April 22, 2013

Hello Family!!

Thank you so much, Mom, for writing me because when I mentioned that I would have P-day on Wednesday, I forgot that we still email on Mondays :) This last Friday during weekly planning, we received a text message and as we read it, our phone died. We tried to turn it off and turn it back on, but the only thing that it would do was repeat the starting message of Razor Reflex (the phone model). We are low on miles and so we walked to one of the Sprint Stores and they referred us to another Sprint location in town. They did some testing and the verdict they gave us is that it needs to be replaced completely. So...we are getting the replacement phone on Tuesday and that has been interesting as we continue to work hard. It sure has been nice to have the phones and you never really appreciate them until you are without one for five days. Our district leader and his companion came over on Friday night so that President Jergensen could tell us our transfer doctrine. Sister England will be training a new sister and starting on Friday night she will have three Called to Serve sisters with her from Friday till Sunday. They will also be having Raelyn's baptism that Saturday. I'm really sad that I won't be able to be here for her baptism at all and that I won't be able to help with the Called to Serve sisters. This is a LOT for Sister England to take on and I wish her the best. We had a trainers meeting on Tuesday and afterwards I asked President Jergensen if I would be less than an hour away so that I could come back for Raelyn's baptism. He said I would be further away than that :( So my transfer doctrine is that I'll be opening up a new area and this area has been wanting sister missionaries for a long time. My companion will be a sister who has just finished being trained and who is struggling a little bit.

Everything is coming together very nicely for Raelyn's baptism. She is making so many friends in the ward and the members just love her. Angie came to our ward yesterday and her sister was able to be there as well to help give encouragement and to be a support. She will be getting married on May 17th and so we were able to set a baptism date of June 1st with her. It is so fun to see the changes that the gospel brings to some one's life. One of Angie's little boys, Adrian who's five, loves to be the first to greet us and say hi! At church yesterday, at the Relief Society activity on Thursday, we know that Angie is there because Adrian will say, "Hi Sister Tucker and Sister England!". It's the cutest thing. There's another 5 year old boy that is a handful during Sacrament for his mom so we sit by them on Sunday, (this is Mckenzie's Mom). At church yesterday his class came around the corner and both Adrian and Dieon were so excited to say hi to us. Also, on Sunday yesterday, we taught a primary class. They asked us to sub right before the class, so we had no preparation. They were apparently on chapter 16 so we went there and it was on being a missionary. One of the things that it suggested we do and that we did with the class was to read D&C 4 and memorize verse 2. Sister England and I had fun reciting this section to the class and helping them memorize verse 2. It was a class of five 11 year olds and they did great. It was really entertaining to see them all pull out phones or an Ipad when we read D&C 4. I felt a little old school with my scriptures, but I love all the markings in them.

I love you all so much and I'm excited to tell you about my new area. The hymn, "I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go" truly is my theme song. I love it so much and I'm excited to see where the Lord would have me serve now at this time. In our mission President's email this week he said we will be getting 42 new missionaries, which is the most this mission has seen at one time. He also said that next transfer I'll be training and so will my companion. I'm really excited to open this new area, it'll be great!

Below is a picture of Sister England and I with Brandi, who is Angie's sister and who was baptized last August. Her two cute girls are Adobe and Rosa. Rosa is so sweet and kept giving me big hugs and said I couldn't leave. The other attached image is of our district. It's not the greatest, but it's the best that I had.


Love you all lots!!

Sister Tucker