Week 62

Well here I am in Taylor, Arizona. It is so far from what I was expecting - it’s all farmland! There are only 2,500 people in this town, and there are 7 wards. That should give you a good idea of how many members there are here. When contacting, I normally just ask if they are members within the first minute of talking to them if it didn't already come up. Just for your information, the address to send anything to is "PO Box 901 Taylor, Arizona 85939" This town is so small it doesn't deliver mail to your house, only to the post office. It's like adorable and insane at the same time. It is so different from Phoenix that it took a few days to adjust. I think I was just super home sick for Phoenix the first two days that I wasn't really myself. But it's all good! I really love it here it is just SO different.

So we cover two wards: Taylor 3rd and Taylor 6th. Taylor 3rd is on the outskirts of town, so it is a LOT of farmland, and takes a good 15 minutes to drive out to (that's a long drive for Taylor). The people are all so nice, and even when they really don't want to talk to you they will still say, "but stop in if you ever need anything, we are happy to feed you anytime!" Taylor 6th Ward covers a good sized neighborhood and a cute trailer park. The people are all so sweet there too. My companion was called English speaking, so I cover all of the Spanish work in Taylor, and the nearby city called Snowflake, all by myself. It's kind of weird but it's super fun! The 6th Ward is the magnet ward for Spanish. There isn't enough work to be a real branch, but we have translation for anyone who comes.

My awesome new companion

The leaders of the wards - the bishops and ward mission leaders - are

AWESOME. The day after we got into town, one of the bishops took us on a tour of the Ward and told us who lived in almost every house and what the likelihood of being able to teach them was. It was so nice, especially because no one has a real address here! And even if they do, the GPS can only get us to it 75% of the time. We got to go to PEC (leadership meeting) in both wards this last week and both wards turned the time over to us first to talk about the missionary work and how they could help. It’s like a dream! It makes our lives so much easier when the ward is involved and wants to help!

So the elders who we are taking over for had agreed to talk in sacrament meeting, so when we got into the area the Bishop asked if we could speak instead. Of course we said yes (even if I didn't really want to), so we gave talks about service yesterday. They went pretty well. It was a good way for the members to get to know us a little bit more. Plus service is awesome, so it wasn't that hard to talk about for 10 minutes. Our Sundays are packed with meetings. We have our first meeting at 7am and they don't stop until 4pm. That is going to be my life every Sunday. We have to pack a lunch so we don't forget to eat on our way from meeting to meeting. One of our meetings overlaps with the ward's regular church meetings, so we have to leave early, which is a real bummer.

Culture shock

I just finished unpacking my bags today. Turns out I have way too much stuff. Not really, but it was hard to pack and unpack everything! I'm starting to feel at home here. We live in a little duplex with members living next to us. We live at the top of a little hill and the view is awesome with all the farmland and animals. It was a little weird when we had a lesson our first full day in the area and a cows mooing kept interrupting us. There are a ton of horses and cows everywhere and there is even an emu down the street from us. We went to visit a family from the ward and they were just going out to feed all their animals so we got to see their horses and sheep. They also have pigs and goats and stuff but we didn't venture to that side of the farm - we weren’t wearing the right shoes for it. Oh, and I checked off another item of my missionary bucket list, I got bit by a dog! Not hard enough to break the skin or anything, but the little devil just ran up to me and chowed down on my wrist. I’m not a huge fan of animals, so I hope I can just fake it till I make it over here.

The people here are so incredible and I just love being here. I haven’t fully gotten out of the feeling like I am going back to Phoenix at the end of the week, but hopefully that will wear off soon. The weather is another huge change from Phoenix. I have been wearing long sleeves, a sweatshirt, fuzzy socks, and a fuzzy blanket to study and sleep in because our apartment gets so cold! It's pretty nice outside, like 70s-80s, it just feels SO COLD coming from Phoenix! I keep asking the members what the winter is like here. They said we have like 4 more weeks of ok weather and then it will get really cold. Some years it snows, some years it doesn't. But it does get down to freezing temperature every year. I'm actually pretty excited, because it is way more comfortable to wear cold weather clothes than warm weather clothes.

I love you all and hope you have the best week ever, I will be living the dream over here in Taylor!

Sister Doxey