Saturday, March 9, 2013

Porterville California Week One Email (or week 7?)

Family!!

Oh how I miss you all!  You have NO idea lol. But I have survived
another week well actually my first in the mission field. Well my new
preparation day is Monday (we can't call them P-day here). When they
said that we were an EXACTLY obedient mission that was no joke. One
minute late is disobedient. It is really a challenge here. REALLY a
challenge. And I wouldn't say it is so much the aspect of exact
obedience, although I am sure that contributes. But life is good and I
am trying to keep a smile on my face. My trainer is Sister Martinez.
She grew up hearing Spanish but never spoke it till the mission but
she is still considered "a native speaker". Lots of stories. The
branch I work in is tiny so small but the members are the strongest
most faithful people I have ever met and they give EVERYTHING they
have to furthering the kingdom. I hope someday I grow into the type of
missionary that they think I am and deserve. No weird foods yet (thank
goodness) just lots of delicious Mexican style dishes and eating with
my fingers. The members here are really poor ... it makes me want to
cry when I think about how most of them live, but they still feed us.
They will have us sit in their broken lawn chairs in a dark room while
they stand and wait. They have SO much faith. We don't have many
investigators and those we have haven't been keeping appointments. So
I have only been a part of teaching two lessons since arriving. We
contact/tract a lot (three hours a day). It is different but not in a
bad way. It surprises me the people that I talk to now and don't even
bat an eyelash. However when we contact it seems to be all English
speakers and so they become someone else's investigator/referral but


it is still cool to see how they are really prepared.

So my companion doesn't have a license so I get to (have to...) drive
everywhere. BUT we have a set of Elders in our branch as well that
just got added this last transfer and so we trade days on the car with
them. Yep I got three more blisters walking on their 1st day with the
car hahaha. And I am already breaking in that bike. I actually rode it
here (public library). Kinda scary to climb on a bike in a skirt and
bike to a place you don't know where you are going and not to mention
I've never biked on a main road so I don't know any of the proper
ettiquette or hand signals. Don't worry I made it in one piece. Also
I'm writing this email on Tue not Monday because we ran out of time
yesterday. Yeah it was 2 plus hours of cleaning in that little
apartment, but now it is live-able and not absolutely disgusting. On
my first day here that night the fire alarm kept beeping with low
battery but we couldn't find the source (I found an extra alarm the
dying one hid in the closet 2 days later still beeping) so we slept
with the bedroom door closed. The next morning I got up probably about
ten minutes early and tried to go use the restroom but I was stuck in
our bedroom the door wouldn't budge at all. We thought we were going
to have to call and have someone let us out but we didn't thankfully
we finally got a hanger and jimmied it open lol. Oh mission stories.
Maybe that's not as funny to you all but there seem to be a lot of
moments like that here for me haha. Oh probably the best part was when
I tried to tell an investigator she has a handsome family and she
thought I was talking about her husband... haha oh awkward lol. But
yeah I am out of time for today hopefully there is some sense or
something of import in this email I don't even know.

3 Nephi 14:9-11

Love,
Hermana Miller

PS Daidre congrats on the wedding!! Pictures please!!  

Here are some photos from the last week or so... leaving the MTC and


then in Porterville my 1st area... 

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