Week 4 - Liberty Jail

October 5, 2009

Hello family and friends!!!!!

   I am here! Missouri is just great so far! So big news...are you ready...I am serving in Liberty Jail! Yeah, who saw that one coming? I think what happened is that there was supposed to be another sister come with our group, and she was going to be VC. But she didn't come, so here i am! The president told me that I was going to Liberty and I just laughed to myself, especially after what I said last week.

But VC sisters ARE hardcore! We spend 30 hours a week at the jail, and the rest of the time we proselyte. So we do a shift in the morning or the evening and the rest of the day we go out. We also have one full proselyting day, and then on P-days we don't go in. AND we are still expected to keep the same standards as the rest of the mission, aka 20 lessons a week and have a baptismal goal for every month. So we don't just sit around all day and do nothing! It is actually pretty nice though because we are allowed to read more books than just the missionary library (because we need more history for our tours) and since it isn't summer right now the jail isn't as busy, so we have a lot of study time. Also we give the tours alone, so we have more personal time than most missionaries. I haven't given my first tour yet, but I am working on my lesson plan and hope to start soon! I am actually really excited!

Well, that is the most pressing news. But there is so much more to tell! Sorry if this is freak long, which it will be. Anyway, so on Wednesday I woke up at like 5 and we got to the bus by 6. It was a pretty miserable day and freezing! But we drove up to SL, and it was weird to remember i was actually in Provo, not just the bubble of the MTC. I got to talk to my parents at the airport, which was great. It was a pretty short flight to Kansas City, and President and Sister VanKomen were there waiting for us. I just love them! There were 3 sisters and like 12 elders in our group, and since we (the sisters) are special we got to ride in their car with them while the elders had to pile into a van. :) Sister VK is so sweet and nice and just loving. President is the same way, but a little more soft-spoken. They are amazing, I am so blessed to have them. We went to the mission home which is this super nice home near Independence. Again the sisters were spoiled, and we actually got our own rooms for the night! They have rooms that general authorities usually stay in when they come, and we got to use them. Awesome. But anyway, that day we just had some training, got to meet the assistants and office staff, and ate really good food. We even had some free time, which was just weird. I didn't know what to do with myself. We all had interviews with the president and it was great.

Then the next day was transfer day! Can I just tell you how great it was to meet my comp? So we are sitting there waiting (in horrible rain and wind by the way) and all of a sudden these sisters run over and one is hiding behind a big sign that says "Sister Hafen?" What a cutie. She also decorated my planner with cute paper so we have cute matching planners. Anyway, her name is Sister Blunt and she is AWESOME! We have so much fun together. We are really similar in a lot of ways, and actually have really similar senses of humor. I am so blessed to have her as my companion!!!!! But anyway, after I met her we went to our house, which is right behind the Liberty Jail visitors' center and we share it with the other 5 sisters that serve in the jail. We were scheduled for that morning, so we went over and she showed me around and i followed/watched her as she did a tour (there was only one while we were there). Then after we went out and visited people! So crazy. We aren't allowed to tract after dark, but we visited some less active people and some people we are teaching.

The next day was our full proselyting day! We had I think 4 appointments, and 3 of the 4 cancelled on us. Then seriously everyone we tried to visit all day just wasn't home, or was busy, or basically just didn't want to see us. We went tracting a little bit and no one was really interested. Can i just say how funny it is to see people's reactions to us? I was commenting yesterday how hilarious it is. Here we are, 2 cute little nice innocent looking girls, but the second they see our clothes and tags people start hiding and avoiding us. It is so funny. I mean, what are we going to do to you? Anyway, I'm sure I will have many good stories to share with you in the very near future. One funny one- yesterday we were tracting a little and we got to the door of this man who was just inside painting. He comes to the door and is smiling, joking with us, and even opened both doors all the way, which is unusual for people from what I have seen (people have a screen door too because of the bugs). So we are just chatting, then all of a sudden out of nowhere he just says "Well I have to go bye" and closes the door on us. It was so random! People are crazy. I was just laughing though because I thought it was hilarious.

Oh man though, I do have a good/awesome story to tell you! So the one appointment we have had that hasn't cancelled since I have been here is Paul. Paul is a man in like his 30s or 40s that is agnostic, aka he doesn't really believe in God. So Sis. Blunt and her old companion tracted into him and have been teaching him. He is really good and keeping his commitments, which is key for them to progress. When we talked to him on Friday he was struggling with Alma 32 and how he can know there is a God. Sis. Blunt made him a promise that if he would pray and have an open heart and mind and come to General Conference with that question in his mind, it would be answered. He said he would come on Sunday but not on Saturday, and we told him we would listen for him on Saturday. And oh my gosh. Did you watch Saturday conference???!!! I don't know if it was just that I was focused on his question about God's existence or what, but the whole morning session was amazing. We were stoked. And then we watched Elder Hales' talk. Wow. It was crazy-he seriously answered every question Paul had and talked specifically about things we had talked about the day before with him. It was absolutely amazing. We are going to have Paul watch it on Tuesday and see what he thinks (ps Paul did go on Sunday and had a good experience). Because really, it is a direct answer to prayer! We are excited and Sis. Blunt really thinks this is a break-through with him. So we shall see what happens!

Anyway, we have a bunch of appointments set up for this week, and I am excited to get in there and really start teaching! This week is going to be amazing!

Love, Sister Hafen