Letter #2 (Sept. 30 2013)

Welp, I've made it to my second P-Day (Preperation Day. The day the missionaries have time set apart to shop/email/clean/etc.) out in the field! I realized that in just a few days, I'll have been out for a month! Crazy! It doesn't even kind of feel like it's been that long. 

Things have continued to be interesting this past week. On Tuesday I went to Sister Mattingley's six week meeting with the mission president and everyone that had gone out with Sister Mattingley. President Becerra said that I was getting a "double dose" of him since I had just gone to my new missionary orientation a couple of days before. The whole day was spent traveling again, and then my companion and I met up with another companionship to go on exchanges. The other companionship was Sister Ackley (Sister Mattingley's trainer) and Sister Onekawa (Sister Mattingley's MTC comp). Sister Ackley came back to Walnut (her last area) with me, and Sister Mattingley went to Covina with Sister Onekawa. It's funny, Wednesday is pretty much the closest thing that I've had to a regular proselyting day since I got here, and I wasn't even with my own companion! I was able to meet some of the less actives in the ward that day. I also taught a lesson to an investigator. Well, sort of.

Matt is a single dad with two YW aged girls and a ten year old son. The girls have been baptized (they're mom is a member) but the dad and son have not. Because he's a single male, we need to have a female member come with us to teach him. The person that we were originally going to bring ended up being unable to come. So we had to call around at the last minute so that we wouldn't have to reschedule. A sister agreed to come with us. The lesson ended up all over place and I really don't know how much was understood.  BUT, he not only brought his girls to a sports night that was held at the church on Saturday, he also came to church for the first time this Sunday! I'm so happy that he came! Teaching him this week will be interesting because of how crazy the lesson was last week, but I'm anxious to see how he felt about church.

Anway, Wednesday was the first of a few big food days. Two of the sisters that we went to visit gave us food while we were there. The first sister gave us animal crackers and some sort of yummy passion fruit juice in a can. Then we went to see another sister who gave us water bottles, an apple each, and a Chinese moon cake (a lot heavier than it looked. Tasted okay. And then before we knew it, she was making us home made corn tortillas. It was really funny, she asked us if we wanted butter and cheese on the tortillas. She piled on a crazy amount of cheese onto Sister Ackley's tortilla, and then put a glob of butter (just dropped it on, didn't spread it around at all) and then piled a load of cheese onto mine as well. It was really tasty, but kind of gross to eat a bite of tortilla with a big ol' slab of butter on it. 

The next day we had a Relief Society activity called "Become Like Hymn" which was all about how we worship through music. It was really neat. A couple from the ward did a little presentation and then just had people stand up, tell their favorite hymn, why it's their favorite, and then we would all sing the first verse. The Spirit was so strong it was amazing! There was a lot of good food there as well.

Then there was Friday and Saturday's dinners. Oh man. On Friday we had a huge dinner at this older couple's house and then they cut into this massive cake. I mean like this cake could feed Africa massive. The slices weren't that thick, but the cake has four layers and so they were still huge slices. And then they gave us each a huge scoop of ice cream as well. We all just sat and stared at it for a second, trying to figure out how to tackle it. I said that I felt like the fat kid from Matilda with that huge cake. Crazy. It was really good, but I only managed to eat the bottom layer, so not even half of the cake. One of the elders ate all of his dessert. I'm still not sure how. He's not very big. Then the couple gave us the rest of the cake to take home. A little bit more than half of a cake. A little more than half of the mother of all cakes. I've eaten a teensy bit of it, and then we've shared a bunch of it since then. We still have a bunch though.

Then the next day we had the fanciest dinner of my life. This couple's house is huge, super nice-looking with chandeliers and extraneous forks. We ate a four course dinner with a salad first (I used the wrong plate, but did use my salad fork), then biscuits, then some kind of fancy salmon, then a huge frosted brownie with ice cream. We all just kind of looked at each other, remembering yesterday's cake, and then dug in. I didn't manage to finish that one either. All of these dishes were (supposed to be) on different plates using different forks and then the spoon for dessert. It was all really tasty, but it made me even more aware than usual that I am not a very sophisticated person, especially because I'd dead clumsy. I can't seem to make it through a single dinner without spilling some food/knocking something over. Oh well.

This week we hardly have any dinner appointments, which is probably good because I've started to feel really sick again, probably from all of the crazy portions of food that I've had every day for the past few days. So I really need to be careful about how much and what I eat.

Now that I've finished telling everyone how fat I am (haha) I'll tell you about my bike!

We picked up our bikes on Thursday and I was little bit nervous. I know how to ride a bike, but last time I tried, I got really really sick. And this time I'd be wearing a skirt. It has actually gone about a million times better than I thought that it would, but it's definitely been an adjustment. First of all, I didn't know that bikes could have different gears like a car. So when there were extra switches (for lack of a better word) on my handlebars, I was really confused. I still don't really understand which gear I'm supposed to be in when, so I just toggle around until it feels okay when I pedal.

The skirt thing has been a challenge though. Before I left, I bought some spandex shorts to wear under my skirt just in case I ended up on a bike. But it turns out that they are completely unhelpful because the legs just roll up so don't cover anything. So I've had to be super careful the last few days. I got some leggings today though, so it should be loads better now.

Anyway, I really need to finish up, so I'll tell you my funny story about doors. This actually happened last week, but I forgot to write about it in my last email. 

So almost all of the doors here have either a peephole, or huge glass panes with different designs. So we knock on this door of a less active sister. We see someone come to the door, peer out through some of the non-cloudy glass, and then walk away. A second later, another lady comes over to the door and then walks away. The first lady just keeps walking back and forth, peering out every so often (we would smile and wave when she did this), but never answered the door! Finally we were just going to leave when a car pulled in. The sister that we were looking for was in there. It was SO funny though! My comp and I couldn't stop laughing after we left her. I mean, it's bad enough when we hear people walk to the door and just know that they're standing there silently looking through the peephole, but these ladies knew that we could see them. It was great.

Anyway, I really need to wrap up, sorry this is so long! Thank you to everyone that's been writing/emailing me! I really appreciate it! I love you all!

~Sister Kretchman

Ps-I'm trying to add some pictures to this email. But I'm not sure if they'll show up because this computer isn't liking my camera too much, but if they do come up, there should be a picture of the moon cake, Sister Mattingley with the left over cake, me with the left over cake, and I think a picture of the four of us from the exchange. (Sister Ackley is the short one with curly hair, Sister Mattingley is the tall blond, and Sister Onekawa is Asian with glasses, she's from New Zealand and has a sweet accent haha) But we'll see.

The pictures didn't end up coming through :(

Note with Letter #1 (Sept. 23 2013)

I forgot to say before:

I don't live in an apartment. We live with an older couple from the ward. Their house is really nice and they have two sweet little dogs. They're really nice. They just left for a cruise yesterday though, so now we have the house to ourselves except that their son, daughter-in-law, and little grandkids are going to be in and out sometimes. They're really nice too, but it's hard to study with a tickle-me-elmo echoing around the house. But oh well. 

Apparently we'll  be moving in with a single sister at some point. I haven't met her yet. I really thought that we'd have our own apartment, but it sounds as though most of the mission lives with members because of how expensive rent is in CA. We'll figure it out though I'm sure.

I love you all!

~Sister Kretchman

Letter #1

So I arrived in CA on Tuesday. It was a crazy day. We woke up at 1:45 AM, so I got about an hour and a half of sleep, went to the travel office to turn in our room keys and stuff, then took a bus, then two different trains, to get to the airport. My plane left around8:50 and arrived at 10 something I think. Then we were off to the Arcadia Stake center for lunch, pictures, and to find out who are trainers were. It's so crazy, I don't know if I told you before, but in my zone (group of missionaries) in the MTC, me and two other sisters were the only ones going to Arcadia while the whole rest of the zone went to Roseville, CA. Well we were actually the only sisters to arrive in Arcadia that day period. All the rest were elders. 

My mission president, President Becerra, and his wife are so nice! They were very welcoming and seem really dedicated to missionary work, it's really great. We took some pictures with them and then ate lunch. Then there was some down time while we waited for the missionaries from the Mexico MTC to arrive. I took a mini-nap on one of the benches in the chapel (Sister Becerra recommended it).

Then we all came back together to meet our trainers(the first companion that a missionary has is called their "trainer", clearly, they will be training the new missionary on rules/teaching/their area/etc). One of the assistants (to the president of the mission) read them out I think. The assistant would call out the trainer's name, then the greenie (new missionary), and then the two would come up to the front, hug, and then the trainer would show the new missionary where they were going. It was funny because all of the elders would do a quick hug with a couple of loud pounds on the back while us sisters were a lot more gentle. 

My trainer is Sister Mattingley. She's really great, but it's been really hard because she's only been out for six weeks! So she doesn't really know what she's doing either and hasn't finished her own twelve week training regimen yet. She's trying really hard though and already knows the area pretty well. It's a lot more difficult now that the mission has gone car-less though. We're still trying to figure out which buses to take and schedules and everything. Her bike arrived on Saturday, but mine's still on its way.

 So my first week (at least most of a week, it will have been a week tomorrow) was pretty crazy. The day I arrived, we were supposed to drive home (we were allowed cars to transport luggage and stuff), get settled, and do our daily planning for the next day right away so that us new missionaries could get to bed early. However, there was A LOT of traffic on the way to Walnut (my area) from Arcadia, so by the time we got home, we had to turn around to go to dinner. But the car had to stay in the driveway, so a member picked us up and brought us to dinner. Right after that we had an appointment. THEN I unpacked a little bit, had weekly planning, showered, and went to bed. Not early. So I was exhausted the next day from lack of sleep the night before, and then just how busy the day was then. But we went to a couple of appointments, including a final review before a baptism that we had this Saturday.

Seth Estrada is nine years old. First baptism and I just got here! Haha.

 I've become pretty close with one of his sisters, she's a freshman in high school. We're trying to help the entire family. Apparently most of them were baptized about five years ago, but then went inactive. And then all of a sudden Sister Estrada asked the missionaries to teach Seth so that he could be baptized.

The baptism was kind of hectic because neither Sister Mattingley or I know how to properly put together a baptism and all of the planning was in just a couple of days. We ended up doing almost everything for it. We felt really bad because the water was too hot. It had felt okay when we put our hands in, but apparently it was not. Seth was pretty good about it though. Overall, it was kind of crazy, but it was nice to see how excited his sisters were for him. Now we are focusing on keeping their family active. Sarah and Ellie (two of the sisters) were set apart in the Mia Maid (group of teenage girls) presidency on Sunday, so hopefully that will help keep them motivated. They're really good though, I'm not so much worried about them as I am about their mom. She seems like she is trying to do the right thing, but I'm not sure that she completely understands the importance of enduring to the end after baptism. We're going to try our best to help them out though, they're really a sweet family.

Anyway, earlier that day actually, we spent the entire day at an Emergency Preparedness fair that our ward put together. We tried to talk to some people about the church, but I don't know who there were members and who were not, so it was really hard to figure out who to talk to/what to say. We did do one church tour though with one of the volunteers from one of the booths.

The days in-between Wednesday and Saturday weren't super productive. The beginning of Thursday was spent in district meeting. All of Friday was spent back with President Becerra for the new missionary orientation and then traveling home. It took us ages to get home by bus (we drove the car back and left it there). One good thing though was that I talked to a guy on the bus about the gospel a little bit and got his contact information to give to the elders in the ward. All of our appointments on those in-between days fell through and so we some time passing out flyers for the Emergency Prep fair and stuff like that. It has been frustrating that we haven't really been able to teach much at all this week. However, it wasn't your typical week either with the different meetings and activities and everything, so I'll just look forward to a better week this week and see what happens.

I look forward to getting to know the area more and working hard to learn more about contacting and everything. I know that with the Lord's help, we could make this into the most effective area of the mission. We are kind of training each other, so it won't be easy, but the Lord knows what he's doing and I trust him.

I love you all so much and can't wait to hear from you! Please send letters! I found out that I'll really only receive those about once a week as well as the emails, but it's still better because I have more time to read them if not a lot of time to write back. 

Have a great week!

~Sister Kretchman

Safe and Sound

She made it to Arcadia!!

MTC Email #1

We finally heard from Anna last Thursday! Well, my mom actually received a surprise call from her on Wednesday because she had been pretty sick and had to go to the hospital. Sounds like things are looking up but please remember to keep her in your prayers :). She should be arriving to her mission sometime at the beginning of this week so if you want to write her, please write her at her Arcadia mission address. Thanks!

So the MTC is pretty sweet. I really love it here and feel like I've learned so much! ... In the first couple of days. Unfortunately I got REALLY sick Sunday night and had to go to the ER. At first they thought that I had contracted some sort of virus, they gave me some medicine and sent me back. Monday and Tuesday were both spent in bed in my residence, and since I always have to have a companion with me, she has to stay in the residence with me. The only times I've really been out of residence since Sunday was for meals and to go to doctor's appointments at the health clinic here.

I was sent back to the ER on Tuesday. This time they pumped me full of fluids, pain medication, etc. and then decided that I'm so sick because my body isn't accustomed to the food here. Let me just say, the food here is delicious and the portions are huge, but it's the not the healthiest a lot of the time. Pretty much everything is fried or acidic, two things that the doctors told me to stay away from at this point. So I haven't had a lot of food options and honestly can't eat all that much anyway without feeling really sick.

But enough about that. I don't have a whole lot to write about since over half of my stay here at this point has been spent in bed, but I can tell you a little bit about the first few days at least!

When I got to the MTC, I was rushed around to a few different rooms to pick up my name tag, extra books, etc. Then we were introduced to our teachers and went over some basic rules. That's when I met my companion, Sister Matchett. She's really great. She actually went through a similar experience as I did with getting everything together for her mission. She was going to be starting at BYU-I in January, just like I was, when the big announcement came that the missionary age had changed. Just like me, she decided to start preparing for a mission instead of starting school, and just like me, things took a lot longer than expected. She is really dedicated, knows scripture references like the back of her hand, and has a lot of good insights when it comes to figuring out investigators. But what has impressed me the most is that she has been really good about sticking with me through the ER visits and when I need to rest and everything. I know that it must be so frustrating for her (I know that it is for me), but she doesn't let it show. She and the other two sisters in my dorm have been so supportive through everything.

Anyway, after going over some basic rules and everything, all of the new missionaries went into a big room for a basic orientation. Then we were split up into a few groups and taught "investigators" as a group. Basically, a couple of missionaries would get things started for us, and then they would leave and it was up to us to ask questions and try to teach a little bit. It was pretty intimidating and kind of hard because with such a huge group, a lot of the time the questions ended up being unrelated to one another, meaning that we never really got anywhere a lot of the time. Despite that, it was still a really neat experience and I actually ended up getting up to speak at least once per investigator (there were three different investigators in three different rooms).

Somewhere in there was dinner. My first experience with MTC food. Delicious. I was a little bit intimidated by the portions though. There was SO much on my plate. I managed to eat all of it, but then there was no room for ice cream :( haha

I've had to learn that if I can't finish all of the food, that's okay. Of course at this point I can really only eat a couple bites of anything before I have to stop anyway.

The next couple of days were mostly filled with classes and study time. My teachers are awesome. I have Brother Mullen and Sister Clark. They both seem to really know what they are talking about and are really good at explaining things simply so that we can really understand and apply what we learn to our own teaching. On Friday, Sister Matchett and I "practiced" (it's not longer called role playing) teaching Ken- Brother Mullen in character. It was a disaster. But we learned from it and did much better the next day.

Then it was Sunday. Everyone had to have a talk on baptism prepared just in case we ended up being called to speak during Sacrament meeting. Sacrament meeting was really small because our branch consists of two zones, not very many people. (My zone consists of two districts of eight people. So there are sixteen missionaries in my zone.) Relief Society was with everyone on the west campus (there are two campuses here because of how many missionaries there are). 

Then I went to choir practice. It was SO nice. I've really missed being in a legit choir (no offense to the ward choir at home). It was after choir that I got really sick. I still went to Sunday night devotional, but pretty soon after that I ended up at the front desk talking to a doctor on the phone who told me to go to the ER. And you basically know the rest from there.

I've decided to stop resting though. I'm going to try to push through feeling sick so that I can go to classes and everything again. If I start feeling really sick, then I'll go lay down, but I'm going to try to just deal with it. It's really hard because at this point, I don't know if it would be better to rest, or to just push through. But I'm really tired of resting, so I'm going to give it a shot.

On a different note, I just wanted to thank everyone that has sent me letters so far! I'm really sorry that I haven't gotten back to you yet, I don't have a lot of time to write. I haven't even finished writing about everything in my journal yet. I will try to write you all back as soon as I can though!

Also, this is my only P-Day while I'm at the MTC, I don't know when my next one will be. So don't expect another email right away and keep up the letters! I love letters! :D

Anyway, I think my laundry is almost done, so I'll get off now. If I have time later, then I'll try to send a couple of pictures. I don't have very many yet though.

I love you all and hope you're all doing well!

Sister Kretchman

Last Days

Anna entered the MTC on Wednesday of this past week. We still haven't heard anything from her and are anxiously awaiting her first P-day (Preparation Day. The day the missionaries do laundry/shop/email/etc.) It's gotta be coming soon!

Until then, here are some pictures to entertain you.

At her Going Away party a few weeks before she left. (She's in there somewhere, trust me. Just slightly hidden is all).

Good-bye to the Mcnivens.

 

Last Monday night she was set apart by the Stake President as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Here's what Preach My Gospel (the manual that the missionaries study and teach from) has to say about being set apart (Anna said that her Stake President said very similar things to her):

When you were set apart by priesthood authority, you received the right and privilege to represent the Lord. You received a ministerial certificate that verifies that authority to the world. President Spencer W. Kimball said: “The setting apart may be taken literally; it is a setting apart from sin, apart from the carnal; apart from everything which is crude, low, vicious, cheap, or vulgar; set apart from the world to a higher plane of thought and activity. The blessing is conditional upon faithful performance” (The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, ed. Edward L. Kimball [1982], 478)

After being set apart, Anna expressed to me that much of the stress and nervousness that she had been feeling up until that point were gone. She felt at peace with her decision to be a missionary and new that she was doing the right thing.

Tuesday evening she boarded a plane and flew to Utah where she entered the Missionary Training Center on Wednesday. She will be there for two weeks before reporting to her mission in Arcadia.

Like I said, Anna will not be in the MTC for very long, so this is your week to write her! I know that writing a handwritten letter is asking a lot these days but coming from someone who has been in Anna's shoes, it is SO wonderful to receive mail. Even just a little sticky note saying hi. Do it do it do it.

Here's her MTC address:

Sister Annaliese Nichole Kretchman
SEP17 CA-ARC
2007 N 900 E Unit 97
Provo UT 84602

She will most likely only be there until the 16th/17th of next week so write her NOW :).

Temple Day

Considering that Anna enters the MTC tomorrow, I guess I'd better hurry up and catch up on a few posts...

At the end of July Anna had the opportunity to go to the Washington D.C. temple and receive her endowments. What this means is that Anna was able to receive special instruction that has the purpose of helping us understand the Plan of Salvation better as well as make promises with Heavenly Father similar to those we make at baptism of following his example through the way we live and always striving to be obedient. 

By making these promises with Heavenly Father she is better prepared to serve as a missionary, and really better prepared for continual learning and guidance throughout the rest of her life.

It was a beautiful day that was spent in the company of family and friends (what could be better than that!).