Drum Roll Please

Well Everyone! I'm in my new area! Sister Draeger (from Lehi) and I are opening a new sisters area!! We are in the Maplewood 2 East area which is in Houston. This is Sister Draegers last transfer so I'm going to be learning lots from her. She is great! Yep, I'm now officially a city girl. I didn't realize how big Houston is. ITS HUGE!!!!!! There are lots and lots of different people here. When you hear Houston is the Melting pot of the USA it's very true. I think in some areas we serve in we are the only white girls walking around. haha It is a very different feeling from South Shore. I was definetly spoiled getting to be there my first 2 transfers. Here there are lots of apartments and the streets are like a mini Mexico. But the area has lots of potential. So are area was an elders area, but President Saylin told Sister Draeger that he had a very spiritual experience that we were supposed to be here. So here we are!

We drove in on Wednesday night to our apartment, and met our new roommates--the roaches, which are NASTY! Can you imagine me here with these roaches all over?! I could barely kill a bitty spider down in my room before my mission. I'm going to have to buck up and get up the guts to kill them. I'm going to miss being in a nice big house that is clean. :)

Oh and Houston isn't very smart with their streets. They are all names and we don't have a GPS so we had to go get some key maps and now it takes us 20 minutes longer to find where we are going cause we have to find it on the map first... haha we look like little grannies with maps all over trying to find where we are going. The first night we were here we got lost out on our bikes. It was 8:45 pm and we were supposed to be in by 9. We were told to go down this one street and so we were biking for awhile then when we didn't recognize where we were we asked these other people and they said no no no you are going the wrong way by 4 miles!!! So somehow we made it back by 9, but it was a close one! Being in Houston without direction can be an adventure.

The ward here is soo excited to have sisters in the ward. I've never heard from so many people how excited they are. The relief society president came up to us and told us we were an answer to her prayers. We are hoping we are all they hope for. There is lots of work to be done. And lots of in-active members to bring back. I guess a few years ago some missionaries held up signs saying "if you join our church you'll get free welfare" so all these people were baptized and now they are all in-active. It's sad. But that is about how this mission was before President Saylin came. We are also serving with 2 sets of elders in the ward, and a set of senior sisters. There are lots of missionaries in this ward!

This ward is very young. Most of the ward is medical students and their little family from BYU. There are going to be lots of doctors coming out of this ward. The bishop said it's a high turnover rate cause they come and go so quickly. I always think of Chalece and Mikes family fitting right in here cause of their experience in Arizona. We actually had a few young moms come out with us this week to try some potential investigators and I kept feeling a bond to them because of Chalece being through what they are going through.

I've found out that when you're a member of the church this world is very small. 2 of the sisters in this ward know 2 of my coaches from back home. And I found this out within 2 hours of each other. One knows Nikki Tanner (my JV volleyball coach) and the other knows Griffins hurdle coach, Kelly Schoney. Crazy huh? I can't wait to see who else knows someone I know.

Well the first few days here involved lots of Finding! We didn't have any appointments the first few days cause, but we've found some awesome investigators and we are seeing miracles already in our area. We met Sheillah who is from Kenya. She is a college student out here and her family is still back in Kenya. She is very interested in knowing how the gospel can bless her family. We also met Fabrice who is from the Congo. We met him outside his house the other day and he offered to feed us when we came back to teach him and his family so we accepted (bad mistake). We get there yesterday and he pulls out "lunch" 3 raw WHOLE fishes. He takes them out to the grill and sticks them on. I'm thinking in my head.... "I cannot get myself to eat that" Luckily my companion is smart and said after we taught him that we had another appointment so we had to take the food to go. I took a picture of it when we got home I'll have to send it to y'all. I think we are going to get fed some pretty interesting things here.... Hopefully my stomach can handle it. BUT if we have to do it to get these people to let us in we will do it. Fabrice has a family of 8 and 7 of them are baptismal age!! We really feel like this is the miracle family we have been praying for so keep them in your prayers.  :)

Anyways things are going good! It's been hard, but we've really been able to see the hand of the Lord in our work. Keep our area in your prayers!

I pray for you all every day! Stay safe!!!!

I LOVE YOU!!!!!!

Erianne