Week 7

Hi guys! I am actually saying hi from Pittsburgh now!!! crazy!!!

okay so for christmas: we're allowed to skype for an hour. I don't know exactly what time. Sometime between probably 10 to 12 I will call you.

Okay on to Pittsburgh! So the night that we went out with the mission president and his wife, they actually just took us to an outlook point so we could see pittsburgh from far away! It was really really pretty! But we didn't actually go into the city. 

And then we spent the night at their house that night and went and did some training the next day. And then we had the transfer meeting, and I met my companion! So there were two spanish sisters coming in, but only one spanish sister available to be a trainer here! So one of us would be paired with her and one would be paired with an english trainer but go to an area that had some spanish speakers. But I got lucky and got paired with the spanish sister! So right now, there are only 7 spanish sisters in our whole mission and 20 spanish elders! So it definitely is not a very big spanish speaking area. We only have 2 spanish groups that meet for church in our whole mission, and these are not branches. Groups. So yeah, there are not a lot of spanish speakers. And I am actually in an english area. But we figure that there is a reason that there were 2 spanish sisters sent to this area, so there has got to be some spanish speaking people we can help here! But it's nice because we still do our companion prayers in spanish and everything, and my companion actually has really good spanish! she used to be in an area where like 40 or 50 percent of the people were puerto rican, so she said her spanish really improved there. 

So I am in butler! It is about an hour northeast of pittsburgh. And it is a car area. ugh I REALLY wanted a walk area but it's okay. There actually is a walk area in downtown butler, but it is an elders area. And so we have the area surrounding downtown butler basically. It's actually a really big area. So there are four missionaries in our ward. the 2 elders and then me and my companion. the elders are really funny, and we actually see them a lot because we have most of the same dinner appointments, and we have to drive them to all the dinners and take them shopping on pday and stuff. the ward is awesome! all of the dinners we have had have been so good! But I didn't know I could actually get sick of cookies. We get so many sweets it's crazy! The people are so nice here though! They always give us food to take home, and one family gave us a ton of fruit to take home! My favorite! And it was good stuff. Like pineapples, blackberries, raspberries, grapes, oranges. yum. Oh guess what!!! I ate my first bite of red meat in probably like 2 years!!!! Yesterday for lunch, this family invited us over and they were having prime rib. And I felt really bad not taking any of it because they obviously thought it was an awesome lunch. So I took the smallest piece I could find and ate most of it. It was so weird!!!! It wasn't too bad though. 

ugh you want to hear something awful? I have had like the worst car sickness EVER here! Like on the first night with the mission president and his wife, we were driving in there car with them and I was in the back. And I felt so so sick. I thought for sure I was going to throw up. And we had to stop because sister johnson (mission president's wife) had to get out and get something from like the dry cleaners or something, and I felt so sick so I asked if I could step out for a second. I have literally not felt that carsick in so long. And then she made me sit in the front seat, so I felt pretty dumb haha. But it helped a lot to sit up front. And then when my companion and I were driving from pittsburgh where we had the transfer meeting to butler, we had to stop so I could get out of the car for a little bit because I was feeling really carsick again. The first few days it was horrible. Pretty much every time we got in the car I dreaded it because I felt so so so so so sick. I think it is because there are basically so many curvy roads everywhere. And also, I think it was because I hadn't really been in a car for 6 weeks while I was in the ccm, and so I think that made it worse. But it has gotten better now. I only feel carsick when we get lost or right after we eat normally. but it is getting better! so thank you mom for that awesome motion sickness gene!!!!

okay my companion! is hermana tolman. she is from south carolina and went to byu for summer and fall 2013. she actually lived in the same building in summer as I did for fall! And we know a few of the same people. she has been out for 11 months and is awesome! she is so funny! And president johnson told me that I probably got the best trainer in the mission! She is great. I think we are going to have a lot of fun together!

Butler is a pretty nice area. It is definitely not the big city I wanted to serve in, but I hope I get to serve in pittsburgh one day! And I'm really sad I didn't get a walk area, but it is okay. It is so much harder here than in the ccm already! I get wayyyy more tired during the day. and we have four hours of study every single day! So we don't even leave our apartment until 1. so we wake up and exercise and get ready and have personal study at 8, companion study at 9, an hour of training at 10, then normally lunch at 11, and then language study at 12. so then we leave at 1. It's really hard having to do that much study every day especially when most other missionaries only have to do 2 hours of study but it is still great! It's hard because I feel like we don't get a ton of time to do actual missionary work every day, but I think I will start to get used to it.

so for investigators we are teaching. we have a few. the hoy family. so right before I got here, shana, the daughter who is 15 was baptized. her 14 year old sister, tiera, has a baptismal date set for january 3 but she is still waiting for an answer on if the bom and church is true, so we are not sure if she will be ready for that date yet or not. There is also a 13 year old sister, shekera, who has been to church a few times I think but is not really interested in listening to the lessons. They also have a 16 year old brother, lamont, who also does not listen to the lessons. The mother, teresa, does listen to the lessons, and I think she knows that what we are teaching is true. She has not been to church though because their car is getting fixed and she doesn't want to accept a ride from anybody. But shana and tiera come to church every week, and they get a ride from a family in the ward. And the dad, marvin, also won't listen to the lessons, but we are hoping he will start listening soon! 

then we have john ventana. He was a media referral and requested a book of mormon online. He wants to still be taught, but we have to teach him after the holidays. But hermana tolman said he seems like he is really interested.

And then we have nick demartini. His wife, jan, was recently reactivated, and we go over to their house every sunday night to read out of the book of mormon with him. He is not interested in the lessons yet, but he does love to read the book of mormon and he does pray on his own, so that is a good start. I just met them last night and they are awesome! we are actually going over to their house on christmas morning to skype.

We have been trying to pick up some new investigators but aren't having any success. There are a few spanish prospects though! One is elizabeth. We have had a few appointments with her to teach her, but she is never there! But we are going to keep trying! Another one is Vimarie. She was taught about the book of mormon, and we also had a return appointment with her, but we went back,and she had to leave to pick up her daughter from school. But we are going to keep trying her too. Nick demartini actually knows both of them because he works with their husbands. And we found out from him last night that elizabeth actually has cancer. We think. So that makes sense because she told us that she wasn't feeling well. I don't know what stage of cancer she is in or what, but hopefully we can teach her about the gospel because it would probably really help her.

We went tracting!!! We are actually sharing "He is the Gift." Have you guys all seen the video on mormon.org? If not you should definitely watch it! It is really good to share because it is pretty non-denominational and is just a great message about christ being the reason for christmas, so people are pretty receptive to it. Tons of people are strong catholics though here, so that makes it difficult. But we found one lady, Carol! She told us that she would be willing to learn more but after the holidays because she just has a ton going on right now. So she invited us inside though and gave us her phone number and told us to call her in january. I hope she actually wants to listen though! I am excited to call her back! That is the only time we have tracted though. sister tolman said we try to do everything we can before tract because it is so ineffective. ryan did you tract a lot in your mission?

we are also trying to help a few less actives. one family, the charles family, is really close to reactivation. we are going over there christmas night at around 7 I think actually. So the people that live at home now is the mom, and then her two daughters, brandy and hope. She has more kids but they are all grown and married. And then we have kristen green, who just needs to realize why church is important and make the decision to come. But we go see her every week and share a thought with her. She is probably late 20s and lives with her parents, who are also inactive.

The work is pretty slow here, but we are trying to find new investigators. This mission is supposedly pretty hard and has a low number of baptisms, but we are going to make this a great transfer and get a lot of people to teach or a lot of less actives closer to coming back to church! 

we are also teaching a lady english! they actually tracted her out right before I got here. They found her daughter, nora. but they speak chinese!!! so we don't really know how we are going to teach her, but we will figure it out. we found out last week that nora's mom would be there on sunday, so we went last night. we knocked on the door, and then nora and her mom (whose name is cicy) walked up the front porch steps! cicy invited us in and pulled out her google translate and that is how we communicated with her! we watched a mormon.org video with her that had chinese subtitles. she told us that she wants to learn english and the bible, so we are hopefully going to find her a spanish book of mormon. It is going to be pretty hard to figure out how to teach her english or even anything about the church but we are going to try! nora  speaks a little bit of english. But we told them to go to mormon.org and read more about it before we go back next sunday. so hopefully they will do that.

and dad, I am going to buy a warmer jacket today. right after this actually. we have some service set up for christmas eve and christmas day. we are going to go to a few nursing homes and carol to the people there or do some visits, so that should be really fun. we have also gone caroling once with the elders in our ward to some houses here in butler. it was a really good experience. we sang silent night and the first noel. One lady offered us cookies, another lady gave us candy, and someone else offered us money. I was really bummed that we couldn't take the money ha just kidding. But we are going caroling tonight and tomorrow night as well. president johnson really encouraged us to make this christmas all about serving and make sure we go to some nursing homes and do lots of caroling, so we are trying to do all of that! and after we carol to the houses, we share a he is the gift pass along with them.

well this is a really really long email, and there is even so many more funny stories to write, but it is really hard to keep going. it honestly is really hard though especially because I feel like we're not having a ton of success, and I feel like there is so much more I can do, but I know that I am in butler for a reason and that I just need to keep working hard. It's hard though because I feel like I'm barely working because we can't even leave our apartment until 1! But i am just going to try to keep working harder and harder every day.

I can't wait to skype you guys on christmas! is everyone going to skype? okay well love you all! sorry this email is really long and kind of all over the place, but I haven't really emailed in two weeks so I just had so much to say and everything is so new now! But it really is awesome here! Oh one night our heat stopped working and it was literally 50 degrees in our apartment all night and during study time. it was horrible! but then the landlord came and fixed it the next day. so I'm glad our heater works now! okay well I will see you guys in like 3 days!!!! love you!

hermana davis