Finally Here

Letter dated February 4, 2009

So... VIRGINIA IS AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is absolutely breathtaking here and the people are incredible, especially the Spanish people! I couldn't be any happier! But first of all, let me back up a bit....

On Wednesday, January 28th I left the Provo MTC at 5 a.m. and headed to the airport. I was able to call home quick before our plane left around 8ish and we arrived in Cincinnati, Ohio. We were supposed to have only about an hour layover, but because of the bad weather, we ended up staying there for a total of 4 or 5 hours longer! Crazy! But that's alright, it was great! There were 15 of us traveling in our group of missionaries. All of them were English speaking missionaries, except for me and a cute Spanish sister missionary from Mexico. I looked in the airport to try to find Spanish people to talk to and test out my "butchered Spanish" :) , but didn't find many. But we had the opportunity to go and contact a lot of people, and share the message of the Gospel with them- it was great! I'm a pretty chatty person and usually talk to everyone, but I'm not going to lie- I was a bit nervous, but excited, to talk to people about the Gospel. It was awesome! Yes, I fell flat on my face many times, and continue to do so, but that's all a part of missionary work! It's good to just get thrown into it, even if you're not sure of what you're doing, and you'll get the hang of it and it will be fine. I'm excited to keep on making mistakes and being rejected and feeling a bit dumb- it's great- it's the best way to learn! We learn from our mistakes. Just keep on trying!

We finally got in Virginia around 8:30 or 9 p.m., and met the Mission President and some other missionaries in the area. They had planned for us to attend a baptism that evening, but our plane was a few hours late, so that didn't exactly happen. But that's alright- what an adventure!
I couldn't see much of Virginia because it was dark outside, but there were a lot of trees.... yay!!! I was excited to see it in the morning! We spent the night at the President's house and the next morning headed to meet my new companion. Her name is Sister Barney!!! How ironic!!! She's amazing!