In The Field!

Huge announcement!! I made it to the Oklahoma Tulsa Mission!!! After having my flight from Salt Lake to Dallas cancelled and my flight from Dallas to Tulsa delayed, we got into Tulsa about 9:30 PM. We were supposed to have arrived at about noon but we couldn't get on a flight from SLC to Dallas until 2:30 PM. So we just relaxed and were bored out of our minds at the Salt Lake Airport. I did however get a surprise visit from my grandma who had flown in from Reno! That was way cool and I was super happy to see her! We got to the mission home and we had some sloppy joes and potato salad and then got our luggage sorted out into the different trailers that would be taking us to our different destinations the next day (Friday). Then we all gathered in the living room and President Merkley gave us all our first assignments! I am in a lovely town called Bella Vista, Arkansas. It is in northwest Arkansas. My companion is Sister Jessica Knutson from North Carolina and I LOVE HER!!!! She has been out a year and goes home on Halloween. We get along so well and we are already best friends! Bella Vista is probably the prettiest place I've ever been. There are so many trees and I just love it. I've told Sister Knutson that I'm going to move out here someday. Pretty much everybody in the ward in some way works for Walmart. Walmart is huge out here.

We live with a member family. They are super awesome! The Sperry's. Speaking of which, my new address is:

 

22 Marionet Ln

Bella Vista, AR 72714

 

That will be my address for AT LEAST the next 6 weeks while I'm training. The Sperry's have 5 kids ranging from ages 12 to 3. So between Taylor's age and Keira's age! They are so cute and I love all of them! Brianna would absolutely LOVE their house. Sister Sperry is so crafty and she decorates her house so well and it always reminds me of Brianna and how much she would enjoy having a house like that and decorating it herself.

I've been told many times that I'm in the best area in the mission and it's only going to get worse because the other areas are not as good. The members in the ward are way awesome at doing member missionary work and we get most of our referrals from them. We have a baptism date set on June 9 for a lady named Sara. I haven't met her yet though. She has been out of town but we are hoping to get two appointments with her this week so we can get her on the right track to baptism.

We cover the Bella Vista ward and the Rogers YSA Branch. So we kind of cover the whole stake when it comes to YSA. And the stake is huge. There are 9 stakes in the mission. It is a huge mission. When we do transfers, usually in other missions all the missionaries will meet in one place and then go their separate ways with their new companion but here, we have like 6 "transfer points" where missionaries will get dropped off and picked up according to where they are going. Does that make sense? Sorry if it doesn't. So every six weeks, the APs are on the road from 8am-5pm just driving and transferring missionaries from place to place. It is quite crazy.

Our progressing investigators are awesome. They are a couple that have a 3 year old boy and an 18 month old boy. I'm pretty sure the only thing that is keeping them from being baptized is the fact that they want to read the Book of Mormon and have a testimony of it before they are baptized. They come to church every week and love it.

We also have another lady who is not progressing but both her and her husband were at church yesterday! Which is huge because the reason she doesn't want to get baptized is because she wants her less active husband to baptize her but he is not active and had no interest at all to get active again. But he came to church yesterday so we are meeting with her sometime this week and we hope that it will go well.

Yesterday we had a pretty interesting experience. We went to go visit this lady who was a referral from a member. We've been meaning to go visit her for the last couple days but we haven't had a chance. So last night we went to go see her and as we were getting close to her house we had to go through this really woody area and it was so scary and we both got the biggest feeling that we needed to leave and not visit her. It was probably one of the worst feelings I've had. So we left and we don't know if we are going to go back or not. The lady is moving soon and we were just going to go and see if she needed any help so we will see what happens.

We also have a lady who was a Head Quarters Referral which means that someone entered something online and said to send the missionaries to her house. We went and found her on Saturday and we set up an appointment to go visit with her on Thursday! She seems like a sweet lady and we think she has about 4 kids. We only saw two of them but I'm pretty sure there were more inside. The ones outside looked about 3 and 9. Both boys. She moved her about a month ago from Columbus and the missionaries had come and helped her move but that was about it. They didn't have an opportunity to teach her anything. So we get to! Hopefully we can get through to her!

There's also a man we visited yesterday. He has been meeting with the missionaries for FOREVER! I'm serious. Like 30 years. He just doesn't like the whole Joseph Smith and modern day prophets thing. He says that he believes in prophets but that they aren't here on the earth today. So we don't know what to do about that. We'll see. Any suggestions? :)

Well, I think that's it for today. I'm doing great and loving Bella Vista! I hope all is well back at home and I hope that I get some letters soon! :) Thanks for all you do!

LOVE YOU ALL!!

SEE YOU SOON THEN!!!

 

Love, Sister Ashley Pahl