Week 5

Hey friends!! Sister Traylor here! (Sorry this is gonna be long i just have so much i want to say haha) I am now in my assigned mission! (Utah Salt Lake City West) My first area is actually West Jordan and its a walking area. We cover 2 stakes(which is 12 wards)  (just me and my companion... sooo its a lot of people to meet and remember and a lot of distance to cover especially walking but its awesome) My trainer is the best! Her name is Sister Ete'aki and she's actually Tongan and has been out about 13 months. As of this week I will officially hit 1 month as a missionary haha! Major milestone for sure. 

I've already met SO many people from so many different backgrounds here it's been so special to see. Honestly I'm still surprised I got assigned in English because there's so many other languages here that only knowing English feels limited. (Me and my companion are actually working on other languages during some extra study time though so itll be cool if we ever get assigned in different languages, shes working on improving the little Tongan she knows and im working on Spanish) There is a Portuguese ward, South Sudanese ward, Deaf/ASL ward, Samoan ward, a few Tongan wards, several Spanish wards, and of course plenty of English wards. The cultural and language diversity here is UNBELIEVABLE.

I know these next paragraphs look long but they're some fun/interesting/funny experiences I've had this week:) 

1. My second day in the field was probably one of my favorites so far because of the range of emotions, feelings, and activities we did. It started really hard and slow. We did almost 4 hours of studying back to back as soon as we woke up which was A LOT and then had a 3 hour new missionary training meeting with our president and AP's. It was SO much new information and rules and expectations and goals and I just felt SO overwhelmed and discouraged. And then me and Sister Ete'aki headed over to some lessons and to walk around meeting people and knocking doors and they all went amazing! It was amazing to see how my companion was really led by the spirit. We shared a scripture (that she picked) with a group of families (who reminded me of my family's Sunday squad) and it was exactly the scripture one of them needed and she like cried to us explaining why. It was awesome. We also "coincidentally" showed up at a family's home who have been wanting to meet with us for a while without their kids to discuss some things they want our help with for a specific daughter of theirs. I said "coincidentally" in quotations because it was no coincidence that we showed up the ONE HOUR their kids were gone at a friend's house, and had just "randomly" happened to be walking by their street that afternoon. It was definitely the spirit who led us to that place at that time. The overwhelmed and stressed feelings from the meetings earlier had gone away and I had seen that yeah, there are a lot of things to learn and rules to follow, but they are SO worth it and you really do see so much joy while serving the Lord:) 

2. Another of my favorite experiences from this week was probably a dinner appointment we had with a family in one of our stakes. So our mission has a rule that during the week days, we can only eat with members if there is a non member present so that we have missionary opportunities, rather than just having a fun get together and not using our time as wisely as we could. So the family we ate with is almost all members, except for the dad, which means we can eat with them anytime. They are Samoan, and from Australia! So they can and did speak Samoan, dress in Samoan cultural clothes, have tons of their Somoan family living with them, and cook AMAZING Polynesian food, but speak English with Australian accents! (by the way Australians really do say "ay" at the end of most of their sentences haha) It was the coolest thing ever and the food and drinks I tried were AMAZING! They all really enjoyed teaching me what the different foods were and then STARING at me while I ate it to see if I liked it or not. it was a lot of pressure and very uncomfortable lol but luckily the food was all AMAZING. They didn't like how little I eat, and said that they'll help fatten me up the more I come. The grandma was so funny she kept making me tons of foods and drinks to try and then making me finish them (only for her to refill it or make me something else) but the food was awesome there was some BBQ chicken, beef bones, giant gray things that are apparently somoan "potatoes", a very questionable looking soup with raw meat in it that I ate and actually loved the most from that dinner, some Somoan coco (which was basically bitter chocolate water that actually was amazing and I loved), and some spaghetti haha because they knew a white missionary was coming and they were worried I wouldn't like their food. anytime I would say thank you or ask permission for something the grandma would get mad and say, "you in my house, you family, no ask." (And throw in random samoan words that i didnt understand) And I definitely felt like family she like sorta spanked/tapped my butt/back when she'd pass by me but not like inappropriate. its hard to explain but she was hilarilus. so I left that house feeling very close to them.

I LOVE it here! I don't think I've ever smiled more, been more outgoing, or felt this specific level of joy ever so its been amazing! I really love and miss you all! Enjoy some pictures from this week! 

1-2. Day 2 of training (lol the 3 hour training meeting I complained about earlier) 

3-4. Last day in the mtc:)

5-6. Meeting our mission president and trainers 

7-9. A snail I almost stepped on

10. A BEAUTIFUL sunset

11. My district at our first district council of this transfer 

12. Me LOVING the view in our neighborhood with the mountains and city in view! It is gorgeous here!