartment with a doorman, so he had to call up and tell the lady we were there. She said she'd come down and meet us and I was so surprised. I was waiting for her to tell the doorman to tell us to get lost :) anyways, she came down and introduced herself and then asked us what she could do for us. We told her we were trying to get to know the members on our list and that we'd like to share a message with her. She was pretty hard to read but I felt like she was just looking for an opportunity to tell us off.

We asked her a few questions and found out she had been baptized when she was 12. Then I asked her what role religion has played in her life since then and she just looked at me. She said "how old are you?"
"What was your name again?" "Do you REALLY think this is the best environment to ask me that?" I was kind of terrified so I just apologized and told her if she wasn't comfortable then she didn't have to answer it. Then I told her that our purpose is to help people come closer to Christ (because you can't help someone if you don't even know where to start, right?) and then she asked me if I thought she needed to be closer to Christ. By then I was plum annoyed so I told her everyone can be closer to Christ, it's not like there's a limit.
She stopped after that :)

She ended up being really sweet and opening up to us a little.
Hopefully we will be able to go back and visit her again soon. I'll be sure to keep my mouth shut this time :)

Tuesday was kind of a bust. Here are the highlights:
I ate street meat and YES it is as sketchy as it sounds.

We celebrated Karens birthday with her. Karen is the sweetest craziest black lady. Almost crazier than sister Griffin from Olmstead.
She didn't want a cake for her birthday so we took over fruit and dip and she loved it :) I can't even remember all of the crazy things she told us. She made rice and she needed a guinea pig to test it. There were four of us in the room and when she asked for someone to try it we all just looked at each other. She ended up making EVERYONE try it even though we told her every time that it wasn't quite done and it needed to cook a little longer. :)

South Manhattan is going to take some adjusting. I like it... But I'm not sure that I love it yet. I love sister Campbell. She's great :) I don't know what I'm doing as a sister training leader still... But so far it has been fun :) the other missionaries here are awesome and they work super hard.

Ooh! I found a relative! There are Toones in the Morningside Heights ward! I talked to brother Toone and his family is from the Toones in Canada.... I think he said he is from the first wife of John Toone that crossed the plains. Small world, no?

Anyways. That's really all I have to say. That, and I love you all :) time sure does fly. If you could find the "slow" button I would sure appreciate it.

Love,
Sister Toone