White Washing and Loving It

Uggh, what's that? Never mind, I don't want to know!

Cousin Annie's friend from South Jordan?

Zone Conference, I think - fellow missionaries are some of the best friends you ever have!

Hi everyone!! I loved reading about all your adventures. Good luck Uncle Jacob and Aunt Sarah!! (Her uncle gets married this week. At least Kimberly got to know Aunt Sarah and be friends with her before she left!) And Samuel ... congrats on getting asked to Sweethearts'. That's awesome. It sounds so fun there with all the family over, cousins and Grandma and Grandpa. It's so cool that all those things are happening. And all that cool stuff Samuel is doing in school. Enjoy every moment of it all. And good thing Samuel and Jason's (dance) shoes fit now. New shoes are always fun, especially for dance.

For the ASL stuff, don't worry about it. We talked to the mission president, and he said to just focus on the English work. The ASL sisters still have this area, the just have a much larger area now. I still would like the dictionary, but there is a really nice lady in our ward who will help us learn it.

Sister Hirschi is from Washington state, Tri Cities area she says. Not sure where that is, but it's the east side.

It has been so fun here. I have met so many new people this last week that my brain sometimes feels like overload, but it's all good. Lots of wonderful people. Everyone is so nice, and we totally have the best ward. We have a car, and because we are whitewashing* this area we get lost a ton, but we get to meet more people that way. Yesterday we parked the car and went walking for about three hours and we met a ton of new people. We even ran into a member of our ward. It was really fun, but super exhausting. My feet were not happy with me after that. It's a good thing I wore my walking shoes. 

We have been working with a recent convert, Eva, and her son Bryan. They both came to church yesterday. We did not expect him to come, but it was awesome to have both of them there. 

We have also been working with a lady from Micronesia. She has talked to missionaries in the past, and I gave her the baptismal challenge! She wants to be baptized!! But she has to work things out with her husband first. I really hope that she can get baptized. She bore a beautiful testimony on Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. She knows it's true, and she really really wants to be baptized. We hope she will come to church soon, she almost did yesterday, but she was not able to. 

...We also have an investigator called T_, and he has already had all the lessons. He even had a baptismal date last year, but something happened to make it fall through. Our biggest challenge with him is getting him rides to church. So we are going to work with him and try to get him a more permanent means of getting to church. Hopefully his parents will be able to. He is such an awesome kid. ...

It was a slower week, we tried to meet more people, but nobody opens their doors, so we are making slow progress in our area book. Saturday was supposed to be full of people we had appointments for, but every meeting fell through. But Sweet is the Work, and it was a fun day anyway. We also parked that day and walked around. 

We had zone conference this seek, and I ran into a friend of (cousin) Annie's from South Jordan. It was really fun. Did I tell you? I also ran into one of her friends in the MTC. So I have pictures with both of them to send to her. But one of them is on my camera, which I still haven't figured out how to get those picture to send to y'all. I'm not sure what to do there. But I'm gonna start taking picture more on my iPad so I can get them to you.

The longer I am out here, the more I love it. I'm so excited for all you boys to experience this. It is such a learning experience. Plus it's fun to be out here loving the people and learning to live on your own and learning of yourself and how to take care of yourself. The more I think about it the more there is to learn and grow through. It's incredible. Just throw yourself into the work and forget everything else. And it will all come.

Love Kimber

*If we're understanding the term "white washing" it seems to be that they are the first "English speaking" missionaries in that area, so it's almost like opening a new area.  Neither companion has worked the area yet, so they are both new there, but Sis Herschi has five months experience as a missionary, so they aren't without experience - just in the area. So they are both working very hard, learning together. What a marvelous experience to have in your first area.

Another email came a few minutes later with a pic and this note:

My ward is doing this awesome missionary bingo, and I think you all
should do it. We seriously have the coolest ward. Also try to go out
with the missionaries, they love it. 

Kimberly's dad figured out that her mission consists of five stakes, TOTAL. Our smallish Utah city has more stakes than that within it's boundaries! Whew.