Hello all!
This has been an interesting week. It is sooo different out here than it was in Liberty. But that is good! Keeps me on my toes. Some of the main differences:
-Distance between places. The closest town we really go in our area is 20 mintues away, and the farthest is about an hour. Since we have limited miles each month, we have to depend on members a lot to get us around! You actually have to plan in travel time, which is a new concept for me since we never drove anywhere that took more than 10 mintues in my last area.
-How nice people are! I guess I am used to people rejecting us and slamming the door in our faces (or at least not being willing to listen to us), but here people are super nice. Even if they aren't interested a lot of the time they will still talk to you anyway. Which leads to...
-People talk a lot here! People love to talk to you and share their whole life stories which is fun, but we are learning ways to tactfully let people know we have to go! It has been fun.
But all in all, it has been a very eye-opening experience for me. Who knew that I would ever be living out in the country of Kansas. Not me, that's for sure! I am almost positive I would have never had an experience like this without serving a mission.
I feel like I don't have a lot to say today, and I don't know why. Usually my emails are the longest things ever. Hmm. Well, there was kind of a big deal thing that happened this week! I kind of hit my 6 month mark! Really I hit my 5 month mark, but the release date they gave me at the beginning of my mission is before 18 months are over, so if you look at it that way it was kind of my 6 month mark. So basically 1/3 of my mission is already over. What? When did that happen? I do NOT feel like I have been out that long. Especially coming to this new area where I don't know anyone and the people are so different, in some ways I feel like I am starting all over again. One thing I am loving about having a companion that hasn't been out very much longer than me is that a lot more than my other companions, I feel like we learn a lot together. She served at the VC in Independence before coming here and me at the jail, so we both had a similar shock in coming here and it being so different. It has been very helpful to talk to her and talk about things we both need to work on. I have realized that with my other companions, they have been so much more experienced than me and have tended to dominate things a little bit as far as talking to people and teaching and stuff like that. But I am having to really work harder at doing that now since both of us are less experienced. It is good for me.
Well, some good stories. So this week we brought a member along and spent the day in Blue Mound, Kansas. Let me tell you what. This town seriously has a main street, then 4 criss-cross streets on each side. So there are probably like less than 30 blocks in the whole town. You can walk from one side to the other in probably 5 minutes. It is so great. Everyone knows each other and everything about each other. It is so funny because it is just out in the middle of nowhere. I can't really describe how great it is to you. We talked to this one lady that knows everyone in town and was more than willing to introduce us to everyone.
We had a hilarious experience the other day. So it has been snowing, and then the last couple of days have been sunny and the snow melts. Of course, there are a lot of dirt roads around so this means lots and lots of mud. I have never seen so much mud in my life. Anyway, we were
with a member and trying to find a former investigator. We had an address, but didn't know where it was. We plugged it into her GPS and found this dirt road that seemed to be what we wanted. So we start going down it and 5 minutes later when we got to the first house, we knocked but nobody was home. We decided to abandon the idea and turn around. So we try, but of couse Kayla (the member that was driving) accidentally drove right into a huge mud hole and we got stuck. So then we got out and pushed her out. Actually, Sister Adamson mainly pushed her out, I kind of helped. It was awesome- she was at the front of the car pushing, her boots totally in the mud, and she was wearing a cardigan and pearls. Classic sister missionary. The things we do in cardigans and pearls. I guess I can tell you a good experience we had this week. So last week we had gone to see a new investigator, but when we got to his house his mom answered and said she had moved in and he had moved out to another town (this happens all the time here). She said kind of where he was, but didn't know his address, but we knew that would be fine because we could just ask around. Of course when we got near where he moved to we knocked one door and asked and the man knew. So anyway, we went over and it turned out he had moved in with his girlfried/fiance/wife (not really sure) and her 3 girls. We went in and talked to them, and ended up mainly teaching the girls the plan of salvation. They loved it! When we went back this week we talked about faith and used some scriptures from the Book of Mormon. We had been kind of hesitant last time to give them a Book of Mormon because the mom hadn't really participated in the lesson and we couldn't just give them one without asking her. But we felt like we needed to give them one this time, so we asked the mom and she said it was fine. It was so cool because the oldest girl who I think is 12 was so excited to read the chapter we left them that she almost forgot to say goodbye to us before she ran back into her room to read it. Awesome! That is the excitement we should all have about the Book of Mormon. So I am excited to go back and see them soon and see how things went!
Speaking of the Book of Mormon (I guess I did have something to say today), I am getting close to finishing it again. I think I mentioned that in our mission we are reading it as a mission the first 60 days of the year. It has been really neat to read through it so fast- that is something I have never done before. It has helped me kind of solidify a little bit the stories and the people and the timeline. And I have picked up on a lot of things I didn't before. I have been in 3rd Nephi the last couple of days, and one thing I think is so cool is how powerful the words of Christ are. Reading the whole book is powerful, but actually reading His words to the people I think you can feel the spirit even stronger. If you are reading that book with a sincere heart, real intent and faith in Christ like Moroni says, there is no way you can't feel the spirit! There is no way you can not know it is true. I know that that book will get us closer to God than anything else. It is powerful! And it changes lives. It has changed mine.
Well, not much else to say. Pray for me! I love you all.
-Sister Hafen
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