Sisters in Zion - Literally!

Being a Woman's Auxiliary Specialist is just a fancy way of saying, "You figure it out!" We do do a lot of driving around trying to find less actives to help out the Relief Society President and Ward Clerk (often letting them know they don't actually live at the listed address), but other than that we pretty much fill our days however we see fit. Actually, driving around takes quite a bit of our time as our ward encompasses several stakes (although they're adding people slowly and right now it is mostly all of the Independence Stake Spanish speaking members). That is a pretty large area and a LOT of people (if you include all the people who aren't members). I don't know what we'd do without Google Maps! As I mentioned before, there are also quite a few activities and ways to help out the mission office folks, but we are also starting to find our own way.

The person in the picture on the left is Sister Cummings, who is the Mission Secretary. She has been so helpful, and will do just about anything to help the missionaries! We are in our work clothes to again help clean out Missionary apartments. We have been using them quite a bit lately, as we also helped with a service project cleaning up a home bound member's home to get it ready for painting and to beautify the yard. I couldn't find the picture for that, but there must have been 20 people from our ward helping!
My companion (with me in both pictures), Hermana Mayberry, is a very compassionate, humble person and is a pleasure to work with. Her main concern about having me as a companion is I spend a lot of time studying Spanish, leaving her with time to fill (although she does help me with Spanish lessons sometimes). One way we solved this was to add visiting the older members who just need a visit once in a while to our "to do" list. Then, after we have visited them together, she sometimes goes alone to spend time with them. She also is a great cook and likes to fix and bring people food. She is a great example! My cooking to share is limited to cookies etc. to bring to those we try and visit :).

We had some more Senior Missionary get-togethers, which has been fun. This one was at the Mission Home. We have also had a couple more baptisms, which also involved a lot of food. Come to think of it, there have been a LOT of potlucks to feast on! I'm going to have to rethink my potluck strategy since they are so frequent. I have to keep telling myself that I don't HAVE to try every dish I come across! Especially since I got food poisoning at the Pioneer Day picnic and celebration (a wonderful choir presentation)!

Such are the trials of mission life ;). Speaking of food....   The top temple picture is of our Spanish Ward Temple day this last Saturday. We were with the group that did sealings, but the cool thing was that Bessie, who got baptized the first weekend I was here, came to do her first temple baptisms! How cool is that??? And of course afterwards we all went down to the Golden Corral Buffet & Grill where I totally stuffed myself. Good thing I didn't have breakfast! (That ended up being my only meal of the day and it was plenty.) I need to remember to take pictures - this one is also of the senior potluck.

Speaking of baptisms, we had another one the Saturday before last. The baptizer was our Bishop Mendoza, who is a very wonderful, kind, and loving bishop, and of course the other two are the Elders in our ward. The Sister missionaries didn't come at all this time, so guess who got to play the piano???   The first song was "I Am a Child of God" which I know fairly well (although hadn't practiced much lately - I should have known!), and so only made a few mistakes. The other I didn't know very well at all, and so spent both talks feverishly practicing the fingering over and over again and praying like mad! Given how nervous I tend to get when asked to play I felt pretty good about it, even though I only managed the melody line. I REALLY need to fit in some practice time somewhere!
I can't complain about the Sisters too much though - they let us sit in on some of their lesson and help out (as do the Elders), and since right now we have three sisters, they even let us go on splits with them once in a while! Now THAT is fun! Who says Senior missionaries don't do real missionary work? We even got to knock on doors and were able to find some potential investigators! We also try to go out weekly with our RS (SS) President on visits, go to the temple at least weekly (when it's not closed), bring investigators to various meetings and activities, and do whatever else is needed. We actually keep pretty busy!

A perk of serving a mission - Transfers! They are pretty fun. In this mission all the newbies are driven in, taken in to the chapel for orientation after which they are given their sacks of bedding (which Hna Mayberry and I have helped with). Meanwhile, that white van drives in with lists of all the new companionships taped to the windows. Of course all the missionaries flock to find out where they will be going and with whom. Then everyone gets to find their new companions and off they go to serve. We also get to go to wonderful Zone Conferences where we get to listen to truly inspirational speakers (the last photo is of our last Zone Conference. The weather was even nice enough to let us eat outdoors :).
All in all it has been a wonderful experience. I'm still studying Spanish like mad and am progressing, although I'm still waiting for signs of the big breakthrough into fluency. Sometimes I do pretty well, sometimes not so well, depending on the day, how tired my brain is, and if it is well rested and fed. But no matter, the members of the Santa Fe ward are wonderful and welcoming, and all is well in Zion :)

Love to you all!
Hermana Kim