December 27, 2010

Greetings from Glendora, California! Hope the holidays treated everyone very well, and Happy New Year. Can anyone believe it's practically 2011?

My new companion is Sister Casperson, from Twin Falls, Idaho. She took a break from studying communications at BYU-Idaho to come on this mission. She is bilingual (Spanish) which will hopefully increase my Spanish skills, but more importantly, it will help us be able to communicate with more people.
We live in an apartment, and have both bikes and a car. We mostly use the car so we can get more places, but it's nice to have both methods of transportation. Sunday was our first bike day, and I decided that riding a bike in a skirt should be an olympic sport!

Anyway, I've been here six days now. I left the Missionary Training Center at 5 AM Tuesday morning. It snowed all of Monday and through the night, and Tuesday was still snowing. It was absolutely beautiful when we left Provo, so I had a white Christmas, just a few days early. When I arrived in California, it rained hard for three straight days, and I was assured that this wasn't normal, and there would be sunshine soon. I enjoyed the rain, but have been glad for clear skies and the sun again the last few days.

Our mission President and his wife, the Pikes, were waiting for us at the California Ontario airport when we got off the plane last Tuesday. Right away, we all could tell we will be well taken care of on this mission. I traveled with our MTC district and a few other Elders. We made up most of the plane. I really miss the sisters from my district/my roommates; they were all assigned to different cities, so it will be fun to catch up with them at a later date.

Sister Pike drove Sister Thomas, Johnson, Arbogast, and myself, and on the way, told us a lot about the demographics of our mission. It was fun to hear that there are 170 full-time missionaries, 26 are sisters. There are full-time English, Spanish, Mandarin, and Armenian missionaries here, and there are also Tongan and Tagolog branches in some areas. There are 7 English speaking stakes, and 2 Spanish stakes.

California is beautiful. Even just stepping outside of our apartment, the view is green, grassy hills. There is one mountain with snow on it, and everywhere else is green.

The people of Glendora have been so kind to me. At church yesterday, I was introduced to the whole congregation, and asked to share my testimony with them. So many people came up afterward and introduced themselves. The ward members are very missionary minded, and I love it. (Glendora 2nd Ward).

Christmas day was wonderful. Of course, the highlight was being able to talk to my family on the phone for about 45 minutes. Christmas morning, we went to the Merkley's home (our ward mission leaders house) for cinnamon rolls, and Christmas night, we had a lovely dinner and visit with the Mackay family. They fed us a great dinner, and even had presents for us afterward. We were very surprised and grateful for their generosity.

My favorite part of serving as a missionary is the chance to meet people and share the Gospel with them in their homes or at the church building or out on the street. Each week, we are also allotted 4 hours of planned service, and we have enjoyed filling that time as well.

Thanks to everyone for your support, love, and prayers.

Love,

Sister Snow